Shopping and cooking on a budget..

We all know the score. Organic, free range food is super expensive. While I would love to feed Henry fresh, homemade food all the time, it's just not feasible. I have around £35 a week to do our shopping on. That's got to include breakfast things, lunches for all 3 of us, dinners, drinks, bread, milk and any essentials we need. I can do it, it just takes planning and preparation. Hopefully I can pass on some tips to make it easier for you if you're struggling.

I usually go for jarred sauces. They might be high in salt and sugar but realistically, how much is your baby actually going to eat? However, if it's things like chilli con carne or spaghetti bolognese, I do try to make these sauces from scratch. I have a fairly decent spice collection and tinned tomatoes are around 30p. I do recommend stocking up on spices and tinned tomatoes and puree because these always come in handy. And you can add them to the jarred sauces to make them taste a bit nicer.

Go with a list! I make a list while I'm shopping. I write down each meal and what we're going to have with it. That way, I don't veer off course and buy a stupid amount of things that I'll probably never use and will be a waste of money.
I also stick to things I know we all like. Henry can be a bit fussy with his eating, especially when he's teething so as long as I know I've given him something he likes, I hope he'll try it.

Shop online! Every supermarket will put deals or offers on the ends of the aisles so you'll buy rubbish on your way round and spend more then you intended to. You will have to pay for delivery but you'll spend a lot more then if you went into store. Also the good thing about shopping online is that it usually tells you things you usually buy..so if you've forgotten something, it'll remind you.

Don't be afraid to buy frozen ingredients. I always have a bag of frozen diced onions and sliced peppers in mine. It saves waste. Frozen vegetables are good too, I usually buy the Birds Eye steam packs. Frozen are just as good as fresh, especially if they've been frozen straight from picking.

That's all the tips I can think of for now. I hope I've helped you just a little bit. The money we save on shopping is used for nice days out as a family, it's a much nicer way to spend our money!

Who has time for negativity?

We all have them. The people who are intent on putting us down, criticising everything we do and just generally not happy for us. I have one. I won't write too much about them because they don't deserve my writing space. But this person is just intent on trying to make me miserable. Trying to push my buttons so they can have an argument. They even stooped so low as to criticise and challenge my parenting skills, to the point of threatening social services.
I'm not going to lie to you, the first time they did this, I was upset. Not by what they were saying but more that they had the front and audacity to say those things. How dare they? Especially when they've never met Henry nor seen how I parent him. It carried on for a couple of months and with the last interaction, I'd had enough and had to get the police involved because it was turning into harassment.

But once the dust had settled, I stopped and thought about it all. As a busy mother, I don't have time for people like this. I would rather spend my time playing with my son and enjoying his childhood, instead of wasting it on petty arguments with people.
I want mine and my family's life to be filled with positive people, unicorns and glitter! My life is a much happier and calmer place now I've gotten rid of that negativity. I want to set a good example to Henry and any future children I have. I want to teach them not to even entertain negative people or get sucked into their games! (that's another reason I'm considering home schooling but that's a different post altogether!).

If we all get rid of negative people, they can't feed off our misery and hopefully, they'll get bored and give up!