Teacher’s Gifts!

Do you or don’t you give Teacher’s Gifts?!?

 

I have only once felt that I wanted to give a teacher a gift as I thought she was outstanding and had really helped my daughter. So much so that I actually made her a Smallprint Keyring with ‘Best Teacher’ written by my, then 5 year old, daughter stamped into it. Other than that I don’t really feel compelled to give gifts, and think it is an expense that at this time of year we could do without. At the end of the day they are doing a job and it is not common practice to give gifts to someone for doing their job. However there does seem to be a growing trend of giving gifts at the end of the school year and on our playground there does seem to be an air of ‘keeping up with the Jones’!

 

The retail market have grabbed this opportunity with both hands and the shops now seem to be full of Thank you gifts for Teachers. But seriously, how many mugs, keyrings or teddy’s does a teacher want or need?!?! I wonder what they do with them all? I came under pressure from my children yesterday as people had already brought gifts in and so it had planted the seed that they should do it too! I was adamant that we were not going to go out and start buying gifts and I explained to them why. I suggested that if they really wanted to give the teacher something why didn’t they make something as it would be more personal. So we had a quick route through the cupboards and decided on homemade Honeycomb! I had never made it before, but it is a recipe that my daughter had earmarked in the cook book I got her at Christmas! I have to say, it was so quick easy and we had everything we need in the house! It looked great and tasted just like shop brought honeycomb!

The girls were brimming with pride as they left the house this morning carrying their little bags of homemade honeycomb to give to their teachers and I didn’t mind as it hadn’t really cost us anything to make! Turns out this was the perfect solution to the teacher gift giving debate! Plus now I have a recipe that I can do with the kids quickly and it would make the perfect gift to take to someones house when invited for dinner! Love it x

What to do with Brown Bananas!

In our house the moment the bananas start to turn brown no one will touch them! I hate waste and throwing out food so I am always looking for recipes and tips on how to save or use food that is on the turn. This is my favourite recipe for using up bananas that are past there best. The kids love eating it as well as helping bake it and it is a great lunch box treat or morning snack!

Banana & Chocolate Chip Loaf

You will need;

6 oz Butter or margarine

8 oz Caster Sugar

2 Large Ripe Bananas

1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

1/25 tsp Salt

10 oz Self Raising Flour

3 Eggs

& 2 oz Chocolate Chips

Set your oven to 160 C

Line a 3″ deep Loaf Tin

To make, put the butter and sugar in a large bowl and melt in the microwave. Once melted add the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda and mix together. In a separate bowl mash the bananas with the vanilla essence then beat the 3 eggs into the banana mixture. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture in the large bowl and stir well until combined. Finally add the chocolate chips and stir lightly before pouring into your lined tin.

Bake at 160 c for 50 minutes. My oven is a fan oven and it sometimes needs a little longer. You know your cake is ready when you push a skewer into the middle and it comes out clean.

Totally yummy and counts as one of your five a day. What’s not to love!

If you have any banana recipes please comment and let me know so I can give them a go.

Cash for my trash

There is a bit of a running joke amongst some of my friends that ‘if it’s not nailed down or totally essential then Nic will sell it’! I have to admit there may be an element of truth to it! I like to say that I am very green and just like to recycle!!! In a house with three children we have a high turn over of clothes and toys. I have never really been a hoarder and in what has been the worst recession on record why not try to make some money out of something that is no longer needed. Maybe I take this to extremes as I have actually sold our broken beyond repair Flat Screen TV on Ebay and got a healthy £45 for it (when the guy turned up to pick it up we asked why he wanted it and it turned out he was a trainee TV technician so wanted it for practice). It is true even things that you consider rubbish are worth listing on Ebay. You never know who may want what you don’t and are prepared to pay for it! Ebay is now free to list if you are starting your item at 99p. I have been Ebaying for 7 years now and would recommend it to anyone! Once you know what you are doing it is quick and easy and you can make money easily. My best Ebay story has to be when we got £100 for a set of French doors that we removed from the back of our house when we had an extension. My husband was going to stick them in the skip, but me being me wouldn’t let him without giving them a go on Ebay. I started them at 99p and 7 days later we were £100 richer! This is why I love it! The down side has to be all the trips to the post office. You also need to have the time to photograph and list items which can be time-consuming!
My latest find is selling pages on Facebook. These are fab, set up my Mums for the towns they live in. You literally load your photos up to the page put the amount you want for it and wait for a taker. The person then comes to your home with cash and take it away. This is my new addiction and, in my opinion, more cost-effective, quicker and easier than eBay. There are no fees at all, no posting and the photos upload really quickly. It is very fast-moving and I find you list something and it goes within 15 minutes. The down side is that it isn’t an auction so you only ever get your asking price and often people will try to knock you down, but I am quite hard and tend to stick to my pricing. I use my local one Aylesbury Kids stuff and also a neighbouring town Thame Kids Stuff. I would recommend you look into this and if you don’t have one in your maybe consider setting one up.

Another favourite of mine is Musicmagpie! This is a better option than Ebay if you want to sell CD’s and DVD’s. It is so easy, you just log in to the site enter the bar codes from the back of the CD or DVD case and it will tell you how much they will pay for it, there is even an app for your iPhone where you just scan the bar code. You have to do a minimum of 10 items. If you accept what they offer you, you confirm the transaction and they either email or post you Free post labels for you items. Then pop them in the post and when they receive and check that they are in working order they credit your account with the money. You don’t tend to get much on Ebay for CD’s and DVD’s unless they are rare and they don’t let you charge p&p so you have to pay for that yourself. That makes this much better as you only have to provide a jiffy bag and send it to a free post address. I have found price’s ranger from 30p up to £10 for items.

These are definitely sites that you should use if you have things you no longer need or just need to de-junk. Nothing is rubbish, even if it is to you, there will always be someone out there that will want it, even if they are on the other side of the world. You’d be amazed! You can boost you house hold income by a couple of hundred pounds (tax free) a month if you have the stuff, the patience and the time!! In the last 3 weeks I have raised enough by doing this to purchase a bunk bed, 2 sets of draws, 2 sets of bedding, 2 lamps, 2 shelves and the paint needed to redecorate our daughters bedroom all from the comfort of my own home. Feeling pretty pleased with myself at the moment!

Nearly New

Today I have been working at a Nearly New sale in Marlow. The hall was packed to the brim with pre-loved goods and then there was me with my Smallprint stand and a local photographer! It was pouring with rain, yet people were queuing to get in 15 minutes before the doors were due to open. Some of the Mums at this event were super organised and had all their items individually wrapped in clear plastic bags with a pricing label, other looked more like a jumble sale, but what you couldn’t fault was the excellent quality of everyone’s items. Most looked brand new. I think you could have found almost any baby product imaginable among the 20 odd stands that filled the hall today. It was mostly girls clothes but unlucky for me, the stand I was next to was all baby boy stuff. I resisted for just over an hour and then caved in and ended up buying some lovely Baby Gap and H&M bits, some of them were brand new and still had the labels on. This is the down side of working events where other people are selling, you end up spending. However, can’t moan as I got some great bargains and still came home with a very tidy profit so good day all round.

Not that I am a snob or anything but I had never thought to go and look for children’s clothes at a nearly new sale! Today has opened my eyes to a great way to pick up some lovely bits at a fraction of the cost. I was really surprised at the constant stream of very yummy mummy’s with their designer pushchairs and changing bags purchasing pre-loved clothes and toys. Maybe this is how they afford the fancy shoes!?!?!?!