Hello Dear Reader,

Hello Dear Reader,

This is a crippling expensive time of year for families. The cost of buying new school uniform, PE kit, paying for lunches up front and bus passes for the children to get to school as huge. A school bus pass can cost £800 a year for each child and the bus company will only offer the concessionary price if the year’s pass is paid for in one go. School uniforms need replacing and children grow and the variety of sports kit from football boots to gym shoes are massive. I remember it well. For ten years, whilst I had a job, I earned minimum wage and had two young children. Everything had to be saved for. Everything had to be scrimped. There were no days out, no cinema, no amusement parks, no ice creams, no leisure centres and no holidays. We had it tough but families now have it even tougher.

If one of those parents read this today and I could share the ways that we got by and one found the advice useful, then that’s a good thing. As always, I am not telling anyone else how to live their lives but simply sharing what I did.

A budget is vital. Know to the penny everything that is coming into the house and everything you have to pay for. Rent or mortgage and council tax are not negotiable but every other cost can be cut to suit your budget. With budgets, it’s also really important that every bill is paid on time so I paid everything by direct debit on pay day. That meant that 24 hours later, when all the money had gone to: gas, electric, council tax, mortgage, insurance, savings for things the children needed such as clothes, shoes, school trips, birthdays and Christmas. I knew what little was left was what we had, even though it was a small amount. This meant I had no surprises and never had to worry about the mortgage not be ing paid or not being able to afford heating.

Energy is a massive expense and families really struggle with heating their homes. This is a great expense especially for families with young children at home. Initially, check that you are on the best tariff and are paying the lowest price possible. Next, make sure that you are paying monthly so you can offset winter big bills with lower summer costs. Then, be really careful with energy: don’t have lights on during the day, keep the fridge and freezer shut, only wash clothes when dirty, hang towels up to dry and use them over and over, have home clothes and school clothes and get school clothes hung up as soon as children get home. As the evenings get chillier warm socks, layers of cheap t-shirts, affordable tracksuit bottoms and sweat shirts or hoodies are vital indoors. Get your children used to wrapping up warm when they get home.

It’s too easy to use a tumble drier too often. Even though I had one when the children were young and I have one since moving to a tiny cottage, I still wash with the weather. I hold off washing clothes until the weather gets blowy or a tiny bit better and always put my washing ‘out for a blow’. Some people never do this, it is a hassle but it’s something you will get used to. Also, cheap stores such as B&M sell drying racks and damp clothes can be hung in a window that gets any sun for an hour or two and then and only then, finish the clothes in the drier for five minutes and get them folded and put straight away.

A massive expense for parents are shoes and clothes for children. It’s very easy to think that children need to be little fashion accessories and children can be vile to each other if they don’t have ‘the right clothes’. You will need to be the one who is strong here. There is nothing wrong with supermarket clothes for children, or stores such as Primark or Matalan! Even my local Aldi did some really good school uniform and children need warm, fitting clean clothes and they do not need to be cat walk models! Labels my ****!

Food and especially healthy food is a really emotive subject for families. I know it’s difficult if you’ve had one lifestyle and then had to face a different one if your finances change. At one stage, you have have been able to afford to eat out, takeaways and convenience foods. I’ve always kept my food bills as low as possible by cooking everything from scratch. It is always cheaper. People argue, that no one taught them to cook. Well, if you can read then you can do anything. Get recipe books from the library and learn. My mother never taught me to cook but just cooked and I knew that a cottage pie, a loaf of bread or a casserole could be made really quickly. Develop a basic repertoire that is simple, cheap and quick.

• baked potatoes with baked beans and small sprinkle of grated cheese.
• vegetable soup or any soup
• cottage pie/bolognaise/chill/mince and gravy - learn to adapt the simplest ingredients - at the end of the day, it’s just mince and onions!
• stews and casseroles, look for slow cookers in the charity shops - you can get a big one for about £5
• pasta and homemade tomato sauce
• veggie pasta bake - once you’ve managed a cheese sauce, then you can disguise any veg and have it with pasta.

Hello Dear Reader,

I’m on the home straights now and have made the final Roman blind for now. I will make others for other rooms but that’s it now for this round of renovations.

I will start with the equipment you need. Obviously a sewing machine. I used a blind kit and they are available just about anywhere. They come in set sizes but can be cut down to the size you want. I used a 120cm blind kit and a note pad and pencils, tape measure, scissors, pliers, hack saw and pins.

To start, measure your window and then work out your seam allowances. I allowed 10cm for each vertical seam and 15cm for the horizontal seams. I allowed for a doubled folded seam so I wouldn’t have any raw edges on display.

I had bought my fabric in lengths of just over two metres and had to cut the fabric to fit. It’s a lot of fabric so I cut and then tear. I’m confident enough to tear fabric and you need to be firm with it. Trust me, it will tear in a perfect line on the warp or the weft. (Before you send in comments asking about technical terms, please google and look up terms. It’s always best to research any technical terms, look online for images too to help explain.

I cut and tore my fabric to two metre in length and 124cm in width.

You can see below, I did get a frayed edge, but just iron and sew into the seam so you won’t see it.

Woman handling two metre lengths of fabric is difficult. When I watch the staff in fabric shop, they have a ruler embedded into the cutting table. They use that to work out the length by unrolling and holding it against the ruler. I used my pencil to make a one metre length on my table and then measured out my fabric. I then cut and tore.

You can see below how I held it against the one metre mark and then pulled the fabric along, with my thumb and finger pinching the first metre so I could measure it.

Here’s the fabric incase you wanted to get any. The design is called ‘Truro’ If you research online you can find it as cheaply as I bought it.

I got to the end of the two metres and then made my cut before I tore it. It’s too easy to create a wonky edge when using scissors, the warp and weft is always straight.

I then measured my ten centimetre side seams. I folded ‘by eye’ but you could create pencil marks all the way down on the wrong side.

After I folded it. I measured again! Keep measuring and don’t cut until you’ve measured at least three times!

After I got my ten centimetre seam, I then folded it in on itself so I had a double seam and the selvage couldn’t be seen, or the raw edge on the other side.

I ironed and pinned and then did the same on the opposite seam. Always pin both sides and check the width before you sew. Don’t rush as fabric is so expensive.

I then offered it up to the window to check that it was the right size before I sewed it. As I had only pinned it at this stage, if it had not fitted, I could have unpinned it and started again. Always check width and then sew and then length and then sew. It will save a lot of angst.

Here’s a close up of the double fold.

I mitre the corner, as you would if you were folding paper around a parcel the ends are less ‘lumpy’ and sit smoothly by doing this. Also, when you sew it makes it easier for the layers of fabric to sit well together.

Make sure the seams are pinned. Curtains and blinds need to be ‘square’ and have good right angles so you don’t want wonky seams.

I did the same both for the top and bottom as I did the side. I haven’t lined mine.

My blind kit has five rods so I had to divide the 170cm by 6 and place the rods every 28 cm. I didn’t bother with the .3. I can live with imperfection.

The blind kit has a top fixing rail and the blind connects to it with velcro tape. You will need to peel the velcro tape off and sew it to the top of the blind.

Check that you have everything in the kit and make sure you follow the instructions carefully. If you don’t understand do your research, use you tube and google to do some research.

Pin the velcro tape to the top of the blind.

Sew either side of the fuzzy part of the velcro. Take your time and do this slowly, this would be a nightmare to un stitch.

Here’s the finished velcro tape, stitched on either side.

As my blind is 170cm long, I had to divide it by six and place a tape for the rods every 28cm. I measured both side of the blind and made a pencil mark.

Here’s how I marked the fabric. This will be hidden as it’s on the wrong side of the fabric.

Here are the rod tapes. They are flattened tubes of fabric.

I Pinned it one side.

I then pinned it on the other side and when perfectly horizontal, I pinned the other side.

I pinned all of them in place before I sewed them. This allowed me to measure again and check that I used the correct measurements. As I said, don’t rush this. After I had sewn them all, I then ironed on the right side.

Once all the rod tapes are sewn down, then I inserted the rods and trimmed them to fit.

Here are the clips that hold the cord. The little skeleton face pieces, tie the cords off at the end.

The simply clip on and then you can slide them left of right to get them into position.

It’s then a case of following the instructions to thread the cords in place.

The bottom of the blind has a thick plastic bar to weight the bottom of the blind, you will need to cut this to size with a hack saw as you will the aluminium bar at the top which secures the blind. I place it on a chair, weight it down with my knee and push my weight against it to hold it in place.

My sewing room now has a Roman blind and there’s just the curtains to make.

I hope that helped.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx