Santa's been early

Today santa came early well not really but I bought us a new toy last week with some of our paypal £ a waffle maker for £15 from Comet I have wanted one for ages as I do buy waffles and I have to say I wasn't dissapointed with the results , I used the basic recipe that came in the manual and we got 3 batches ( 15 waffles ) and as you can see below there are only a few left .

Well I finished my wrist warmers and tried them out today and they were very warm and cosy so I have started a matching scarf which I will be cracking on with tonight . I have also got an xmas garland on the go so hopefully that will be finished tomorrow so I can show it off on here .

I have been buying extra store cupboard items to get a bit of a stockpile so when we are feeling the pinch in January we will be ok for basics things I have been stocking up on are sugar , flour , teabags , pasta , loo rolls , shampoo , toothpaste you get the drift but I think I am going to carry on getting a bit extra so when the summer hols come we will be able to have some very low spend months which will free up some cash for my new found love ..........................CAMPING ! .

We hadn't had a holiday for 4 years and really couldn't afford one so on a whim last xmas I bought a cheap 4 man dome tent , 4 sleeping bags , and a couple of disposable bbq's and booked a 3 night stay in North Yorkshire in April ( oh how deluded  I was ) and wrapped it as surprise family pressie .

So as the weekend approached I started packing my "bags for life" and hubby's workmate offered to lend us a big 8 man 3 roomed tent so we were thrilled , so off we went with high spirits and zero knowledge of camping 5 hours after arriving we finally had the tent up it had bits missing and was leaning to the left and had a 10 inch gap from ground to the bottom of the tent so say it was cold is an understatement it was a bit of a nightmare really from start to finish but we really enjoyed it despite the cold and lack of equipment so what did we do ?

We sold every available item we no longer wanted needed or used and with the princely sum of £620 we bought a brand new Outwell Nevada XL 6 man 3 roomed tent with porch and panoramic view windows ( can you tell how much I love the tent  , 2 air beds , sleeping bags , cooking stove , pantry , table and chairs , outdoor picnic table , outdoor chairs , cutlery , crockery , storage containers , bbq , lanterns , camping heater ( very important piece of kit ) and probably a few more items I cant think of right now but we were now prepared .

We had another 3 camping holidays this summer and are totally hooked I love it and so does hubby and the kids so after xmas has been and gone that will be the savings target to get as many weekends away as possible  for as little as possible .

Stay warm

J