It’s Halloween week, it’s half term for many of you, and there are so many fun things to do! I am going to try to post as many Halloween events, sales and activities as possible this week, starting with…

Halloween jack-o-lanterns! Yes, we got started a bit early this year and carved up our pumpkins over the weekend. Aren’t they scary?? Here are some helpful tips I posted up last year for your pumpkin carving project.

Now, I have it on the authority of my Abel & Cole newsletter that if you go post your jack-o-lantern snaps to their Facebook wall they’ll send you some chocolate. Here is a screenshot of my newsletter for proof, because I can’t find a mention of this on the site. But anyway, what have you got to lose?

For some reason lately I’ve actually been attracting money. I don’t know why and I reckon I’m jeopardising the streak by writing about it but I wanted to document it. I’m not an exceptionally lucky person so this is noteworthy and exciting. I keep thinking back to figure out if I’ve DONE anything to make this happen, but everything looks different retrospectively. And I’m really not convinced The Secret works anyway…

So here is where the money has been coming from over the past few weeks:

*I found a 50p coin and two 5p coins in different locations on the same day (don’t laugh, it does get better)

*Work-related bonuses (a client renewal and a couple of other bits and pieces)

*A significant and unexpected tax refund (and not the one I’ve been fighting for for nearly a year!)

*I’ve had higher than usual site income this month (mainly advertising)

*I won a  £10 Marks & Spencer voucher at a trade show

Places where the money is NOT coming from:

*My colleagues and I did not win the £113 million Euromillions despite buying 10 tickets (oh well)

With this crazy luck lately, I expect there is no reason why I can’t pay my bills off by the end of the year!

This weekend I taught DSD how to sew by hand and it was brilliant! I’ve tried to teach her to knit, which she likes but still struggles with a bit (she’s five and a half) and we’ve done some sewing projects on the machine that I let her help with (she presses the peddle but I admit that sometimes terrifies me!), but finally with hand-sewing she was able to do a project more or less on her own.

Sewing clothes for dolls and stuffed animals is a great way to start kids out. Our project, as you can see, was trousers for Bear (the top was the one he came with). They don’t really fit him properly as I just cut off a big square of fabric and didn’t do a lot of measuring but I don’t think that really matters – it was more about the activity than the result.

You don’t need to run out and buy fabric for this project – it’s a great way to use up your scraps or even bits of worn out clothes. DSD picked out the fabric from of my leftover quilt pieces that she determined were boy-appropriate (Bear is a boy). We picked a contrasting thread to make it easy to see the stitches and I helped her thread it on my biggest needle. Then I held the fabric tightly while she did the sewing, which made it easy to see where the next stitch would go. She caught on quickly and the level of dexterity needed for this was perfect for her. She tried big stitches and tiny close together stitches and zig-zags.

I highly recommend helping your kids learn to sew! It’s such a useful skill, it’s fun and it really doesn’t cost very much (if anything!) to do small projects like this.

I am not comfortable sharing too many personal details about my finances on this blog but I’m nearing a milestone and it is something I’d like to share: I’m about two months, maybe three, from paying off my final credit card bills. My entire working life I’ve been very good at retirement saving but horrible at savings of any other kind. In fact, I can’t remember anything I’ve actually saved up for since my first car (which, incidentally, cost less than my first month’s rent post-uni). Soon, I’ll be free of debt for the first time in more than a decade and I will have the opportunity/challenge of managing my savings.

My parents have the kind of retirement that seems impossible for my generation. They were teachers on modest salaries, but because of a commitment to saving and sensible spending (plus good market conditions, the fact that they stayed married and probably a certain amount of luck), they were able to retire a few years early and now average three serious holidays a year. Saving for retirement has been drilled into me for as long as I can remember and it’s about the only thing I’ve done right with my money.

I got into credit card debt by living just outside of my means and in expensive cities for years. I’ve never been very extravagant but I don’t say no to myself enough – and I like to travel. A lot. The idea of being completely free of this debt is amazing, but I suspect it takes just as much commitment to maintain as it does to lose. Rather than making a big transfer to Visa each month I can soon divert those funds in directions of my choosing. Will all that extra money make me feel like I can spend, spend, spend? How do I force myself into good habits?

I think the place to start is with goals. I set out to finish paying off my debt this year and that goal is now within reach. I’m not especially disciplined, but setting goals usually does help. So here goes:

• Contribute an additional £100 each month to my personal pension (I may already be doing enough, but why not avoid more taxes?)
• Establish an emergency fund of £3000.
• Create a travel fund to get ahead of our holidays. £1000 is probably fine here but it will need to be refreshed fairly often.
• Start saving for the near- to mid-term future. This is the big one – saving for our family plans, owning a flat or house someday, starting a business (this is a fantasy right now, but who knows?) Basically all other freed up money will go into this fund, so there is no end goal here.

I’d love advice from all you savers out there on how to stay motivated once you’ve become debt free!

Last weekend the organisers of the Knitting & Stitching Show graciously gave me and my friend L press tickets and we had a great afternoon wandering around about a million stalls full of gorgeous yarns and fabrics at Alexandra Palace.

The show was incredibly popular. I was told Sunday was the slowest day but it was busy to the point of being a bit exhausting. I’ve never seen so many knitting and sewing lovers in one place!

In addition to the shopping there were classes (which unfortunately were mostly full by the time I heard about the show) and galleries. But mainly I wanted to shop!

Here is the floor plan so you can see the incredible scope of the show.

We were first drawn to Fibres Exotica, which had the most vibrant silk yarns I’ve ever seen. This picture just does not do it justice at all. I bought some AMAZING cobalt blue yarn here and I thinking I’m going to make a neck cozy something like this.

Next we went a bit crazy for the designs of Purl Alpaca Designs.Don’t you just love that jumper?

We also fell for the incredibly soft, rich colours of Manos Maxima from Crafty Yarn. I bought the fiery red and I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet. Maybe socks?

We were also really impressed with the Toft Alpaca Shop. What is it about alpaca? I didn’t buy anything here yet but I’d love to make this jumper. You can buy the yarn with the pattern online.

I was over the moon to find Eternal Maker, a West Sussex fabric shop that imports fabrics from some of my favourites, including Anna Maria Horner. They have an online shop too!

Coats Crafts is also a brilliant shop, with FreeSpirit Fabrics. They have a great site with loads of free patterns.

We also found Loop, an Islington knitting store I haven’t been to yet, which had some gorgeous yarns as well.

And are these the biggest knitting needles you’ve ever seen? I’ve never seen anything like it!

The show is coming to Dublin and Harrogate if you’d like to go!

While we were out on Saturday, Royal Mail tried to deliver a package/letter/who knows? that was 60p short on postage. Here’s why I’m annoyed.

1.They are charging £1 on top of the 60p as a “handling fee.” I’m not sure where they get off charging this, because as far as I can tell they aren’t actually handling the package any differently than they would if it was properly postaged.

2. I have no idea what this is as I’m not expecting anything. The notice does not tell me who it is from, so how should I know if I want to pay £1.60 for it?

3. The URL on the card www.royalmail.com/fee2pay does not actually direct to the fee 2 pay section on the Royal Mail website so I had to go find it.

4. In order to pay my fee I have to register with the site (annoying) and opt out of receiving information and offers from the Royal Mail and affiliates (how annoying would that be?!)

That is all. I know it’s only really £1.60 but I felt like having a bit of a rant! Thanks for listening

Yesterday I got a lovely little bit of recognition for the blog by none other than The Times! I was incredibly pleased to be included in the Top 20 twitter accounts to save you money by Laura Shannon. The Times website does cost money now, you know, so to save you some I’ve pasted the whole entire article into this post.

This blog takes a lot of time sometimes and while I really enjoy it it is nice to have someone come along and give me a pat on the back like this. Yay! And I’m in such good company too.

Read on for the list and for goodness sake go follow these tweeters if you want to save some money!

We cook pizza a lot around our house because making the dough is so much fun and it feels a bit healthier. This weekend, in a bid to use up the massive supply of onions and potatoes we always seem to have (courtesy Abel & Cole) we decided to try cooking a potato pizza something like the one Helen at Food Stories wrote about recently. E met Helen at a blogging event a few months ago and I’ve been addicted to her blog ever since, but this is the first time I’ve tried any of her recipes.

Here is Helen’s pizza:

Here is ours:

The combination of my unextraordinary camera and yellow kitchen doesn’t help matters but it’s clear who is the expert.

Looks aside, the pizza turned out lovely. I think we used too thick a crust (all of my baking proportions have been off since I bought yeast in a can instead of sachets) and not enough potatoes. But on the plus side we added goat cheese which was brilliant.

We ate it with simply cooked spinach (see above). I’m sure my mother is very proud!

This is a great recipe to file away. It’s delicious and with the exception of fresh rosemary, you’ve probably got everything on hand already (and if you don’t potatoes and onions are cheap.)

What a busy, busy, BUSY week! I want to write more and get more GREAT DEALS up on the site, especially when I have so many new visitors dropping by because of the Disney on Ice contest! But work has been a bit crazy and time has been short and life goes on.

I did want to throw up a quick post though to talk about some things that are making me happy this week! First up, my shipment of gorgeous Anna Maria Horner fabrics arrived. These didn’t come cheap (especially after customs fees that I completely failed to factor into the equation) but it is hard to get them here. Aren’t they stunning? There are cotton voiles and flannels from the Little Folks range and cottons from the Good Folks range. I can’t wait to start sewing with them!

I also learned today about the knitting and stitching show next week at Alexander Palace. I’m really excited about this. Most of the classes are sold out but I think it will still be really fun to wander around and do a little shopping! I’m going to be a bit cheeky and see if they’ll give me a free pass as press (unlikely) but I plan to go either way.

Finally tomorrow I and I are going to a fun event I’ve been invited to by Mission Foods called We Will Wrap You. The event is promoting their new range of wraps developed by the cast of the musical We Will Rock You. I think it will be really fun because we get to see the show!

Okay, I’m now off to send a couple of work emails (bah!) and then to bed. Two days to Friday thank goodness!

We’ve been baking our own bread for about a month now and I’ve really enjoyed it. This week E requested a bloomer, so instead of our standard wholemeal loaves I looked up a new recipe. Oh my goodness it is HEAVEN! I’m eating a piece right now, warm, with butter, and it is so decadent. Our best loaf yet.

I adapted this recipe from BBC Good Food but I bought a new kind of yeast that doesn’t come in sachets so I had to modify it. I also used a tip from Budget Bytes, one of my new favourite food blogs, which recommended putting a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to create steam.

Here is the result. E actually said “oooh!” when I pulled it out of the oven, and it’s quite rare for him to get that excited over anything that is not related to Manchester United.

I’ve also been working on the quilt. I decided to try to quilt it together with a star pattern, which is taking ages but I’m so far happy with. As you can see I’m using tape to guide my sewing which was recommended by a friend.