Last week before Christmas!

This weekend the kids and I had lots of fun making our own Christmas cards. I got them to choose their favourite photos of our adventures throughout the year and we used them to make our cards.
This was a great activity we could all do together and the family love receiving these personalised cards every year!

With that in mind I remembered an article I had seen in The Guardian, by Jill Papworth that offered some tips for the Christmas period for being a bit more frugal.

Here are my favourites:

Toys
Many of the collectable toys that kids crave like Lego, Sylvanian Families and Playmobil, for example – cost a lot to buy new. So think second-hand. The easy, though not necessarily cheapest option is to hit ebay.co.uk. Charity shops and second-hand toy stalls at school and church bazaars are also worth a look.

The best lights and decorations
Use nature’s bounty to decorate your home. Take the family on a foraging walk in your nearest forest, park or riverbank and see what you can pick up for free. Fallen branches, logs, pine cones, ivy, holly, pebbles and seed heads can be used alone or combined with cheap spray snow, glitter and paints plus ribbons and low-cost strings of lights to make effective decorative displays.

Wrapping paper
Borrow the tips of The Guardian’s consumer affairs correspondent Rebecca Smithers who each day collects and keeps the Guardian’s centre photo spread to use as Christmas wrapping combined with bits of coloured string, ribbons and beads she also squirrels away throughout the year. Straight newsprint or plain brown paper can also be dressed up as effective gift-wrap.

Money Saving Tips

Buy fill-your-own cracker kits from the Oxfam Ethical Collection, available in stores and online at oxfam.org.uk and you’ll also be contributing towards the charity’s work. The kit has six cases, snaps, hats and jokes ready for you to add a small gift. Or go really retro and help the kids start from scratch with loo rolls, paper and crayons. Write your own jokes, make your own paper hats and shout, “Bang!” when you pull them.

Why recycle mobile phones?

Here is another guest blog from Monika, Environment Specialist at IKEA Coventry:

This week I decided to recycle my old mobile phone and now I realise what a great idea it is so I wanted to share why you should too:

1. Reduce waste and prevent the harmful substances, cadmium, lead and beryllium from leaking into the environment. Cadmium in the battery from a single old phone could contaminate 600,000 litres of water, enough to fill quarter of an Olympic size swimming pool!
2. Reduce the usage of raw materials when manufacturing new phones – some components of your old mobile can be re-used.
3. Some companies will pay you in exchange for your old model.

My favourite way to recycle old mobile phones is using the Recycling Appeal service, which collects mobile phones and printer cartridges to raise money for charity. Not only are you helping the environment, you are also supporting your chosen charity!

Since IKEA works in partnership with Save the Children, I have chosen to support this charity when I recycling my mobile. You can join IKEA in supporting Save the Children, or chose another charity that participates in Recycling Appeal. For a full list, go to: http://www.recyclingappeal.com

Money saving tip

Don’t keep your old phone at the bottom of your drawer! There are many ways you can recycle your unwanted phone. Companies such as Envirofone, Fonebank will send a freepost envelope so it won’t cost you a penny.  Your favourite charity will often have its own system for collection too. For a list of the main mobile phone recyclers go to: http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/mobiles.html

We have guests…

Hi, my name is Monika Bzowy and I’m an Environment Specialist at IKEA Coventry, where I have been working for nearly two years.

I enjoy my job and the challenges it brings being an eco co-ordinator in a big store! My biggest achievement so far has been helping the store reach it’s target of over 90% waste recycling and energy recovery..

Recently I have been working on the Textiles for Schools Project. I find that many schools struggle to get resources for their projects and therefore have to limit the scale of the assignments. When I speak to the teachers, they always say it is a real shame when they have very artistic pupils but have to limit their creativity, as they have no money for the materials.

We are able to help them out with ex-display textiles from IKEA. There are all sorts of fabrics that can be useful including end of sale sofa covers, curtains and loose fabrics from the textiles department. Students use them for creating new products like textile recycling bags or to design clothes.

Money saving tip

Why not have fun with your kids by using old materials you find around the house? You can design a cool personalised bag, so next time you go shopping you don’t use disposable plastic bags in the supermarket. This not only saves you money as you don’t have to pay for a big plastic bag, but also the environment!

A bag designed by pupils in one of the Coventry schools.

Fertilizers with a twist

All coffee served and sold by IKEA is UTZ certified. This means that it is fair trade and organic giving a fair deal for the coffee farmers.

Did you know that we brew millions of cups of coffee and tea each day? This means millions of pounds of wet grounds, filters and bags are just thrown into the bin. This is such a waste as so much of it can be used as a great fertilizer for your garden.

At the IKEA store in Milton Keynes they are addressing this by collecting the coffee grounds from our restaurant and donating them to the local allotment association. Another small way that IKEA is helping the environment!

Money saving tip
Did you know that coffee by-products can be used in your garden?

• Sprinkle used grounds around plants and the nitrogen, which is slowly released, acts as a great fertilizer for them.
• Coffee filters and tea bags break down rapidly during composting so they are great for compost heaps <http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/Planet/compost.htm
• Dilute coffee with water for a gentle, fast-acting liquid fertilizer. Just add half a pound of wet grounds to a five-gallon bucket of water, let it sit outdoors to achieve the right temperature.
• Mix with soil for houseplants or new vegetable beds <http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/Body/garden.htm> .
• Surround the base of your plants with a coffee and eggshell barrier to repel pests.

Summer fun

I’m afraid I don’t really get all the excitement about football. Maybe I’m missing some vital part of my DNA?! So unlike most of the country, I am not going to be glued to the telly this summer.  For me summer is all about going out and doing other stuff which doesn’t involve the ‘beautiful game’!

Last weekend we went to the Wychwood music festival, a family event with loads of entertainment that catered for everyone. I went with my brother, Grandma and the children. We all had a brilliant time!

The total price for the kids and I was £130, which I thought was great value for three days worth of entertainment and seeing more than 20 bands and artists.

This weekend I’m off with the scouts, which is an even cheaper activity but also great fun! Outdoor canoeing, campfires, games (I might even kick a football!) and all for £12 a head. This weekend is a real bargain for the fun we will have. It’s great to see that scouting is seeing something of a revival in the UK with more and more people wanting to get out into nature.

Why don’t you check out your local cub and scout troop by visiting their website:  http://bit.ly/9WXrYo

Money saving Tip

Make the most of the brilliant activities on offer this summer. Early bird tickets for events can be 30% cheaper than the buy on the day price. Plan ahead and budget so that you can save up for those more expensive activities with the family. One day events are even better value and some local festivals are free!

Are you the new gravy train?

I had a very interesting meeting with my boss Anna last week and we talked about the latest British trends.

I tend to be a bit sceptical about some of the trends that I see in the media but some ideas really do resonate. A trendy phrase is “Scratch Cooking” This is when you cook from scratch and prepare the food yourself. It’s cheaper and better than pre processed food and it tastes better too! Anna also told me of a new market survey that suggests that for the first time in years families are eating together and cooking at home. The slogan being “Eating in is the new eating out” This would appear to signal a return to the frugality and careful spending of days gone by. People are beginning to realise that spending quality time with family is more important than eating out and spending money!

This return to older values seems like a pretty smart idea to me. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that people are beginning to look at what they actually need and buying what is necessary rather than just because they want something. It is important to remember that some of the simplest but best things in life are free: preparing food together, conversation with friends, laughter at Dad’s bad jokes!

Are you aboard this particular gravy train? By the way could you pass it along … I’m partial to a bit of gravy myself!

Money Saving Tip – The average British household creates 1.74 kg of waste every day. These food scraps and peelings – everything from egg shells to tea bags can be turned into lovely compost, which can be dug straight into your garden and can in turn reduce 40 per cent of all refuse going to landfill.