Hello everyone and happy 2nd of December. I can’t believe how quickly the months are flying past and how close we now are to Christmas. This year, I really needed to cut back on how much I spend at Christmas and so I thought I’d share a few tips I’ve picked up along the way to still have a great Christmas, with a small budget.

1. Compare prices online to find the cheapest deal. You can usually find exactly the same item in various retailers & sometimes there can be huge difference in the price. It’s so easy to quickly check who is the cheapest before you buy, so make sure you do your research.

2. Use cashback sites to reward you for spending. Who doesn’t want to be rewarded for spending money! All you have to do is shop through a cashback site rather than your usual search engine so it’s really simple to do.

3. Utilise loyalty card points that you have saved. Boots are great for this – not only do you get 3 for 2 but you can then pay with your points. Another great one is Nectar card, which, if you download the app, you can get extra deals loaded onto your card.

4. Plan 3 for 2 deals in advance. Buy 3 expensive items together to get the most saving. I’ve only recently started doing this but it makes complete sense and I wish I’d done it sooner.

5. Use voucher code sites to see if you can get any extra discounts. It’s easy to quickly check online to see if there are any deals before you buy, but it’s so worth it because you can sometimes get amazing deals.

6. Dupes – If you don’t know what dupes are, they are a product that is based on a more expensive product, for a fraction of the cost. Just because they are cheaper, doesn’t mean they are bad quality. A lot of the time you are just paying for the name, so it’s worth checking to see if there is anything similar for less money.

So there is just a few of my tips for having Christmas on a small budget. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. Thankfully I’ve finished my Christmas shopping, however, I’ll no doubt help Andy with his, so hopefully these tips will save him money too! Let me know if you have any more tips because I’m always looking for ways to spend less money.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another post. As you can tell from the title, I thought I would do the boyfriend tag today. I asked my amazing boyfriend the questions and wrote down his first answer, so he couldn’t change his mind.

Where did we meet?

Cogload Junction near Taunton because the Ritz hotel was closed.

Where was our first date?

Brize Norton to do some plane spotting and photographing.

What was your first impression of me?

Shortass, stumpy, gorgeous, beautiful, polite, lovely eyes.

When did you meet the family?

After helping move some furniture a couple weeks after meeting.

Do you have any weird obsessions, if so – what?

Mimicking people and their traits.

How long have we been together?

Nine months

What was our first roadtrip?

Camping and spotting at RAF Coningsby

What was the first thing you noticed about me?

Bright smile

What is your favourite restaurant?

Harvester or a good carvery

Who wears the pants in the relationship?

Kelly, I know my role

If you are watching tv what are you watching?

On the buses

What is one food you do not like?

Cheese

What drink do you order when we go out to eat?

Blackcurrant and lemonade

What is one talent you have?

Making people laugh apparently

What would you eat everyday if you could?

Stew and dough buoys

What is your favourite cereal?

Alpen with icing sugar on top

What is your favourite music?

I like bands such as Genesis, Def Leppard, Status Quo, to name a few

What is your eye colour?

Blue

What can you spend hours doing?

Sitting and watching the world go by

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Back home in Exeter

I just wanted to round this post off by saying thank you to my boyfriend Andy for agreeing to answer the questions and be a part of my blog. You’ll see snippets from him in the future and will probably find that a lot of the photos I post here, will have been taken by him.

 

If you’re new here, you might not know, but I have been a blogger for six years. Unfortunately, a while back I decided I no longer wanted to blog and I therefore deleted all the hard work of those years. Recently, I decided to rejoin the blogging community and so am starting from scratch again.

Every year without fail, I’d always buy pretty much all of the Halloween and Christmas range from Lush to do a haul. I think last year, I spent about £50 buying all the cute little bits and have spent most of 2018 using them up!

I saw on twitter a couple of months ago that the Halloween and festive ranges were now available at Lush and so did not hesitate to pop onto their website to have a browse, purse in hand, ready to spend. However, I was so shocked that I didn’t buy anything and don’t intend to either. Since when were bath bombs nearly £5 each! I suddenly felt like I needed a mortgage to be able to afford them. I ended up thinking that for the price of a one use bath bomb, I could buy a bottle of just as lovely smelling bubble bath and have change left over to add a bottle of wine in too!

Over the following days, I was pleased to see that I wasn’t the only one that was feeling this way and I read so many comments from people saying how ridiculous the prices were and how they wouldn’t dream of spending that amount of money on a one use only item. So therefore, I have decided that I will not be doing my usual Lush shopping and so there will be no Lush haul on the blog this year.

What do you think of the Lush prices this year?

Will you still be buying from them or are you going to find alternatives too?

Firstly, if you’re new here then welcome and if you’ve been here before than welcome back. I’d love for you all to click that little follow button to make sure you stay up to date with all my latest content.

As you can probably tell from the title, today I thought I’d discuss advent calendars and whether they are worth it. For the last few years it seems as if the likes of beauty and lifestyle calendars have been growing in popularity as well as price year on year.
What happened to the days when we used to get a small square of chocolate each morning and be happy for that? Now it seems we all want the luxury items at a fraction of the cost, which there’s nothing wrong with as long as you are getting value for money.

I must admit that I have never been a huge chocolate lover (I’m sorry, but I’m not) and there were countless times where I’d forget to even open the window of my advent calendar before school because, in reality, I just wasn’t that excited about it. I think my mum secretly knew this and so set about making her own advent calendar for me and collected different chocolates, sweets and accessories that she knew I would like. Fair play to mum, she really thought about it and I found myself opening the doors each morning to the likes of Frys Turkish Delight (my favourite), mint humbugs as well as festive earrings and hair bobbles. To me, that meant more because it was tailored to what I would like and enjoy and I appreciated the items so much more.

A few years ago, I noticed that bloggers and Youtubers were starting to talk about and unbox these beauty advent calendars and I must admit, I was sucked in. At that particular time, my blog was very much focused on reviews of products and so I thought this would be a great way to build my stash, try out new products that were usually out of my budget and just generally have a bit more luxury during the festive season.
I can even remember the first beauty calendar I had – a Sanctuary Spa one. I paid about £20 for it and loved opening the doors every morning, so much so that I actually used to wake up extra early, so that I could take the time to open the window and enjoy the product. Now, just two years later, I’ve seen a similar calendar retailing for £40!

The second beauty advent calendar I bought was the ASOS one last year, which again, I loved. This time I paid £70 for it which now looking back seems extoursionate. Having said that, I was really happy with the contents and the size of the samples I was trying and even to this day, I feel that I got value for money. As an added bonus, I wrote reviews about the products and over time, gained a lot wider audience. The same year, I decided to treat my mum to a beauty advent calendar too and so bought her the M & S one. The deal was you had to spend £35 to get the calendar for £35 which, for both the products received and the look on mums face each morning as she opened the little boxes, was well worth the money.

The beauty and lifestyle calendar videos have started popping up all over YouTube and Instagram already even though its only October. I won’t deny that I have been looking to see if there is one that catches my eye but they all seem so much more expensive for what you actually get. I even looked at a budget friendly one from Wilko but after watching an unboxing of it, I soon realised that the products looked quite cheap
and more suited to a child than to me. I can’t help but think that over the last couple of years, this hype has resulted in them being more expensive with less quality over the products. I won’t say that I’ll rule out buying one, because in truth, I’ve got my eye on the Yankee Candle one. However, I’m certainly thinking more over it and want to buy something that will benefit me and my life rather than just give me products
that will probably sit in a drawer for months before being used or given away.

What are your thoughts on the beauty and lifestyle advent calendar craze?

Do you intend to buy one? If yes, what will you choose? If no, why? I’d love to know!

Hello everyone and welcome back to my brand new blog. Summer seems to have definitely passed us by now and I can’t wait to snuggle on the sofa with a blanket, film and hot chocolate in the evenings. I also love this time of year because its when I always previously felt inspired to write blog posts the most and so what better time of year to restart blogging again. Today I thought I’d re-do an old favourite – The Autumn Tag, hope you enjoy!

What signifies the start of Autumn for you?

I live close to a park and you can always tell Autumn is on its way when the leaves on the trees changed colour and start to fall to the ground. I love the crunch sound when you walk over them, before the rain sets in and makes them slippery.

What is your favourite Autumn scent?

I don’t have a particular Autumnal scent that I love because a lot of them are too overpowering for me but I love the smell of the Essence candle in Toasted Marshmallows scent at this time of year.

What is your favourite Autumn colour?

I love wearing a lot of grey and a lot of rusty colours during the Autumn. You can pick up some cute jumpers and sweatshirts in these colours as well as some pretty scarves.

What is your favourite Autumn drink?

As soon as the weather starts to get colder, I love nothing more than a steaming hot mug of chocolate, complete with cream, marshmallows and sprinkles.

What TV show, new or old, are you looking forward to this Autumn?

I’m not a fan of The X Factor (sorry, not sorry!), but I absolutely love Strictly Come Dancing, with all the glitz and glamour of it all. I must admit though, its not the same without Brucie!

What is your favourite Autumn fashion trend?

This season so far I’m loving all of the mustard colours as well as the leopard print and can’t wait to get my hands on some new pieces to add to my wardrobe.

What is your favourite frugal Autumn activity?

It may seem like more of a summer activity but I love walking on the beach with Trixie. Unfortunately where I live, dogs are only allowed on the beaches from the end of September until May so I take the opportunity at this time of year to do it as much as possible. It means I can wear cute jumpers, hats and scarves whilst being out in the fresh air and exercising at the same time. An added bonus is that all it costs is a bit of petrol, a small amount for parking and the price of a hot drink to warm up at the end of it.

What is your favourite make up look come Autumnal weather?

I love eyeshadow with a copper tone as I feel it suits my skin, eye and hair colour. I’m actually currently looking for a new one to try so if you have any recommendations, please let me know in the comments.

I love reading tag posts because you find out things about a person that you might not have found out otherwise and its also a great post that you can get new ideas from. Feel free to complete the tag yourself and if you do, be sure to leave a link to your version in the comments down below as I’d love to read them.