10 Mummy Budgeting tips all mummies need

For every stay at home mum, business mum, part time working mum, older mum or young mum money is an issue when you have a little one.

Here are easy tips that can make a difference to your budget with minimal effort: (even if you only do one or two)

1. Give yourself an allowance. – Don’t bury your head in the sand work out exactly what money you have and give yourself a strict allowance of what is spare each week. As far as you can stick to it. This will make a HUGE difference to stopping debt.

2. Lose the luxuries – If money is tight don’t meet friends for coffees or just grab a sandwich and juice after the park. Lunch and 2 coffees each week can add up to a conservative £400! In a year and for a tiny bit of effort making up a flask and a sarnie that is a bit silly!

3. Check your utilities. Don’t put it off any longer.

Continue at How to Afford Time Off with Your Baby

How to Afford Time Off with Your Baby is written by Becky. She’s “Mum to Frankie 4 and Annalise 1 1/2 and surviving as a full time mum on a very restricted budget.” She is the author of How to Afford Time Off with Your Baby published by Vermilion and available on Amazon. “This blog is all about the tips and tricks and ways and wiles you need to afford time off with your babies. I hope you enjoy it!”

Toothless, they may be, but after several months of milk, your baby will be ready to try some solid food. Health care providers recommend exclusively breastfeeding for six months but many parents start weaning their babies onto solid foods before that time.

You’ll know when the time is right.

Is your baby:

• Able or almost able to sit up by themselves?
• Enthusiastically stuffing things into their mouth?
• Showing an interest in mealtimes and looking to see what everyone is doing round the dining table?

 Yes? Then your baby is probably ready to try some solid foods.

Continue reading at Really Rachel

Rachel’s blog is Really Rachel. She describes herself as “I am a freelance writer, typing quietly, whenever my young daughters are asleep. My company, ThoughtTrains.co.uk, is a writing service for anyone who is lost for words.”

Photo credit: Microsoft

New to TMM? Welcome! Read this to get started…

It’s a New Year – time to flush out the old and bring in the new! Ditch the habits and thought processes that don’t serve us any more and begin some new, more productive habits, so here are 10 ways to get on top and stay there this year!

1. Set goals.
The main way others can ‘steal’ our time or we can waste it is to drift along without a certain destination. If you have a clear idea about what you want to achieve this year – whether business or personal, you can make sure that you take the steps to make it happen! If you have focus about where you are headed, it’s less easy to be steered off track.

2. Inform your Mind.
Make sure that you are putting top quality information into your mind so that top quality thoughts and actions come out. Read widely, become well informed. If you are struggling to manage your time, get educated on the subject! There are lots of books out there on this subject but you can get a FREE e-book called “Get more done in less time” by downloading your copy at http://www.effexis.com

3. Automate your routine.

Continue reading at Time Management Mum

Time Management Mum is “a ‘hands on’ working mum of two; speaker, author and business owner who loves clothes, long lunches, the odd cappucino, shiny new toys and cheesecake! I also wear fantastic shoes!”

We purchased the Baby Jogger City Mini after having a travel system and wanting to have something lighter and less bulky and sufficient for an upcoming trip to the US. The Baby Jogger City Mini has more than exceeded our expectations and we are very happy with our “find”.

STRENGTHS: The Baby Jogger City Mini is very lightweight (7.6kg) and has an amazing, patented quick-fold technology which allows you to fold the pushchair with one had. The Baby Jogger City Mini adequately tackles urban and rural terrain with ease and has a decent sized shopping basket to allow for storage of purchases. The seat reclines virtually flat with an easy adjustable strap allowing for a number of recline angles. The seat also has a vented panel which allows for climate control and a weather panel which can keep your child protected yet properly ventilated. The Baby Jogger City Mini canopy hood is exceptionally good as it comes down quite far which protects from UV Rays yet has 2 viewing windows which allow you to see your child at all times. The handlebar is rounded and lightly padded which allows you to push with comfort.

WEAKNESSES: The harness of the Baby Jogger City Mini is extremely adequate and secure but the padding on the crotch strap wore out quite quickly…

Continue reading at Cafe Bebe

Karin is the author of Cafe Bebe and says of herself “I am a first-time, stay-at-home Mummy to an amazing Little Miss.  I have started this site and blog to share our trials, tribulations, good times and bad times.  I hope to bring some laughter to your day, make you nod your head in agreement and make you think (not too hard!).”

We’ve got a birthday in our house next week – thankfully we’re at the stage now where the party is the easiest thing in the world: a sleepover, video games and a dvd, pizza, maybe some ‘midnight feast’ snacks. But it wasn’t so long ago that we were having to come up with inventive ways of entertaining 20 or so kids for two hours. So here are my top tips for throwing the perfect child’s birthday party – please feel free to add your own!

1. Decide on a venue. House parties are easiest for little ones, but if you’re worried about the mess then your local school, sports centre or church hall can probably be hired out quite cheaply.

2. Choose a theme. Not so important when the kids are nursery/reception age, but after that a really good idea. Fancy dress, wizards and witches, Ben 10, Harry Potter, Hannah Montana – whatever your little darling and their friends are into.

3. You need some sort of entertainment…

Continue at Living With Kids

Living with Kids is a family blog from KidStart where Liz Jarvis shares stories, thoughts and expert tips, and tells you about the best family holidays, days out, offers and products for you and your kids. Liz says, “I’m a mum and freelance journalist who writes for some of the UK’s top parenting magazines and websites. My family is my whole world – but they can drive me crazy, too!”

So here we are on 1st January and, after helping the children with theirs yesterday, I’ve been thinking about what resolutions I’m making myself, especially about how I can nurture my family this year. Over at notimeforflashcards Allie has been rounding off an inspirational year with a review of her most popular posts from 2009, and in number one spot she’s sent out a call to ‘Let them play‘. This got me thinking that letting children play is really the most important thing we can do to nurture their learning. I believe children learn best by doing (not just watching or listening) and giving them the space to be creative and explore is vital. Filling their weeks with non-stop activities isn’t the way I want to spend 2010.

So, here are my suggestions for making 2010 the Year of Play in your home:

1. Make an enabling environment. If you can arrange the play space in your house so that your children can access toys independently it means they are able to be in charge of their own play and use their imagination. We have open shelving in our play-room, with toys sorted into baskets with photos on to show what’s inside. This means that if my daughter is playing with her toy dog and needs some wooden blocks to build a kennel she knows exactly where they are to include in her play.

2. Provide  open-ended resources

Continue reading at NurtureStore

The author of NurtureStore is Cathy: “I’m the mother of two girls aged 3 and 6… I’m passionate about developing children’s potential and believe children are happiest and learn best when they have freedom to be creative in their play. I think it’s important to give them opportunities to explore a full spectrum of learning – mind, body and spirit. This blog records the activities I do with the children in my care – babies, toddlers, preschoolers and school age children.”

Our ten month old baby is teething and it is a painful process for him and us! The teething process started at six months and could last until the age of three (yes – blimey!)

Every month he endures a painful bout of the common teething symptoms; biting, lack of appetite, red cheeks, extreme clinginess, high temperature, disturbed sleep and general crankiness, when even his most favoured toys hold no allure.

In ‘how to relieve baby’s teething pain’ Mindful Mum looks at the key teething signs, over the counter remedies and natural teething solutions at our disposal in the UK.

Continue reading at Mindful Mum

Mindful Mum is on a mission to raise awareness of toxic chemicals in UK baby products. The Mindful Mum website highlights safe alternatives free from BPA, Phthalates and PVC via product reviews, comparison tables and safe baby guides.

Here’s what I have learnt. You don’t just send a wee note to an agent, or a publisher, with your random thoughts on why they should invest in you and your idea. You need to spend time transforming those journal scribblings into a succinct business proposition. And there is a certain way to do it, a format to follow, definite dos and don’ts, tips to taken.

The first book that I bought to help me understand this a bit more, after doing a quick search online under “writing a book”, was the Writers’ and Artists Yearbook. It seems to be the thing to do; your first stop on this writing journey. I ordered it with excitement and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, to see what wonders it held. In a nutshell, it has short articles from various genres of established authors, contact details of agents, publishers along with general guidance and tips. Was is a good buy? Yes. Its a invaluable reference book containing information that would take you forever to try and source yourself, if at all.

First task. You need to create a ‘Proposal’ that outlines your idea in more detail which can then be submitted to agents or publishers. Although there are never hard fast rules it seems that if you are planning a non-fiction book then you should write your proposal to first check there is interest before spending time or money on research. I created mine in parallel with writing my first chapters, which worked for me.

So, where the hell do you start? What should it look like? How long should it be?

Continue at Scribbling Mum

Scribbling Mum says about herself: “In between being a domestic nightmare, a damn good wife and a mum to two gorgeous little girls I have found that I have an itch to write. But can normal people like me actually become proper writers? Like, give up the day job proper writer? Hmmm. And where the hell do you start?

Well, if you don’t try you’ll never know.”

Thought I would share this recipe as I’ve just made these tonight and they went down quite well.

Ingredients
500 g lamb mince
3 baking potatoes
Dijon mustard
Bread Rolls

This made two Little Legs size burgers and four adult size burgers. M ate three. No need.

Follow recipe at Carrot in Mum’s Hair

Carrot in Mum’s Hair is a lighter look at life, love, babies and food and sometimes the last two mixed together.

Photo credit

I hadn’t planned on potty training whilst on holiday. Particularly a holiday which involved three hotels, a rented house and numerous journeys on trains, buses, boats and cable cars. However, after successfully potty training Dickon earlier in the summer, he caught a nasty bout of swine flu and seemed to forget everything he’d learnt. By the time we left for our holiday, he was doing standing-up-wees in the loo again, but with frequent accidents, and refusing point blank to sit on a loo, even with a special seat. Added to this is his terror of hand driers and dislike of dirty loos, both of which makes it very hard to get him through the door of a public toilet. So, with a heavy heart, I decided to dig our ancient Tommy Tippee Potette (travel potty) out of the cupboard and add an extra bag to our mountain of luggage. So for the benefit of those who are planning a trip to Switzerland with a less than continent toddler, here is what I learnt:

1. Our old-school Potette has an alarming tendency to collapse without warning when it’s placed on a slightly uneven surface. Luckily Dickon is only alarmed by loud noises, not collapsing potties. I don’t know if the newer models are better, I hope so.

2. When you run out of the official Tommy Tippee Potette inserts, a small drawstring bin liner is just as good. Don’t try and do it on the cheap by nicking the fruit bags from the supermarket. You will find out too late that they have small holes in.

Continue at It’s a small world after all

It’s a small world after all is a family travel blog. “Stephen, Victoria, Eve, Edward and Dickon are planning to head off on a round the world trip in late 2010. Follow us as we prepare for our journey.”