Roosterbank and children's pocket money

Having three kids, pocket money is something that regularly crosses my mind as I'm a little on the soft side and cave in the minute they want something. However, the older they get the more i realise that they need to take charge of their own money and learn to budget what they get, also so they will appreciate what they are bought that much more than they do already.
Roosterbank is a fun a educational way to let your child budget their pocket money online. Along side this there are educational games and learning.
Here's a little more about Roosterbank...

Pocket money experts, Roosterbank, have announced a surprising change in tradition for youngsters in Britain today.

It appears that warnings on childhood obesity may be getting through because a study by the website, which helps families develop regular pocket money routines, has found that children will be more likely to ask for cash over chocolate this Easter as they endeavour to build their own nest eggs.

Ben Edwards, CEO of Roosterbank, says, "Easter eggs will always be popular. After all, who can resist a sweet treat? But we are also noticing an emerging trend whereby children prefer to receive cash to boost savings rather than chocolate."

Roosterbank, which currently helps over 1,000 children keep track of their pocket money, has noticed a trend towards children saving up for a larger purchase rather than immediately spending their earnings.

Ben continues, "We know children are picking up on how the economic situation is affecting the household budget and they are reflecting their parents’ attitudes by putting saving before spending. Kids are taking a stronger interest in money management and through studying the young users on Roosterbank, we have seen a clear preference for saving."

Roosterbank enables children to track, manage and choose how to use their own pocket money, whether that is creating a nest egg for the future, saving for a desired item or donating to charity.

"I absolutely believe children should learn financial life skills from an early age and managing their own pocket money gives them the opportunity build their skills before the time comes to open their own bank account," concludes Ben.

Ruby Robertson, 8, from Harpenden, regularly saves on Roosterbank.

"I definitely prefer to receive pocket money over chocolate. I like saving most of my money, but every now and then I will spend small amounts and buy things like Moshi Monsters toys and books. My dream is to save enough to go to University," says Ruby.

"My Dad and I talk about money more now. When we go to the shops and I want something, we discuss if it’s worth it or if I should save my money for something else. Since using Roosterbank, I have been more sensible with my money."

Case studies of families with children who use Roosterbank to manage the pocket money they earn by helping out around the house are available upon request.

Roosterbank was established in 2012 and is a free-to-use website that has reinvented the way families manage pocket money. The website makes it easy for parents to develop a regular pocket money routine and helps children to learn about day-to-day saving and spending from an early age via simple tools and fun games.

Roosterbank encourages children to take responsibility for their own money, preparing them for the day when they open their own bank accounts.

Pocket money on Roosterbank is virtual so no real cash deposits are required. Parents use the site to keep track of pocket money transactions, set up regular weekly pocket money payments, make ad hoc 'boosts' and approve spending. Children can use their pocket money online, in the carefully-curated Rooster Shop that is designed with them in mind, or in traditional retail environments.

Via a personal online account, children can view their balance and make decisions about what to do with their pocket money. That may be building a nest egg for the future, for which they are rewarded, donating to charity or saving up to pay for a favourite treat. Roosterbank also provides exclusive access to educational games and two safe communities designed for especially for young savers.

I had a sneaky peak myself and signed all my girls up, sounds like something that we can really work into our daily routine and educate them with the value of money all in a fun way that they can understand and take control of, i hope you choose to sign up too!

L x

New Year, New Outlook

Last year and the year before I decided to follow a make do and mend ethos, buying nothing new that wasn't necessary and it has really changed how i look at not just material goods but life in general.
We as a whole generation tend to take things for granted, we always have a warm bed and food in our bellies when there are thousands homeless and cold each day in Britain and all over the world and to tell you the truth I'm more than grateful for the comfortable life we have.
We can eat when hungry and sleep soundly in our beds, our children are happy and being educated in a way that suits them as well as us and i couldn't really ask for more.
So this year i wanted to step it up a little and try to refine the steps we have already taken. I plan to grow more than ever this year, i already have some lettuce planted in doors and some other bits that will have a great start indoors before the spring. I plan to sew more and not just for me this time but for the hubby as well as the kids, the nothing new for a year challenge really made me see that I'm a little like a magpie, i get distracted by pretty things and tend to just buy them whether we need them or not but now I've learnt a certain level of restraint and make sure i really need or want it before handing over my pennies and i will always make sure i cant purchase it cheaper second hand first as i feel recycling is more important than ever.
I don't even remember the last item of clothing that was brand new i bought!
The chickens are laying great so this year i plan to extend the space they have and maybe get a couple more birds and sell the excess eggs to friends and neighbours to cover their feed and up keep, nothing like providing for yourself eh ladies! ;)
I'm also hoping the new bunnies we have will breed so we can sell the babies, just for a short space of time anyway, to pay for a bigger hutch for them and keep them in the life of which they have become accustomed! you cant say my furry friends aren't spoilt lol!
then next on the list is getting a cold frame on the porch at the front, it has full sun all year and i want to maximise growing time for things like tomatoes and lettuce that we tend to eat all year that doesn't take a lot of space to grow then onto planning in the back to get the tops of the animals hutches edged and sealed and get things growing in them, cant grow anything low level this year due to the animals having free run of the garden, the bunnies demolished what was left of my plants within a fortnight of having free reign!
Then finally i think it will be to replace the grass, as the soil isn't deep enough for lush grass so it goes patchy :( with faux grass so the girls can use the space that's left to play out all year round, we get a little rain and the back is like a bog as it gets no sun over the winter months.
And of course i plan to do all this for as little as humanly possible so if you if have any of the things afore mentioned that you need reviewing or your replacing then please do get in touch, this is gonna be a year long project with continual up dates (shameless plug there i know!!)
So here's to a new year and new challenges, i hope you all are working on something rewarding for 2013.
L x

Pop Party 10 - A Review

I ear marked Pop Party 10 for Emma as she had received a CD player for her birthday in Sept last year. We often get a blast of what ever CD she has to hand followed by loud and out of rhythm singing and dance moves that make me fear for the ceiling, and after loving Pop Party 4 so much i knew she would love reviewing this for me.

With all up to date songs, which now the whole house knows off by heart, I knew this would be a massive hit with her.

She also loved the DVD which she roped her sisters into watching with her, they all now know Gangham Style off by heart including the dance!!!

As irritating as pop music often gets on repeat, full blast for 2 hours a day this is a CD crammed with catchy songs and really hits home with kids, every home should have one, even if its only to torture the kids with when they hit 30 lol

Pop Party 10 is here! The incredibly successful brand, now onto its tenth release, is back for Christmas 2012 with massive names and the best tracks of the year.

The album is packed full of chart-topping smashes from the biggest names in pop from Justin Beiber, Cheryl Cole, JLS to Katy Perry to name but a few. As always, the album features a bonus DVD packed full of great music videos which budding pop stars can dance along to. The album also includes lyric cards.

This is a must have stocking filler for Christmas 2012!

Pop Party 9 sold a fantastic 322k in 2011 getting to #1 in the compilations chart.

CD Track List:
Psy -Gangnam Style
Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe
Maroon 5 – Payphone
Tulisa – Young
One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
Justin Beiber – Boyfriend
Cheryl – Call My Name
Ne-Yo – Let Me Love You ( Until You Learn To Love Yourself)
Jessie J – Domino
Will.I.Am Feat. Eva Simons – This Is Love
Fun. Feat. Janelle Monáe – We Are Young
The Wanted – Chasing The Sun
Rihanna – Where Have You Been
Cover Drive – Twilight
Olly Murs – Dance With Me Tonight
Katy Perry – Part Of Me
Stooshe – Black Heart
Conor Maynard – Can’t Say No
Alyssa Reid – Alone Again
Rizzle Kicks – Mama Do The Hump
JLS – Proud
The Saturdays – 30 Days

DVD Music Videos:
Psy – Gangnam Style
Tulisa – We Are Young
One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
Justin Beiber – Boyfriend
Cheryl – Call My Name
Jessie J – Domino
The Wanted – Chasing The Sun
Cover Drive – Twilight
Olly Murs – Dance With Me Tonight
Stooshe – Black Heart
Alyssa Reid – Alone Again
JLS – Proud
The Saturdays – 30 Days

Behind The Scenes:
Justin Beiber – Boyfriend
The Saturdays – 30 Days

For more information visit http://www.poppartyworld.com

Available to purchase now from http://store.universal-music.co.uk and other music stores. RRP 10.99

Staying scam savvy with Endsleigh and Paul Wilson

What with christmas not that far into the past and always inevitable to come back around we asked Paul Wilson from The Real Hustle a few questions about scams and the like in conjunction with Endsleigh and their gadget safety campaign.

Endsleigh Insurance are on their latest gadget safety campaign. Endsleigh have recruited BBC 3 Real Hustle star, Paul Wilson as their Head of Gadget Safety and Paul will be highlighting the importance of keeping your phones, iPads and laptops safe, particularly over Christmas. He’ll be revealing the tricks criminals can use to steal your gadgets and how you can combat them. Vital for bloggers who need lots of equipment – cameras, computers and phones.

Here is a little background about Paul himself and the questions put to him..

Born in Cyprus, raised in Singapore and Scotland, Paul attended Art School but dropped out at 18 to join the British Army Intelligence Corps. 

By 20 he had left the Army due to injury and was living in London working as a magician and street entertainer during the day, and a casino hustler at night. 

Paul then worked as a computer programmer for some of Europe’s largest financial companies, where he learnt some of the tricks of the computer hacker. His knowledge of computers helped him develop an ingenious (but illegal) system for predicting where a roulette ball would land. 

He now works on the right side of the law as a security consultant for Las Vegas casinos to catch con-artists. He was also “cheating consultant” for the Sylvester Stallone movie Shade and he worked on the new film, Smokin’ Aces. 

Paul says: "If I really had the larceny to use the skills I've learned over the years I'd probably be rich, famous or dead. Probably all three."

You can find out more about Paul and the Real Hustle team here

What’s the most common street scam?

I think pickpocketing qualifies as a street scam because it depends on a certain level of skill. It’s incredibly common, of course. Another might be versions of the “Monte Game” where people on the street are encouraged to bet on finding a card or pea under three shells. This is an age-old scam and is NEVER a game. It depends on powerful psychology and even the smartest people can be drawn in. I see this all over the world. There are many more, I could go on for hours...

Where is the most common place to be scammed?

Today, the answer is almost certainly “The Internet”. So many bogus schemes, phoney deals and counterfeit products exist online that it is almost certainly the “biggest store” in history for conmen.

Map print lampshade tutorial

I saw a tutorial for a map print, paper covered lampshade on Pinterest a few months back and its been bugging me as i knew i wanted to give it a go.
So i popped to homebase and grabbed a small white paper lampshade which was about £1.90 give or take a few pence.
Then i found a gorgeous sepia print of an old fashioned map on the interenet and printed out about 50, cut them out then in half.

I used about half a tube of this UHU all purpose glue to cover the whole sade, i just put a line of the glue along the straight edge and started fixing them from the bottom up, layering them as i went.

It took a few hours to fully cover the sade but i couldnt be more happier with the how it turned out and it has taken pride of place in our lounge. I'm planning on doing a much larger one next time for the hall.
I could get addicted to this :)

L xx

Saturday Make

With it being the last Saturday before Christmas i wanted to take things easy and slob out in front of the TV but my creativity got the better of me and before lunch time i just couldn't sit still so i raided my stash of "don't wear so need to refashion" pile and grabbed a few tops and tshirts and my bag full of fabric pens and paint that the lovely folk over at bottletoppr sent me and i got to work.
First i printed out some silhouettes of anything i could find that took my fancy and i used my craft knife to cut out a stencil.
i then just kinda went with it...

 Silver deer

 Black Doctor Who 

 I free handed this after seeing a tshirt i want with this printed on, it hasn't turned out as well as i had hoped though.

 Red gloss moustaches

 silver deer to the side

 Purple top hat and bow tie with a silver moustache

Glitter silver bowler hats

This is such a fun and inexpensive craft, you can make or customise your own clothes or buy a plain cheap scarf or shawl and print something on it for gifts, you could even go as far as socks and underwear if your creative talent runs pretty deep :)
I also cant wait to let the kids go wild with this on some plain tshirts.

L xx

My handmade home

The blog has been neglected this last few months in favour of decorating and crafting and its been a lovely break, however i have 'lost' several hundred hrs of my life ill never get back on browsing pinterest for inspiration. Yet i say that like its a bad thing! lol

Here's a few quick and easy Saturdays makes we can all spare the time for to bring some personality into your home with little to no outlay.

Halloween was creeping up on me and i was seriously unorganised this year, i mean who doesn't manage to get a pumpkin on Halloween?? Yeah that's right, ME!! So to make up for my lacking as the Halloween Queen i whipped up these little bats for the girls. I got the pattern and tutorial from Pinterest which was free and i simply used whatever fabric scraps i had lying around and some old buttons.
The girls LOVE them and they are super snugly as i used fleece for the back, would your little monsters like a 'scary' pet too??

But of course you always get one that doesn't want what your making so with my thinking cap on i found a tutorial and pattern for a fabric doll but i couldn't let the little lady be naked, and Emma didn't approve so i whizzed up some clothes too from some fabric scraps.

As I've been decorating where i can between Christmas crafting and the sort I've been making some bits for the house from what we already had that wasn't being used.
The french doors in the dining room being a major headache for me as i need to get out a few times a day to tend to the chickens but i also wanted them to look pretty and possibly cosy when needed.
So after much pondering i had a route through my vintage fabrics and found two table cloths that where the perfect size to make into curtains.
i simply hemmed the top on both to be big enough to slip the rod through, i moved it from the outside to the inside of the window as i thought it looked nicer.
then i needed some tie backs to keep them back for easy access to the back so i dug out some large doilies and cut them in half and zig zag stitched the raw edge.

Then i decided to make a new lampshade and after some careful consideration i decided to try my hand at making a doily one. There are loads of tutorials on Pinterest for them and being low cost i thought id give it a go.
I blew a balloon as big as i could get it, i would suggest trying to find the really big ones or like an inflatable beach ball you don't mind sacrificing for a more round shape but either way i love mine.
I simply laid on the doilies and painted over with wallpaper paste.

Then left to dry for 24 hours, i then popped the balloon, some times they will pop themselves once they are fully dry and contract against the doilies.
i cut out the top, carefully, to slip the bulb through and voila! new lampshade!!! i made a full one so had to use string to tie the shade to the fitting but i am currently making an open end one for the lounge so i wont have to tie that one on.

I love how it throws the light out and casts beautiful shapes all through the dining room and into the hall.

I then decided to up cycle a large, and damaged photo frame to home some James bond post cards my hubby brought home. They are all retro prints so i could resist putting them up.
It was a purple plastic so i simply repainted with a few coats of grey left over emulsion which took great and inserted the prints. it now has pride of place in the lounge.

 I also made a dream catcher after seeing a gorgeous tutorial on pinterest for one. i got the large hoops from a local haberdashery for £1.50 for two which turned out to be much cheaper than eBay but i would like to get some really big ones and make another.
I simply wrapped a doily around the frame and hand stitched into place then hung charms and feathers etc from the bottom and hung in our bedroom.
its to cute, i need to make millions!!

Next time id like the bottom to be fuller.

Our stairs window, which i hate as its huge and slightly pointless needed a loving touch so with a lace vintage table cloth that had seen better days i whipped up into a pair of curtains that subtly frame the window making it less imposing on the stairs.
i used a little ribbon and some lace edging to make little tie backs and it took all of 20 mins to hem the top and edges and hang them

And finally, an already repainted table needed a make over from red to something more subtle ready for decorating the lounge next year so i painted it a gorgeous cream tone that i picked a tester pot up of for 20p in our local homebase. it was just and i mean just enough to cover it and i customised it with some pacman star wars images.

A little PVA glue and it looks like a completely new table. it now homes the games consoles again and everyone is happy.

This just proves that with a few pounds, a little imagination and a whole lot of patience you can turn your house into the home you want.

 L xx