Useful Link(s) that I have found for the school holidays

 Not sure what to do with the children during the school holidays?

I have found these useful link(s) on line when I was writing about Healthy Start Card/vouchers and how to claim them.

Please see link(s) below.

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/activities/indoor-activities-for-kids/

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/healthier-lunchboxes/

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/food-facts/sugar-calculator/

https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/

No More Healthy Start Card/Vouchers

 16th February 2023

Now that my youngest is four I am no longer allowed to claim Healthy Start Card/Vouchers.

Part of me would have loved the Government to still be helping me to support my children and myself in buying milk and fresh milk every month.

So now it is up to me to continue to do this for my children myself.

One thing that I can not understand is why the UK government can not help all children in the UK up until the age of 5 and give every house hold Healthy Start Card/Vouchers.

So all I can do is share the link(s) to Healthy Start Card/Vouchers and it is up to you to see if you can claim and if you I would recommend that you do so.

https://www.gov.uk/healthy-start

https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/

https://www.mygov.scot/best-start-grant-best-start-foods

https://www.nhs.uk/start4life

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/

Time to re budget again in 2023.

 Time to re budget again in 2023.

February 15th 2023

Next week will be Pancake Day and the Lent.

So I am using the rest of this week to re budget for the the next 40 Days and 40 Nights so that I can afford my sons Birthday Party.

With the cost of living going up I am trying to plan for the future and the one thing that I would like to do this year is to

 Raise money for my chosen charity.

Plan my sons Birthday

Celebrate my 40th

Go to the beach.

Keep food on the table

Keep my bills paid 

Stay homed

Stay out of debt

Finish my book.

What are your plans?

Who will achieve them?

I will start by re budgeting.

Making The Friends of Whittleford Park a small charity constitution again,

  Making The Friends of Whittleford Park a small charity constitution again,

Good evening thank you to everyone who helped out with the park clean up this morning.

I had a meeting with CAVA who are happy to help us set up The Friends of Whittleford Park again.

To make The Friends of Whittleford Park a small charity constitution again, I am looking for people who would be interested in filling the following positions.

A Chair

A Treasure

A Secretary

Anyone interested in applying or wanting to know more could you please PM me thank you.

Nature Trail Walks

Planning for the future or living for the now? Healthy Start information

 

February 2021 Re posted with edits 08/08/2022

Over the next couple of weeks I am looking at different ways to shop for the food that I need for my family and loved ones. At the moment I still get help due to Covid 19 and my children being homed schooled due to being on benefits. I also still Claim Health Start vouchers.

Again I keep saying that this is wrong and that the government should allow very parent in the UK to claim Healthy start vouchers for their children up until the age of 4. After all these vouchers are for your child and to help support and promote healthy eating.

Down falls of Healthy Start Vouchers now that they are a card from 2022.

Not being able to be used on line and only in person.

Only a selected number of places will take these vouches., card from 2022.

You can also only use them on selected items still so do not cater for vegans or vegetarian milk options.

You can get the money from an ATM or pay in store using chip and pin.

Not every child is entitled to them.

For pregnant mother and children under 4 but not every women and child due to government guidelines.

All of the full detail of how to claim and what you can use them for are in the link below.

www.healthystart.nhs.uk

So what about those of use who are still shopping on line because of Covid 19 and using online shopping as a new way to still shop?

Over the past 5 years I have used shops that I know and trust. But last year I have to think outside that box because these could not deliver.

This year I am doing the same and looking at different places to but fresh organic food locally for my family.

Yes I get healthy start voucher what works out at about £30.00 per month off my major shop, but I will only get these for any other few months. So I am looking at were these I can shop and try and save money now.

If you look online you can find information and I have include the links below.

However I find that shopping your self is the best way to find what works for you.

Useful link(s)

Best veg boxes 2020: Get fresh produce delivered straight to your door | The Independent

18 Best Food Subscription Boxes | London Evening Standard | Evening Standard

Food face by Miss K L Slomczynski

October 2021 Nest Egg Ideas, should I have for the future?

 October 2021 Nest Egg Ideas, should I have for the future?

This is a question at I often ask me self and one that every month I try to think about.

You can not go a day without hearing something about saving and investments.

Most of the time adverts are about death and life after death, for your family and loved ones.

They are about planning for your referment and also your funeral.

For me personal may saving and investment adverts never seam to be about the now.

When Covid 19 hit everyone was effect in one way or another.

In many ways those with saving and investments that could not be easy accessed or liquidated into cash I believe struggled the most.

It was these people who may have had to have made the decision about keeping their savings and investments and not looking at claiming government aid or seeing if they could "cash out" so they could.

This was due to the basic rule that if you had savings/investments over £6,000 you could not claim benefits from the government during lock down.

What a believe is that a lot of people forget about the now!

Yes in the past I did look at the future, I looked a ISA's, Help to buy my first home property schemes, yet they all seamed to have a lot of red tape wrapped around them.

So for me they where like the perfect Christmas gift, but it was like playing the "Chocolate game to get it"

Now the chocolate game for those who do not know what it is is this.

You have a block of chocolate wrapped up on a table.

To get to it you need to roll a six on a die.

You them need to put on a hat

Put on a scarf

Put on a pair of gloves

You them must run/walk over to the table that is about 3 feet away froj you.

You then must use the knife and folk to open the warped up chocolate with.

In the mean time everyone else's who is playing the game, can take it in turns to roll a six on the die too.

If they roll a six you must hand over every thing to them so that they can try to open the chocolate , you have to go back and start all over again.

Once the cholate is opened you are only allowed to eat one piece at a time, in full.

I have played this game may times ion my childhood, the winner is the one who gets to eat the last piece of chocolate and they won a full bar.

So in many ways it paid to not get a six and to let everyone else do all of the hard work for you.

Another game was a flour hill with a chocolate on top.  For this one you had to make sure that the chocolate ever fell, if it did you have to eat it.  So a bit like life, being a house of cards so to speak.

So one thing that I posted "gear change." was making sure that before anything else's that maybe you look at your budget first.

I try to do this once a month, and then if you have time look at how to save money, cut bill costs, spending costs and then maybe savings and investments.

One website that I do use and have found to be helpful is I have listed below along with some others.

https://www.gov.uk/

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/Migrated_Documents/adviceguide/d-budget-sheet.pdf

Good luck.

September 2021 What Now?

 What will the rest of 2021 have in store for everyone?

With Covid still on the rise, was have a vaccine really just a smoke screen when the elephant was still in the room? 

Money.

Just like with any war that effect human life and the economy, it goes to think that every country had its onw figure on the cost of human life.  how may could each country afford to let die, how much money could they afford to lose and then make once the cost of a human life was met??

Now I live in the UK so I can only really speak about what was ultimately lost and achieved over the last two years and most of this from my own personal experience and what I have seen and heard.

So I ask myself why?

What have we learned?

What have we gained?

What have we achieved?

I believe that the answers to these questions are [personal ones that we can only ask and answer yourselves.

For me not much changed over this time frame to date and I guess the one thing that I learned it that things I not likely to in the near future either.

Yet this experience would have been different for everyone om a personal level and how we take on board what we may or may not have learned will determine the future,

So for me, my plant for the rest of this year is to live and live each day like it could be my last.

To say I Love You  and try not to end the day on an argument.

Also if possible to try and save a at lest 3 months rent just in case we have another  lockdown.

Saint George's Day 2020: The Story of Saint George