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A few months ago Belle had a bit of a blip at school. She does triple science GCSE and although I’m pretty handy with a simultaneous equation, when it comes to science, I’m not always hugely helpful. She’d recently had a chemistry test and had scored 28%. She was not feeling good. I decided that a little bit of extra help was called for, so we had a search for a tutor online and found one nearby – a friendly looking woman called Fiona.

Belle was nervous before we went. I think she was worried about looking stupid and not knowing the answers, but as I pointed out, she’d look MORE stupid if we went all that way and then knew ALL of the answers, as it would just look like we had paid £30 to see inside Fiona’s house, and that would be VERY creepy. View Post

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When Belle left primary school, it hit me a bit harder than I had expected. I’ve never really been big on ‘firsts’ – first day of school, first whatever else – they are exciting and fun but never moving. 

But when Belle finished primary school, it suddenly hit me that I had no children left to watch in school nativities. No more primary school sports days to go to. No more having to ingratiate myself with the other parents on the playground so as to arrange play dates. Nothing.

It turns out that ‘lasts’ are a bit more moving for me than ‘firsts’.

And then she went to secondary school and every day is an achievement just to get her to go, so that’s a distraction. Bee finished her A-levels and graduated and all of those things are okay because they aren’t the END. Bee can finish things and that’s okay, because Belle stills gets to do them.

Last night Belle brought home her school report for the end of Year 10. It was part of a big pack of information about school uniforms and newsletters and a calendar for the next academic year. I have a paper diary, because I can’t get my head around not writing down dates with a pen, and I have an academic year one because it seems to fit better.

I picked out the calendar and got a pen, ready to write in dates of note. I started at the end, (I don’t know why really, but I do the same with magazines), and the first date was GCSE results day.

empty nest

I text Bee.

‘MY DIARY GOES UP TO THE DAY BELLE GETS HER GCSE RESULTS. I AM NOT READY TO NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN LEFT AT SCHOOL AND TO NEVER HAVE TO GO TO A BORING CONCERT OR PARENTS’ EVENING.’ View Post

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If you’d have asked me this time last year if I thought I’d ever be able to afford to buy a house I would have laughed heartily. No one can right? And then I CASUALLY went into an estate agent, just wanting to nose at some new apartments that had been built in our town, and it turns out there’s such a thing as a 5% mortgage, and suddenly it all seemed rather more feasible.

But no one would ever give ME a mortgage surely?

Even at business networking groups people look at me suspiciously when I say I BLOG for a living – imagination the reaction of a financial institution??

Except oh. It turns out that actually I’m worth a punt.

Right, so we’ll just go and look at a few places, no pressure. Except this one which we see in our first round of visits is actually pretty nice. It’s way over what we can afford but we may as well make an offer?

And then it’s accepted, and nothing goes wrong, and here we are.

And it’s lovely, and it was the right decision, and I have the SHELVES OF DREAMS but there is also a part of me that feels deflated and overwhelmed and a bit ‘well what now?’ about the whole thing.

I think I spent so many nights in the three months between the offer and the move lying awake, imagining all the things I was going to do and how amazing it was going to be, that when I got here, it felt like everything was over before it began. Yes, I still have all of these projects do to, but it turns out they take hard work and money AS WELL AS Pinterest boards (who knew!) and I want everything perfect NOW. View Post

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Jon from The Money Shed is back today to tell you all about a really useful social media scheduling tool for bloggers called SocialOomph. I have used SocialOomph in the past and it’s definitely worth checking out if you want to save time promoting blog posts.

how to schedule social media updates

Image by Lenka Horavova/shutterstock

It can’t just be me that dreads having to schedule their social media can it?

It doesn’t matter if you run a website, a blog or anything else in-between, one of the most time consuming things you will end up doing is scheduling your social media.

No matter if it’s Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram you will end up driving yourself mad each week as you schedule your updates to make sure that you have all your bases covered and your blog posts can get promoted to as many people as possible.

THOSE DAYS ARE OVER!!!

SocialOomph is an amazing service which takes the manual side of scheduling social media updates so that you can spend more being creative elsewhere. View Post

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I’m sure she is sick to death of people saying it, but Belle has changed so much in the last couple of years.

She’s grown about four feet (practically) and she doesn’t look like a child anymore. And yet it feels like only about five minutes ago that we went for a walk up on the hills and did this pretend photo shoot, just before she accidentally trod in a poo in her sandals:

Happy days. View Post

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It’s not too late to fundraise for Marie Curie this year! Although the Great Daffodil Appeal has come and gone, you can still raise funds for the charity throughout the year.

Here’s a list of fundraising ideas to get you started. This definitely isn’t an exhaustive list, so get creative!

Get crafty

If you’re feeling crafty, try making and selling crochet or origami daffodils. You can even share your skills with others by holding a creative workshop and charging an entry fee to raise money.

Daffodils

Photo – Neirfy/shitterstock

Get baking

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It has been a long time since I wore a watch. When I was little I had a Snoopy one that I loved. It had a red strap and Snoopy’s arms went around to tell the time. I used to wear it all the time.

If you just can’t wait, you can get 10% off everything at Obaku with the code SLUMMYSINGLE.

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It’s not always possible to have the money you need to hand. The price of a car, home improvement project or holiday often outstrips the amount of cash we have available in our bank accounts. Indeed, it’s said that four in ten people don’t have as much as £500 squirreled away in savings.

For many of us, then, purchasing such big ticket items requires us to obtain finance and one of the most obvious ways to do so is through a personal loan. Before you take out a loan, however, it’s vital to have a good grasp of the pros and cons of doing so.

Pros of a personal loan

You can get as much as you need: Personal loans can allow you access to cash amounts in the tens of thousands, far above the sort of limit that you might receive on a credit card. This should allow you to borrow the full cost of a big money purchase.

It’s easy to know what you’re paying back: When you take out a loan, it’s likely that you’ll set out what you’re going to pay back every month for the duration of the contract. That means you can set aside that amount in your budget and have a direct debit in place to ensure you don’t miss any payments. The interest rate is usually one fixed figure too, making it easier to calculate this.

You can shop around: You can look for big loans paid back over a number or years or smaller amounts in a shorter time. This means that you can shop around for the product that best fits your circumstances.

It’s a competitive market: There’s something of a ‘price war’ under way at the moment – with many lenders offering personal loans with an interest rate below 3%.

Cons of a personal loan

The interest rate could be high: Despite the competitive market at the moment, you may well find a loan still costs more than other forms of borrowing especially, for smaller amounts such as £1,000.

It can be tempting to borrow more than you need: With a personal loan you’ll often find that the very best deals – such as the sub-3% ones mentioned above – only come when you borrow more money. It’s easy to be tempted to take a higher loan than you need to get a better interest rate.

You might not get the advertised rate: Be careful of the term ‘representative APR’. When this is advertised, it’s the rate that the majority (at least 51%) of people will pay. You might actually find yourself accepted for the loan, but at a higher rate.

Personal loans are, therefore, a good way to help you make a planned-out big ticket purchase that you will steadily pay back over a few years. If you’re after a smaller amount of finance, or can pay back over a shorter period, other products such as credit cards might be more suited to your needs.

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We live in the digital era, and we are lucky enough to have an app for everything nowadays. Some are fit to calculate enormous data volumes; others are created for sheer entertainment. They won’t be the focus of our article, though. But digital solutions tailored to make personal financial management as simple as cake, on the other hand, will.
Let’s proceed to our prominent list of financial lifesavers fit for everyone with at least one smart device.

Effectify

The https://effectify.com/ service, a handy platform for credit card management is great for picking up the best kind of plastic. Modern banks, in an ongoing competition over new as well as returning clients come up with dozens upon hundreds of plans, advertisements, and discounts. Not all of them are the right fit for you, though. The effectify will help pick the best card for shopping, online transfers, debt management or travel.
No longer will you have to go through tons of supportive documentation to put your finger on what exactly is the bank offering and what it will demand in return. Neat, right?

Use a voucher code

Try sites like dealsqueen to find that discount code for your favourite store – there is no excuse for paying full price for anything! Look hard enough and you can find a voucher code for pretty much anything you want to buy. Find more advice on how to find the perfect voucher code at dealsdaddy.

BillTracker

This app is available for iOS and serves as a fine tracker of bills. Several levels of personalized passcode protection grant safe and friendly experience, while advanced, functional mechanics grant an overall view over all of your transfers, their due dates, impending payments and whatnot.
All in all, with this app you get a centralized system for management of all outgoing transactions with bells and whistles you never knew you needed but can’t live without once you gave them a shot.

Shopkick

A whole variety of e-commerce platforms is gathered within one app. Browse through Macy’s, Target and Best Buy from a single place and get a hold of all the best deals and discounts. Compare rates afterward and choose from where to purchase a product based on knowledge and data, not just a hunch.
It may seem that saving a few bucks on shopping now and then will only chip the overall state of your credit debt, but you will be simply amazed at the results in the long run.

SnipSnap

This application is literal heaven for coupons in your Smartphone. You will have all sorts of deals and offers tucked neatly into your device to embrace the best shopping experience of a lifetime.
Not only that but you are also empowered to photograph and then digitalize analog (made of paper) coupons. You won’t need to carry them around anymore because they are stored in SnipSnap from now and forever.

Grocery IQ

Staying on track among marketing-filled rows of a supermarket can be a challenge. Juicy treats taunt you on every step. All of them are cleverly displayed with but a single purpose – for you to buy!
With Grocery IQ you will remain on track, and all potential impulses for unconsidered shopping will be obliterated on the go.

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Winning the lottery is a life-changing event, but did you know many lotteries can actually help you increase your odds of winning? Some even bump-up their minimum jackpots and do additional draws at certain times of the year. Win big and win often is the mantra of these lotteries, and at Jackpot.com we offer our players access to 16 of the world’s best, so go on, Lady Luck may well be on your side! Here’s a round-up of the top 3 lottery draws with one little extra thrown in for good luck.

First, there’s EuroMillions, a lottery that features a minimum guaranteed jackpot of €17 million. This popular lotto even rolled over to an astonishing €190 million back in October 2014! EuroMillions features a monthly promotion called Mega Week which gives EuroMillions players another chance at winning fantastic prizes. This draw, which first appeared as a one-off promotion in December 2015, has been such a rip-roaring success it continues to be played to this day.

Also available on Jackpot.com is the Italian super-lotto aptly named SuperEnalotto. This is one of the most popular games in the world since its launch almost ten years ago. SuperEnalotto offers massive jackpots and three draws a week give players plenty of opportunity to win big. There is also a special draw known as the SiVince Tutto which runs alongside the SuperEnalotto. Translated to ‘you win everything,’ this draw works much in the same way as the SuperEnalotto game; however, the only difference is the jackpot doesn’t roll over if not won. Instead, the top prize is guaranteed to be paid on the night of the draw. If no player matches their numbers to the six numbers drawn, then the prize fund rolls down to the subsequent prize tiers and is split amongst the winners. ‘Viva Italia!’

Then we have the crème de la crème of lotteries, the US PowerBall – another game which can be played on Jackpot.com. This is the premier US lottery game and for one simple reason – a guaranteed minimum jackpot of $40 million which increases by a minimum $10 million with each rollover. This lottery offers huge jackpots – the biggest ever at $590 million for a single ticket holder.

A similar alternative to playing the lottery is betting on the Mega Millions draw. This is similar in concept to the PowerBall and also has eye-wateringly high jackpots. It is also one of the biggest US lotteries, with players in 46 jurisdictions in the US and a growing number joining in from all over the world.

Now that we have the three big ones out of the way, it’s time to turn to a less known lottery with an interesting twist. The Australian lottery has shaken up the traditional rollover model in it’s Monday and Wednesdays draws and instead hands out the fixed jackpot of $1M to any lucky winners. Here’s the twist – if up to 4 players win the draw, they still hand out $1M to each player! Although it’s a considerably lower jackpot, it’s definitely worth a try!

As always, Jackpot.com is the place to be when playing the biggest lotteries around the world. With 13 worldwide lotteries to choose from, UK players will be spoilt for choice. But remember, you need to be in it to win it!

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Deploying a nest box in your garden can provide an essential breeding spot for a whole host of different birds. It’s a fantastic way to provide your garden birds with a place to raise their young. Whilst many other species can hide their nest in grassy meadows and dense foliage, many common garden birds simply can’t. As Spring is such an important time for breeding birds, deploying a nest box in your garden will be sure to help them thrive.

nest box tips

Putting up a nest box

The past decade or so has been a particularly troubling time for nesting spots. An increase in many garden and home develops has meant the removal of many natural nest spots, including holes and trees and gardens. This is why bird food suppliers Kennedy Wild Bird Food are urging people to put up nest boxes, as this will give birds a great opportunity for survival. Not only this, but it’s a great way to teach children about nature.

Knowing where to put your nest box will definitely give your garden an advantage over others in terms of how many birds come to visit. Here are some top tips from the team at Kennedy Wild Bird Food.

Top tips for putting up a nest box

  • Shelter – The front of the nest box needs to be angled slightly downwards to prevent rain drops entering the box. Also, make sure the nest box is sheltered from strong winds and sunlight.
  • Away from other nest boxes and feeders– To avoid aggressive behaviour between your garden neighbour’s, nest boxes of the same type should be spaced away from one another. Also try and keep it away from feeders as it may disturb a nesting pair.
  • Distance from ground – Nest Boxes need to be placed 1-3m above the ground on tree trunks. Avoid sites where foliage blocks the entrance of the nest box. If you happen to have no trees, then placing it on a wall or shed will do the job
  • Consider a squirrel blocker – Using a device such as a metal plate to deter squirrels gaining access through the hole can be purchased from any garden centre at a small cost. If you need some help with pests, you might want to visit pestkilled.com/how-to-get-rid-of-chipmunks/.
  • Keep away from cats – Ensure the box is high enough and hidden away from predators like cats and squirrels
  • Now is a great time – Birds begin to mate around now, so popping up a nest box will give you a good chance of attracting nesting birds. But it’s never too late, as many birds will use nest boxes to roost in winter.

When will I get birds in my nest box?

Patience is key, but after a couple of years and no birds it may be worth moving the box to a more suitable location. There can be a number of reasons why your nest box is not being used. Whether this is because there are other natural nest spots nearby, or because of territory boundaries. That’s why some boxes may be taken up immediately and others may remain empty for a while.

blue tit spring

Monitoring and cleaning your nest box

Once breeding season is in full swing, continue to monitor your box. You can spend some lazy weekends with your children watching the grown up birds darting around as they build their nest or feed hungry nestlings.

If your box is discovered by invasive species, then you may have to remove the nest. By doing this, you will encourage the bird to move to another location, whilst freeing up space for the wild garden birds who need it most.

Collaborative post. Images – elena moiseeva and Erni from shutterstock.

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If you are planning to hit the town tonight, why not stop in at one of Bristol’s best places to enjoy a meal? I’ve put together a list of Bristol’s best dining, from casual to special occasion.

Casamia

Dining Type: Special Occasion / High-End (Menu changes seasonally)

“The four seasons through your senses – taste, sight, hearing, smell, touch;” just as this statement lives on their website, Casamia delivers a full experience with a tasty menu and a gorgeous dining environment. Owned by the Sanchez Group and winner of some restaurant awards, you will not be disappointed with their carefully crafted menu including seafood delicacies and custom twists on classic dishes. Although their menu is set at £98 (a set menu that changes often – check their website for information!), we recommend that you give this spot a try for a tantalising experience.

Afendi Restaurant and Café

Dining Type: Casual, Lebanese 

Places to eat in Bristol

For a casual dining experience filled with delicious and authentic Lebanese food, head over to Afendi Restaurant and Café. They have an extensive menu with options that will please any palate, including vegetarian dishes. They also are known to make a great pizza pie, for those in your friend group that aren’t feeling the Lebanese cuisine. You don’t even have to leave your couch to enjoy food from here; Afendi’s has partnered with Hungry House in delivering their food to your door quickly.

No Man’s Grace

Dining Type: Special Occasion, Desserts, British/European

What started off with humble beginnings as a dessert shop has turned into a full menu hotspot in the dining district in Bristol.  With a flavourful dinner menu and a fixed price lunch, No Man’s Grace has become a trendy location for special occasions or a fancy dessert with your date.  They host a lovely wine selection and the staff will be more than happy to pair your drink with your meal. This location will never disappoint!

Souk Kitchen

Places to eat in Bristol

Dining Type: Casual, Middle Eastern + North African

If you are seeking a bold, non-traditional and somewhat exotic menu with great selection, Souk Kitchen has you covered. Their menu items feature an array of colours, spices, and oddly paired items that work well together to create an unforgettable dining experience. Their brunch menu is what makes Souk Kitchen such a hotspot, featuring your traditional dishes such as French toast and fritters, but also “ras el hanout salmon” and mushrooms on toast featuring duck egg. With some dishes starting at a low £3.50, dining here will be satisfying without breaking the bank.

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