Are We Nearly There Yet?

I wrote a post earlier this week about days out as a single parent. Often the most testing part of a day out is the journey there. On the way back, they're usually (hopefully) too tired out to require much entertainment; S usually zonks out for a nap on our way home from anywhere. The journey there though... that can be difficult!

Here are some top tips for making travelling with children a little easier:

• Be prepared! Don't just embark on a 5-hour car or bus journey without anything with which to entertain your child! Books, games, a portable dvd player, teddies, dollies, whatever you can think of that normally entertains your child. It's a great idea to find an old favourite at the bottom of the toy box they've not played with for a little while; the novelty might see you through!
• Point out anything and everything out of the window. "oh look, some cows!" "oh look, a lorry!" "oh look, some hay in a field!" If it's a journey you know well, you can even do "look out the window; we're going to go past the horses in a minute!"
• Use public transport - if you don't need to drive, consider taking the bus or train - kids love the novelty of a different mode of transport and a train ride can mean much more to see out of the window!
• If you're not in a rush to get to where you're going, consider stopping somewhere for a break. Kids love to explore; if there's something even vaguely interesting on the way from A to B, stop and have a look around. Many kids can even get a little excited over exploring a motorway service station (especially if it has a bridge over the road) - though this might prove a little expensive for you.
• Give them a camera! S has a great toddler-proof camera (trust me, we've tested it to the extreme) and it's great for occupying her. She'll either take photos of herself or me, or play games with the features on it. It's a great thing for them to have once you get to where you're going too!
• If you're that way inclined, you can download some child-friendly apps to your mobile or tablet, and save that for when the "are we nearly there yet"s get really bad.
• Of course, the old faithful: Ten Green Bottles!

This post was written in association with Parkdean Holidays, who made this funky video about their recent travel survey:

A Simple Guide to Internet Dating Profiles

As some of you may know, this year I have been dipping my toe into the waters of dating. It has been fun; I have met some lovely people. I've also skimmed over a lot of dodgy-looking profiles without a second glance.

Here is what I have learned about composing your dating profile:

• Think carefully about your profile picture. A lot of people will take one look at your main photo, and make a snap decision as to whether they want to bother looking at your profile. Not very PC or charitable, but nature.

• If your photo shows you drinking/in a nightclub, people will assume that's how you spend most of your time. Fine if you do; not so great if that photo was taken on the one occasion you left the house last year.

• Men: I don't care if you caught a fantastic fish. I don't know any ladies who are on dating sites looking for men who are able to catch great big fish. It is not on anyone's list of must-haves when looking for a potential suitor. Unless you go to a really, really specific site.

• It sounds simple, but you'd be surprised by how many people add a photo and don't even bother to turn it the right way up. Likelihood is, when faced with 50 photos to look at, I'm not going to make much effort to focus on the one that also requires turning my head to one side.

• Don't use a photo of you alongside someone else as your profile picture; it's just confusing. A photo of you with your arm around someone of the opposite sex is just ridiculous. 

• If your photo shows you half naked, that says something about you. To me, it mostly says "look at me, I really love how my body looks and you should too!" Sometimes it also says "twat" in big, shiny letters. But usually only when there's a bottle or a mad "shouty" expression accompanying the half nakedness.

• Don't put in your profile that you don't smoke and rarely drink... and then upload several profile pictures of you smoking and drinking. You will only attract people who are too stupid to put the two together.

• Be positive! You wouldn't believe the number of profiles I've come across that include such cracking lines as "you probably won't be interested" or "I doubt I'm what you're looking for." You guess right, buddy! Nobody wants to date Eeyore; if you really are that miserable, perhaps you should look at resolving that issue before looking for a partner.

• Be honest about what you are looking for! I know plenty of people, male and female, who have used dating sites purely for casual hook-ups. If that's what you're after, say so!

• Don't be creepy! I met one guy online who, as soon as he knew my real name, Googled me and began to stalk my online profiles: Facebook, Twitter, this blog, you name it (for all I know, he still is). By all means, Google a person - but don't be nosey, don't be creepy, and don't say things like "did you hurt yourself when you fell over last Thursday?" That is not classed as being attentive; it's classed as being stalky.

• Remember that your online dating profile is not a way of tricking people into going out with you; it's a way of showing them who you are. There's nothing wrong with putting a positive spin on things, but don't write something that will leave people disappointed when they meet you; it's a waste of both of your time.

• Finally, get someone else to read it through before you send it live! You might think it's fabulous; a fresh pair of eyes might wonder who you're describing, or why you've never heard of punctuation.

So there's my list.

Do you have anything to add? 

I'd love to hear about your experience of internet dating!

Guest Post: Money Saving this Summer

This is a guest post from Shaye Walsh, who blogs at Simply Shaye. 

This Summer Ditch the Bad Habits and Learn Money-Saving New Habits

Summer time should raise dreams of trips to the beach, getting away on tropical vacations or family time spent enjoying your kids at theme parks. In reality, summer time is most often about bored kids destroying the house before they run off to a friend's house to play video games in front of the computer or television. You'll spend more time frustrated than enjoying the kids, but it doesn't have to be that way this summer. There are ways to earn extra money by turning your hobbies and things you enjoy into moneymaking opportunities. It won't overwhelm you, and should be simple because these are things you could already be doing in your spare time.

Doggie Boarding

If you love dogs, this is a perfect way to make some extra money. Dog owners hate to drop their furry family members off at a kennel. Often, pet owners feel huge amounts of guilt over putting their dog into a kennel. As a dog lover, you are sure to understand that feeling. You can provide a loving environment for their pooch while they enjoy their vacation guilt free by dog boarding. Your family will enjoy spending time together caring for an animal knowing you are providing a valuable service to both the family and the dog. You'll be making some extra cash, and it won't feel like work at all.

Selling Crafts

At one time, the only way a person could make money-selling crafts was during church events, craft sales or garage sales. It required more work to sell the items than it did to make them. With the Internet, there are tons of ways to sell the things you create without travel costs and expenses. Hobbies are meant to calm a person, give them an interest that brings them joy and take up some time, so they're not bored. A hobby can be more than that now. With sites like Etsy, a hobbyist can sell their creations. Whether you like painting, making jewelry or building action figures, Etsy will allow you to showcase your products and set your own prices.

Kick the Bottled Water Habit

Water is extremely important to keep a body healthy and nourished properly. People who drink plenty of water have glowing, healthy skin. It can't be denied that water is essential, but what is not essential is the hit that bottled water makes to your savings and to the environment. Bottled water is expensive. If you were to add up the cost of all the bottled water you drink in a month, you might be surprised at the cost. Lots of people do not enjoy the taste of their tap water. If you don't like the taste of the water out of your home faucet, consider a home water filtration system. In the long run it will save you money, and you'll never run out of water like you would with bottled water. http://thewaterproject.org/bottled_water_wasteful.asp

Toss Out that Gym Membership

Most people waste their money on a gym membership they won't use very often. A low-cost alternative is buying old gym equipment or weights to be used at home. You're more likely to work out if you don't have excuses like having to drive to the gym. You'll save the cost of a monthly gym membership, which can be pretty pricey. That saved money can go towards a summer vacation with the family.

If you're creative and think outside of the box, you can have the money you need to spend time with your family this summer. Instead of yelling at them all summer to pick up after themselves, you'll be able to sit on the beach soaking up the sun while they splash in the surf.

Shaye is a single mom that has a passion for family, budgeting, healthy living, fitness, and travel. She loves finding new ways to cook healthier and stay fit, all while doing it on a budget. She has a beautiful son and one eccentric dog, but wouldn’t have it any other way.. 

You can also follow Shaye on Twitter: @Simplyshayew

Blogging Tips: Blog Statistics Are Your Friend!

I've been writing a series on blogging tips lately. These include How to Write an Amazing Blog Post, How to Promote Your Blog using Facebook, and How to Increase Your Blog Traffic Using Twitter. This one might be more... divisive. It's about statistics, and how they can help you with your blog.

When I first started blogging, the advice I got from most people was: don't look at your stats. Don't read the stats. Don't worry about the stats. Stats are meaningless. 

I'm a bit of a geek, though; I like stats. I like graphs and analysing data and knowing what's going on. So I would carry on checking the stats on my blog, feeling like I was breaking the rules somehow. 

Then I spoke to Mark, who blogs at Best Dad I Can Be (and has written a rather funny book). He was the first person to say to me that, if you want your blog to do well, you need to pay attention to the stats.

If you're just blogging for fun, and you're not at all interested in how to get more readers or followers or improve your Tots 100 ranking or your Klout score or whatever else, then fine. Stop reading this post. It's not for you.

If you are interested in how statistics can help you, read on.

• Install Google Analytics on your blog. You can use it to see useful things like how many unique visitors you have each day/week/month. You can compare this week with last week, and see loads of other things besides.

• Look at how people are finding you. Which websites are your main sources of traffic? What words to people search on Google to get to your blog?

• Use your stats to see whether the links you post on Facebook or Twitter are bringing you any more traffic. Did that linky post you linked up with on a whim the other day actually bring you more traffic than all that Tweeting?

• Use Google Analytics to see your traffic sources, and which sites have the highest percentage of new visitors. It's important here to take note of the average time spent on the blog though; quite often you'll get a high percentage of new visitors from sites like Stumbleupon, but the nature of the site means that people may only spend a few seconds there.

• Which are your most popular posts? Look at what's different about these, and why they might be more popular - do they have more useful information, more personal content, more controversial arguments?

• If you have a Facebook page, look at the Insights at the top of the page to see which posts had the most interaction. Do posts made at a particular time of day get more interaction? Is it photos? Links to other pages? Random "I am picking my nose" TMI posts? Try and use this information to better time when and how you posts links to your blog.

• You can use sites like bit.ly to shorten your links - but they will also count how many times that link is clicked on. This can be useful if, for example, you use these links for specific  posts only (at a certain time of day or in a certain place) - you can track exactly how much effect these actions are having.

• I find it useful to keep my own spreadsheet of how many unique visitors I have, and the average visit duration each month. This can show you at a glance whether what you're doing to promote your blog is paying off.

• I also keep track of the number of visitors my blog has had in the last rolling month. As a rule you want this number to go up, or at least stay the same - if it starts to go down then you know you need to have a look at where you are losing readers.

So there is my list of ways you can use statistics to help with your blogging. Do you agree with these? Do you have any to add? Please do share your thoughts in the comments.

Ways to Promote your Blog Using Facebook

It's a great idea to set up a Facebook page for your blog. Facebook is the original social network, and still has the largest number of active users. Having a page for your blog allows you to promote the blog on Facebook, without spamming up the newsfeeds of all your regular Facebook friends for whom your blog might not be relevant. This post follows on from this one about using Twitter to promote your blog, and this one about how to write a good blog post.

• Use Facebook to post links to your blog, but not just that. Post pictures, share content from other pages, links to relevant articles or websites. 

• Think about what makes you click "like" on a Facebook page. You want more than just your personal friends to follow your Facebook page, so try to make it appealing. Fill in the "about" section as thoroughly as possible, so that people know what they're signing up to.

• Be polite! If someone comments on your Facebook page, or sends you a private message, always try to respond. Always thank anyone who shares your content. People will not continue to interact with someone who does not respond to them.

• It's not a clever idea to have your Twitter update your Facebook page (I often tweet several times an hour, especially if attending a Twitter party, and your friends will get sick of it). You can, instead, have your blog Facebook page update your Twitter.

• In the top right-hand corner of the Facebook screen, there's a star symbol. By clicking on this image, you can select to "use Facebook as..." your blog page, rather than your personal account. Use this mode to "like" pages with similar subject matter to yours. Comment on posts by these pages using your blog page, rather than your personal account. By interacting with people using your blog page, you can encourage people to take a look at your page.

• If someone else posts a link or status that is relevant to a blog post you have written, comment with a link, using your Facebook page rather than your personal account. You need to be careful about doing this - don't do it too often on the same pages, and don't post a link without a comment to go with it. That's just rude.

• Design a cover photo that shows what your blog is about. Consider having it in the same colours or using the same photos as on your blog, so as to keep things consistent.

• Think about who you are trying to attract to your blog, and aim your Facebook posts at that person. Save your other witty observations for your personal Facebook account.

• Depending on the type of images you post, consider setting your Instagram settings to post your pictures to your blog Facebook page rather than your personal one.

• Try to give your readers value for money. If everything you post on Facebook is exactly the same as your Twitter feed, there's no point in their following you on both. Post photos etc on Facebook that aren't on Twitter, and vice versa.

• When you post photos on your blog, consider posting that photo on Facebook later on, with a link to the post in the title. This will eventually give you a large photo album of (hopefully) good photos that people may want to look at, with links back to your blog.

• This one sounds a bit silly, but if you "like" a post on your blog page, from your personal page, your personal friends will see it. They'll be more likely, then, to come and look at your blog page to see what it is you've been liking! 

• It's also possible to link Klout to your blog Facebook page, rather than your personal one. This means Klout will be judging you based on your interactions on the blog, not personal interactions.

• This post by Joanne Dewberry has some very useful tips for using Facebook to promote your blog/business.

And of course, now that you've read this, I really think you should go and "like" my fan page on Facebook!

If you decide to try any of these tips, do come back and let me know how you get on.

Have you seen your blog traffic increase since setting up a Facebook page? Have you figured out a clever way to get more "likes" on your Facebook page? Have you written a similar post on your blog about using Facebook to promote your blog? Let me know in the comments!

Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic With Twitter

Here are some ways you can promote your blog using Twitter.

Twitter is an amazing way of using social media to increase interest in your blog and widen your audience.

This post is one of a series I am writing about blogging tips. There is also one about How to write an amazing blog post, and one about how to promote your blog using Facebook.

• Twitter is your best friend when it comes to promoting your blog. Most of my blog traffic these days comes from Twitter.

• Don't only tweet links to your blog - nobody wants to read or interact with that. Try to tweet interesting, useful content, to ask questions and to engage with others.

• Follow other people who post about similar things. You can find them by searching for key words. For example, my blog is about being a single mother, so I searched "single mother" and found people to follow.

• Follow Brit Mums, Tots100, Bloggers Bunch and any other accounts which are relevant to the content of your blog. You're not following them just to get them to RT (re-tweet) your stuff to their followers; you want to interact with them, and read the posts they tweet; a great way of meeting like-minded people.

• Follow, follow, follow; interact, interact, interact. On Twitter, you can follow anyone whose account isn't private, and you can reply to their tweets. It doesn't matter if you don't know them, or you've never spoken to them before. If they tweet a question about something, and you have information/advice/an opinion that is relevant, then respond. This is the beauty of Twitter.

• Use hashtags. Not just random ones like #IDontKnowWhyIBother or something, but key words that are relevant to what you're posting. Just recently I wrote a post about Clare's Law, and used hashtags such as #domesticabuse and #dv in my tweets. This meant that anyone with an interest in those topics would be more likely to see my post. That week, my blog got twice as many hits as the rest of the month.

• Don't be afraid to tweet your links to relevant people or organisations - but only if it's relevant! With my Clare's Law post, I sent it to domestic violence charities and asked them to RT it if they felt it was useful. 

• If you don't have the time or inclination to be on Twitter all day (apparently those people do exist), you can set up scheduled tweets using something like Future Tweets to promote your posts while you're out having a life - or watching box sets. 

• It's all very well following celebrities and seeing their photos of their cats, but don't expect much interaction with them. They get hundreds, perhaps thousands of replies to each tweet they send, so yours is likely to be lost in the crowd. You're better off following people who have similar interests to you, have a blog you read, or you know personally.

• Join in Twitter parties. If you're a parent blogger, there's #pbloggers on a Sunday evening. I live in Salisbury, so I often join in #SalisburyHour on a Wednesday evening. There's also #babyhour, #buybritishbrands and hundreds more. Tots100 and Brit Mums often have their own, one-off Twitter parties. Tots 100 have #WillyNilly on a Friday, where you tweet them any post you've done this week using that hashtag, and they'll RT it to their followers. I also set up #ArchiveDay on a Saturday, where bloggers tweet a link to an old post from their blog with the tag, and then RT others. This can be a great way of getting your content seen by others, but also of finding new blogs to read.

• Don't be afraid to ask your followers to RT your links. Not every single link you post; that's just rude. But every now and then, if you have a link you think might be helpful to a wider audience, ask them. It can't hurt! Do always thank people for RTing your tweets though - be polite!

• Twitter is a great way to get blog traffic, and  great way to boost your Klout score, but don't use it just for that. If you're only using Twitter for those reasons, it will be obvious and people won't want to interact with you. It's much better to use Twitter as a place to meet like-minded people, and post your links there etc as a secondary use.

Do you have any other tips for using Twitter to promote your blog? Are there any on this list that you've used that did or didn't work? Do you prefer to use a different social media to promote your blog? Let me know in the comments!

How to Write an Amazing Blog Post.

A few people have asked me questions about blogging and blog posts lately, so I thought I'd publish some posts about what I've found that has worked for me. First up is how to write a great blog post.

Other posts in this series are about how to promote your blog using Facebook and Twitter.

This is by no means an exhaustive list; it's just a list of the things I've found that have helped me.

Posts:

• Pick an awesome title. Think of what would grab your attention if you were flicking through links on the internet; what would make you stop and read?

• Think about what makes you read a blog post or article. Once you've written your post, try to look at it from a stranger's perspective, and judge whether you would find it appealing. 

• Try to break the text up as much as possible. Use shorter paragraphs, and consider using bold headings. Think reading the Sun rather than the Times here. People reading articles on the internet often have other pulls on their attention (kids, TV, radio, people, work), and if they keep losing their place while reading, eventually they'll give up.

• Lists are always handy - an easy way to get information across, and easy to read without losing your place.

• Pay attention to spelling, punctuation and grammar. The person reading your post doesn't know you; they don't know how you usually speak or construct a sentence. There are so many blogs out there with good content but poor punctuation and grammar. If you don't use punctuation properly, your message can be lost. If you aren't very good at these things, consider getting someone to proof read it for you. 

• If you are referring to an old blog post, or another site, always link to it. Don't leave your readers thinking "well what's s/he on about here?" Use the opportunity to show off your other great posts!

• Don't ever use acronyms without explaining what they mean the first time you use them. Even if you think it's common knowledge and everyone should know it, you can guarantee there's at least one person out there who doesn't know it. For example, in a post about tax you would put "HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) provide your employer with a tax code; if you believe this to be incorrect, you must speak to HMRC and ask them to amend it." 

• Don't waffle to fill space. If your post is short, it really doesn't matter so long as you get your point across.

• If another person's post has inspired you to write your own, that's fine; put a link to their post at the top of yours and say "this post over here inspired me to write..." Don't just steal a person's idea though. That's not very polite, and nobody will thank you for it.

• I always find it useful to preview my post before publishing it. Doing this helps me to check that the post looks good and like something I'd like to read.

• Stay on-topic. If you've decided to write a post about breastfeeding, don't go off on a tangent to discuss why you don't formula feed or when you're planning to wean. Put those into their own posts.

• Similarly, if you have a lot to say consider splitting it out into a series of posts - like I did with my Birth Story, and the posts I wrote about my breakdown. You can put a link at the bottom of each post to point to the next one.

• Try to maintain a certain amount of uniformity. Think about the font you use, whether you justify your text or have it centred etc. This will make your blog look nice, but will also mean your blog posts are instantly recognisable as yours.

Photos:

• Photos are always useful. They break up the text, and tend to pull a visitor in. Also if there's a photo on your post, you and your readers can use it to pin to a Pinterest board, where more people will see it.

• Don't steal photos. If you're going to use someone else's image, credit them for it. 

• You can use programs like Picasa, or sites like PicMonkey and Fotor to edit your pictures, crop them and group several into one file. You can also put a caption, watermark or link onto them if you wish.

• Don't post your photo without at least cropping it. A photo that has been cropped and edited slightly looks more professional than something you just snapped quickly with your camera phone.

• You really can just use the camera on your phone.You don't need some fancy singing-and-dancing contraption. Every photo I've posted on this blog was taken on my phone. And my phone is monumentally crap.

• Make use of Alt Tags. If you don't know what an Alt Tag is... well I can't really explain terribly well. But basically, if you use the "properties" tab on a photo in Blogger (sorry, I've no idea for Wordpress but it's bound to be there somewhere), there are two boxes into which you can type a description of your photo. This makes your photos more searchable on Google Images. And if someone finds a cool photo you've posted, they might stick around and read your blog.

So, there you have my tips for how to write a great blog post. Do you have anything to add? Have you tried anything on this list that did or didn't work for you? If you disagree with anything I've written, or you have your own tips to add, please do comment!

Toys That Are Not Toys

This post is all about how children don't need fancy, plastic, singing and dancing toys from the shops. Some of S's favourite toys are things most of us would throw away...

Empty Boxes and Bags:

You know that old joke that you can buy a toy for a child, and they'll have more fun playing with the box it came in? That fun is not limited to the packaging for toys.

Drinks Bottles

In this post I wrote about two empty bottles I'd filled with various things. We started with a couple of bottles filled with coloured water; now we have bottles with shiny craft materials, bottles with jelly and glitter, bottles with cous cous. The cous cous is a big hit; every single day S will sit and shake it for a good ten minutes, transferring it from hand to hand, looking at me to see how impressed I am by the noise she's making.

Remote Controls

S loves buttons. And things she's not allowed. Imagine the excitement when she gets her hands on a remote control!! Suddenly the TV is turned up very loud, we're watching a channel I didn't know existed, and the stereo is playing BBC Asia! (if I'm feeling awake and with it, I'll take one of the batteries out of the remote and just let her play with it for a little while)

Kitchen Utensils

In the end, I admitted defeat, drew a smiley face on one of my wooden spoons and gave it to S. It doesn't even go near the kitchen any more. The same with the posh pastry brush with blue silicone fronds. There are also spoons lurking on the play mats somewhere. For while she had commandeered a fish slice, but I needed it for my dinner the other day so I stole it back.

Random Stuff

Anything that is not supposed to be a baby toy, is instantly interesting and fun to play with. Baby wipe packets are a big favourite, because of the noise they make. We also like plastic cups, because you can scrunch them. I have also finally found a use for the rock samples that came with my science OU module - S will sit and play with them!

And so, in conclusion, it is safe to say that my child is easily pleased, and I wasted money on Christmas this year!


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Ten Ways to Save Money

1. Do you use liquid soap? I don’t know about you, but every time I wash my hands with liquid soap, half of what I’ve pumped out of the bottle goes down the drain. Next time you buy a new bottle, pour half of it into the old (empty) bottle, and top both up with water. It still works as soap, it still smells nice, it’s exactly the same – but there’s twice as much soap. You can do the same with washing up liquid, and probably shower gel, bubble bath too.
2. Dilute your fabric softener with white (distilled) vinegar. It works just as well, and the vinegar is apparently very good for your machine. Never use fabric softener for washing nappies, towels, or basically anything that needs to be absorbent; just use vinegar on its own. And no, your clothes won’t come out stinking of a fish and chip shop.
3. Don’t throw away flat cola; put it down the loo instead. Left overnight, it can clean your toilet bowl up nicely.
4. This one has a bit of an initial outlay, but I’ve found it pretty handy in the long term. Stock up on non-perishables when they are on 3 for 2 or BOGOF offers in the supermarkets, and only re-stock when they are on offer again. Most of the supermarkets rotate their offers between brands, so you can get 5 cans of Heinz soups for a reduced price one week, 5 of Campbell’s the following week, and so on. If you have the space, you can do this with washing powder, nappies, toilet roll… basically anything. When I find something that I use regularly is on offer, I buy as many as I can afford and stash them in the cupboard. When you first start doing this, you can just add a couple of extra things to your shopping basket each week/month. Longer term, because you don’t need to buy toilet roll or nappies or whatever this week (because they’re stockpiled at home) you can afford to take advantage of another offer!
5. Sign up for every single reward card you can get your hands on! It can be a pain to carry them all around with you and fumble for them at the till, but if you use them religiously every time you shop, and make use of the coupons etc they send you, you can save a lot of money. My favourite ones to use are Boots (best value, and tons of double points events), Tesco (they’ve started doing promotions where you can cash in your vouchers for double the usual amount), Nectar (you can collect them bloody anywhere) and Holland & Barrett (because I use a lot of supplements, and shop in there any way, and once a quarter they send me a code to use at the till for money off my purchases – no need to worry about losing coupons!) Also, sign up for baby clubs, family clubs, wine clubs etc with these shops. Boots give 10 points per pound spent on baby products, and if you join their contact lens scheme you get money off all Boots products. N.B. sign up for reward cards, but not store cards; these are the work of the devil, with horribly high interest rates.
6. If there’s a brand you particularly like, “like” them on Facebook, and visit their website whenever you think of it. In the last couple of months I’ve had coupons for free baby fromage frais, free baby food pouches, money off Tropicana and Soreen, a free tooth brush, free tea bags, free coffee…
7. Whenever you have a product that breaks, doesn’t taste right, leaks or generally doesn’t perform as you expected, email the company and complain! British people are terribly polite and don’t like to cause a fuss, but at the end of the day, you spent your money on that, and it turned out to be a bit pants. The companies want to keep you happy, and will usually send you vouchers or something to compensate for your inconvenience. When I bought a certain brand of nappies for S and they leaked badly I emailed them and they sent me vouchers that could be used across their whole range of brands – so I used them to buy some toilet roll for the stock pile cupboard!
8. Become a great big geek! Anyone who knows me well, will know I love a good spreadsheet. I keep a weekly track of how much gas and electricity I use, and then compete with myself to see if I can get the amount I’ve spent down a little each week. I have a prepay meter for both, so each time I top up I make a note of how much credit is left on the meter from last week. I also keep a “cash flow” spreadsheet to keep a track on my bank account and make sure I don’t go overdrawn. I love it. And I feel like I’ve just admitted something terribly embarrassing!
9. Sign up for everything! Most companies want to send you weekly/monthly/quarterly emails with random gumpf about their brand; they’re mostly rubbish, but sometimes they will also send you vouchers, coupons, discount codes and even chances to test new products (free samples!). Avoid having your email account filled with spam by setting up a new account especially for this sort of thing, and just check it every now and then to see what’s come in.
10. This one is really boring. Open your bills and statements, and read them. Check whether you are going over your minutes or texts on your mobile, or perhaps you’re not even using close to your allowance and could stand to cut your contract. Check there’s not random amounts of money disappearing from your bank or credit card account each month. If you’ve made calls from the landline, would it have been cheaper to call from your mobile, and vice versa? 0845 numbers are expensive to call from your mobile, and usually cheaper from the landline, and some companies have a system where you can pay a small fee for a month and get calls to these sorts of numbers significantly cheaper – worth knowing about if you get that sinking feeling you’re going to be on the phone sorting out something complicated and time-consuming!

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Why I Love White Vinegar: 10 Clever Uses

Anyone who has been in my kitchen recently will have noticed the growing crowd of empty vinegar bottles waiting to be taken out for recycling. I go through this stuff like nobody's business; I love it. And it's only about 50p for half a litre, which is a lot cheaper than many of the things you can substitute it for! Here are ten ways you can use white vinegar around the house:

1. Use instead of fabric softener: it will make nappies and towels fluffier and more absorbent. If you still want to use fabric softener you can mix it half-and-half. The softener will still leave your clothes smelling nice, but a bottle will last twice as long. The vinegar is also really good for cleaning away limescale build-up inside your machine.
2. Boil in the kettle: I live in an area with very "hard" water, so my kettle is forever getting fuzzed up, and my cups of coffee end up with bits of floating limescale in them. Not good. Boiling some white vinegar in the kettle, and then cleaning it thoroughly (nobody wants vinegar-flavoured coffee) will remove the limescale and allow your kettle to live for longer.
3. General cleaning: you know all those expensive cleaning products you can buy for your kitchen, bathroom, floor, whatever else? They're nice colours and smell of pine or lemon and make you feel like everything is clean... Next time one of them runs out, re-fill it with half water, half white vinegar. It works just as well, costs less, and involves spraying fewer random chemicals around your house. If you would rather have the lemony-fresh smell, add a few drops of essential oil to the mixture.
4. Windows and mirrors: window cleaning products are a great big con. Have you ever seen a professional window cleaner using any of these brands? No? Me either. Get the bottle you made for point 3 above, and spray it onto the window/mirror. If it's really dirty, remove the worst of the dirt first with some washing up liquid (seriously, what are you doing to your windows, though!). Buff the glass with a page of old newspaper (the only good reason to buy the Daily Mail, if you ask me), and you will find you have the cleanest, shiniest windows the world has ever seen. Probably.
5. Stinky, slow-draining sinks: pour a cup of bicarbonate of soda into the offending drain, and follow with a cup of white vinegar. It will fizz up out of the plug hole in a most gratifying fashion. Leave it half an hour, and then pour some hot water down to rinse it through. This will get rid of most of the built-up gunk that makes its home in a drain, and make your sink smell much better. 
6. Draining boards: my draining board always gets scaled up and dirty, because I'm so lazy about drying up. On the rare occasion the draining board is clear of wet crockery, I mix bicarbonate of soda with white vinegar (more fizzing! What fun!) and pour it over the offending area. Left for a few minutes, it will usually loosen the scale, and you can just wipe it down!
7. Ovens: next time you use the oven, wait for it to cool down a little, and while it's still warm, run a vinegar-soaked cloth around in there. Magic. If the oven is really grimy, you can loosen the muck by putting a bowl of water and lemon juice in the oven and heating it until it boils almost dry, and then use the vinegar.
8. Microwaves: please tell me I'm not the only person with a magical capability to explode everything that goes into the microwave! Seriously, sometimes it's like a science experiment in there. Every now and then I fill a bowl with white vinegar and microwave for a couple of minutes until it's bubbling, and then leave it in there (door closed) to cool down. The steam from it loosens the gunk, and then you just wipe it out.
9. Bathrooms: you can use white vinegar to clean most parts of your bathroom. Limescale in the loo? leave it to soak with white vinegar. Streaky tiles? Wipe with white vinegar. Fuzzed up shower head? Take it off and leave it to soak in some white vinegar mixed with bicarbonate of soda. 
10. Air freshener: I don't like to have smelly rooms, but I also don't much like the smell of those chemical-laden synthetic sprays and plug-ins you can get. With rooms that aren't in daily use, they often just smell a bit stale from the air not circulating. A couple of bowls of vinegar left in the corners of the room for a few hours usually make it smell better (but not like a fish and chip shop, weirdly).

Now, off you go to the shops and buy some white vinegar! You know you want to!

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