What Luxuries Could You Live Without?

There are times in my life that I have genuinely been living very close to the breadline and going without certain luxuries hasn't been a choice, it's been a necessity. I'm glad to say that thanks to frugal shopping habits and smart saving, currently I can afford to allow myself and my family a few luxuries.

However, I am aware how quickly things can change. My husband became very ill over Christmas last year which led to him having to take some time off work unpaid, although we were able to cope in the short term and thankfully he recovered quickly, I know that things could have been very different.

Legal & General recently conducted research that found that people in the UK could be on the breadline in as little as 29 days and shockingly for families such as my own this reduces to just 14 days. Although in this country we do have the safety net of state benefits, even with these many families would struggle to meet their bills and have to make sacrifices.

They have created an 'at a glance' infographic and a Deadline to the Breadline calculator so that you can look at what you spend and work out how long you would have until your money ran out if something was to prevent the breadwinner of you household from working.

Our experience last year made me think seriously about how we would cope if either my husband or I had to give up work on a long term basis due to illness.

I've had a think about the luxuries that I could live without if the worst happened and I've come up with the following three things:

Eating out

Both my husband and I share a love of food and if we are lucky enough to get a willing babysitter then we love nothing more that treating ourselves to a meal out at one of our favourite restaurants. Being a penny pincher at heart, I of course search the web for vouchers and offers before we go out, but even with these discounts, eating out is a luxury we would have to forfeit if we were living on the breadline. I would just have to work on my culinary skills and get more creative in the kitchen instead.

Buying New Books

One of the things that I treat both myself and my family to most often is a new books. If the children have had an achievement they get to choose a new book to add to their ever growing collection. My husband I both have our favourite authors and as soon as they announce their latest book we pre-order it on amazon. If our finances took a turn for the worst this is something that would have to stop although I would never let money get in the way of our family's love of reading we would go back to using the library more and and buying books from car boot sales and charity shops.

Subscription TV Services

I love a good TV show, as huge comic book fans my husband and I enjoy watching the latest series of Arrow and The Flash and we are eagerly awaiting the return of Game of Thrones this month. We currently have both Talk Talk TV and amazon Prime which are great for watching our favourite shows and so handy when we want to pop a movie on for the family to snuggle up to. This would be a hard one to lose but it is a luxury that I would be able to live without... as long as nobody shared any GOT spoilers!

What luxuries would you give up if you were close to the breadline?

This is a collaborative post

The River Singers Blog Tour

The 28th July was World Nature Conservation Day, highlighting the threats to our wildlife on both a local and global scale from the effects of habitat loss, climate change and pollution. In honour of this I have collaborated with Children's author Tom Moorhouse and his Blog Tour. 

The River Singers by Tom Moorhouse was one of The Times Children's Books of the year when it was first published and is now out in paperback. This story of a family of water voles who journey along The Great River to find a new home is aimed at children aged between eight and eleven and Tom who is also an ecologist at Oxford University hopes it will encourage families to become more aware of ecological issues. 

Below Tom answers the question: Did you always intend to write for children?

No, I never intended to write for children! I always intended to write, certainly, but it simply became clear that the way I write lends itself to children’s books. Of course there are a few tricks to writing specifically for children - these are mainly concerned with pacing, i.e not letting the adventure slacken for too long -but the important thing to me is that I write any story as I would like to read it. Actually, to prove the point, my first attempt at a novel was written without any reference to a readership, and just for me to see if I could do it – and when I sent it out for a professional criticism I was bemused when the comments came back saying “if you’re writing for kids you probably shouldn’t use such-and-such a turn of phrase”. I honestly think that children instinctively know when an author is “writing for children”, rather than just telling the best story they can. And, like anyone, if they catch you at it they’ll feel patronised and lose interest. So as pretentious as it might sound (Pseuds Corner, here I come), I still don’t really “write for children”except insofar as I write for me, and I’m basically 6’1”, 38 year old small child.

And here's a fun fact about water voles: 

Water voles can’t be tamed (really don’t try it). Most domesticated or pet animals are social, which means they have a dominance system and know their place. A tame animal basically sees you as its boss. Water voles, on the other hand, are solitary and territorial. So they’ll either see you as a predator (and try to bite you) or as a competitor (and try to bite you). Pet water vole = lots of biting (and some tricky questions from the authorities about how you ended up with one).

Watch this short video to hear more from Tom:

The blog tour kicked off over on the OUP children's books blog on Monday and you can check out the rest of Tom's interview across the following blogs: 

Tuesday 29th July - Smiling Like Sunshine

Wednesday 30th July - Serenity You 

Thursday 31st July - Confession of a SAHM 

Friday 1st August - Library Mice 

Saturday 2nd August - My mummies Pennies 

Monday 4th August - Madhouse Family Reviews 

Tuesday 5th August - Red Peffer 

Friday 8th August - Making It Up

This post contains an affiliate link.

Letts Monster Practice Review

My eldest Ben is 6, he's in Year Two at primary school, the youngest in his year. As well as the common issues that August born children often have keeping up with their classmates. It is becoming obvious that there are other concerns with his academic progress. He has hyper-mobility which has affects his fine motor skills and has difficultly concentrating. he is currently under assessment for Dyspraxia.

Ben is a bright little boy who has a great analytic mind and genuinely loves learning. He just needs that bit of extra attention and practice to get there.

We were sent a selection of Monster Skills Practice workbooks from Letts for Ben to review. These included:

·         Handwriting 5-6

·         Spelling and Phonics 5-6

·         Addition and Subtraction 5-6

·         Multiplication and Division 5-6

You can see more about what we both thought in the video below but I thought I'd give a quick written summary here too. Ben absolutely loved the fun monster characters in the Monster Practice books  The colourful creatures really helped to keep his attention and helped him to see these work books as fun and something to look forward to doing rather that 'homework' that he often puts off. These books make learning not only fun but a lot more interesting to him while helping him practice the same skills he is learning in school.

At an RRP of just £3.99 each I would thoroughly recommend the Letts Monster Practice books for any parent as a way of bringing learning home and making it an enjoyable experience. 

As well as a vast range of published works to help your child at any stage of their education Letts and Collins have online communities on twitter and facebook to help you support your child and  lettsrevision.com has useful summaries of of the different stages of your child's education as well as free downloadables and student study advice.

You can buy all of the books mentioned and more online at Collins.co.uk and fr the next couple of days only you can get an exclusive  30% discount on Collins Dictionaries, Reference Books, Atlases and Learning Books when you use  promo code BOOKS30 at checkout. This offer is available until 31 January 2014 so be quick!

Jump Up and Join In with Carrie and David Grant!

Both my children love music so when we were sent two of the new Carrie and David Grant Jump Up and Join In Books we couldn't wait to get them out and start the music!

We were sent two of the four title in the series, Lion's Speedy Sauce and Elephant's Birthday Bells, at first glance I really liked the look of these, the pages were filled with eye catching, colourful illustrations perfect to appeal to young children.

Each book comes with an accompanying CD for you and your children to read along then sing the song!

My daughter grabbed  Elephant's Birthday Bells and wouldn't let go so I guess that was a the first one to read!

The illustrations were colorful and really appealed to both my 2 and 5 year olds who were pointing to the different animals and other things they spotted throughout the book. The accompanying cd's really added an extra element, as well as an audio read through of the story they had lots of fun extras including songs, music lessons and more!

The story was a learning journey that got both children engrossed in the musical theme which was all about loud and soft sounds. We followed Elephant on her quest to find an instrument that was softer than her  loud stomping and Trumpets.

The children really enjoyed practicing the different loud and soft sounds (especially the loud ones!!)

The Lions's Speedy Sauce was all about rhythm and time in music and my 5 year old especially loved the clapping and rhythm exercises on the CD.

Both books include a craft idea too which is a lovely idea to get further enjoyment from them and extend the play. We will be trying these out soon!

At just £6.99 each I would fully recommend these book to encourage any child's interest in music!

Win a love2read personalised reading book for Father's Day!

Make Pa the star!

I'm really pleased to be able to offer one lucky reader the chance to create their own 

My dad...

love2read personalised love2read book in our fabulous competition with love2read!

Daddys will love being the star of the bedtime story, so love2read has come up with the perfect Father’s Day gift in the form of a unique, personalised book. Their range of books can be personalised by adding ten photos and text to the pages e.g. “My dad plays golf”, “My dad likes cars” or “My dad loves me”.

love2read’s website is full of templates, all you have to do is pick the one that you want, upload your ten digital photos and then add some simple text. There is a wide selection of templates to choose from including - My dad...,   My daddy..., Our dad... and My grandad...

The books are themed around National Curriculum keywords and are designed to stimulate the child’s interest in books so that they really want to read. No software is needed, the website is easy to use and you can even save your book as you go along if  you need to come back to it later.

This year, give a Father's Day gift the whole family will treasure forever - and help your child catch the reading bug at the same time. To ensure books arrive in time for Father’s Day, orders need to be placed by midday on 10th June. So don't miss out!

For further information and to see the range of books on offer please visit their website at:  

You can follow love2read on Twitter and Pinterest or join them on Facebook where you will find information on how to help your child to read and activities to encourage early literacy skills.

For your chance to win a My dad... love2read personalised love2read book just follow the rafflecopter instructions below.

Competition ends at midnight on Sunday 2nd June.

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63/365

63/365 - says it all...

Story writing tips from Bernard Ashley and your chance to win one of 3 copies of Little Soldier...

 
As part of the Imperirial War Museum North's Free Summer Activities, they will be will be hosting a week-long programme of activities and events inspired by Bernard Ashley's children's book Little Soldier, which is one of the books that feature in the Once Upon A Wartime exhibition.

Today he was at IWMN and visitors of all ages were able to meet the author, find out what it is like to be a professional writer and what inspired him to write Little Soldier and new book, Dive Bombing.

 Little Soldier, published in 1999, follows Kaninda, a young boy who witnesses the shooting of his parents and sister by government troops in his own home in East Africa. After joining the rebel army of his own tribe, Kaninda is rescued by the Red Cross and sent to East London – where he is in danger of getting caught up in further violence.

If you were unable to make it, he has been kind enough to share some top tips on story writing below, these are great tips for any budding authors in your family...


Bernard Ashley: What I’ve found useful in writing...

1. Carrying a writers’ notebook – small, unobtrusive – for jotting down phrases heard, thoughts, people’s dress, etc. I suppose an i-phone could be used in the modern world.

2. Researching. Get on top of your subject, see it from more than one point of view. The internet is marvellous for this, but so is ‘going there’ as I did for ‘Little Soldier’ – seeing the colour of the soil, eating the food, avoiding the mosquitos. Look for the idiosynchratic detail that brings a scene to life, illustrating that life can be stranger than fiction.

3. Being aware of style – an action scene will be written with shorter sentences, fewer adjectives and adverbs, while a romantic scene can be lush in sentence and word. I imagine what sort of music would be playing beneath a particular scene in a film, and match it with words.



To inspire future authors further we have been offered 3 copies of Little Soldier to give away to My Mummy's Pennies readers!



Enter on the rafflecopter form below...


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