I am going to keep this Monday Money more light touch. Lets see how I get on there, as I do like to ramble. AND we have just had the most amazing 8 days on holiday and at Standon Calling festival!
I would love to say that I had a bargain money saving week, but we didn’t. Our Norfolk holiday was packed full of dinners out, ice-creams and beaches. And Standon Calling included a visit to the retro festival shop and so much beautiful festival food.
What did we spend last week? Around £1000 I would say for a week in Norfolk plus a weekend camping and festival life. And that was with me doing my best to save where we could!
Air BNB Bargains
Now I possibly shouldn’t admit this as a money blogger, but I have never used Air BnB before for a booking! A very last minute decision was made on the last day of term to book a cottage in the town of Wells-Next-The-Sea for Sunday through to Thursday. Apparently we grabbed a last minute cancellation and got a two bedroom cottage that was a 5 minute walk from the quayside. It cost us £460 for 4 nights. We were up and gone early on the Sunday and got there for lunchtime. We were on the beach by 1pm.
Beach Huts are amazing!
We spent five glorious days at the beach. The owner of our Air BNB was a lovely local lady called Joan, she recommended us the best places to go and also gave us her friends number who lent us a beach hut. This totally made our holiday having our own beautiful wooden hut on the beach for two days, where actual seals climb up on the beach!. And the payment was a contribution to the RNLI. If you want Joan’s details for the cottage rental email me and I can pass you on her number to avoid the Air BNB charge!
Tidal Rivers, Mud flats and Crabbing
We also had two days at Blakeney quay/tidal river marsh thing. I have no idea what the geographical term is, but it was amazing. There were hundreds of crabs, mud sliding and a river that went in and out with the tide. We chose the sunniest week of the year so far to go, and was river side for that hot hot high 30s day. Got to say I spent the day either in the river or in the shade.
We spent a day with Emma, Money Whisperer who shared Blakeney with us. The kids were in heaven and basically left us to discuss the world for several hours. It was brilliant.
Saving Money on holiday
We did plenty to save money, picnic lunch from the Co-op and drank litres of water using our reusable bottles. And I resisted the shops, only getting myself some new pink flip flops as mine had nearly worn a hole in the sole. All the boys wanted was a crab net and bucket. Easily pleased. We even found an inflatable boat left at a bin at the end of the first day at Blakeney, so we had that. Salvaging I will call that. Its now home with us and being used in the giant paddling pool.
I hate to think how much we spent on ice cream. Every day the boys and I had one. Ah well. You only live once. We had the best time.
Standon Calling
Much more to come on this festival when I write my post as I was gifted tickets for the whole weekend. I am going to share details on the incredible FREE experiences from the festival from Flower crowns to wood carving, to woodland walks, comedy and yoga.
We also spent a small fortune on food. And that was even with the soft drinks and hot drinks provided in the press area! The food at festivals is always on the expensive side, but oh my gosh its amazing. And we tried lots of different things. The boys favourites were the crepes from Carnival Coffee, they had Nutella crepes every day for brunch! And the chips from Poptata, Street fries.
My favourites were the scotch eggs from Finest Fayre and the beef wraps from the Nomad caravan. Along with the Zubrowka vodka, where I had the best ****** Mary on the Saturday and Orchard Pig cider.
Rail Delivery Group
I did some work supporting the Rail Delivery Group last week and their #SmarterWorkingInitiative 2019. They are proposing big reforms to the rail fares system providing better value for flexible workers like you & I. Find out about proposals which include a tap-in-tap-out system & weekly price capping . I also filmed a video of support which you watch here on my Facebook page.
Week 2 of Summer Holiday will be no Spend
The result of a high spending week for last week is that this week is going to be a No-spend week. So far so good, its nearly the end of Monday, late with this post!, and I have spent nothing today. In fact we are trying to make money as Josh has set up a garage sale. Which we will also list on our local Facebook for sale page.
I wrote this post packed full of no spend ideas. See what you fancy doing, a few no-spend days will be wonderful for everyone.
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