Tip One, Flying is probably your bests bet, as sitting in a car for hours will not be ideal. Airports and airport parking have made life so simple for parking and flying, or picking up your rental car upon arrival. Pick smaller airports, with fewer crowds to worry about. If you are traveling in or around London perhaps Bristol or Luton, with either Bristol Airport Parking or Luton Airport Parking conveniently located. Or if you head further north, there is always Liverpool with Liverpool Airport Parking .

Tip Two, Tea. It’s almost a moral imperative when traveling with an aunt to stop for tea. Let them immerse themselves in the great ritual of tea. When in Bristol, be sure to take the Ferry over to the Beeses Tea Garden to partake a tea tradition that has been going on since 1846. Or while in Liverpool, The London Carriage Works serves afternoon tea daily with to die for home baked treats.

Tip Three, Shopping. There’s nothing more fun that window shopping while on vacation. There are always little trinkets to pick up for the nieces and nephews, or grandchildren. Bristol has several shopping centre’s, including Avonmeads. There is also St. Nicholas Market which is a permanent market that sells everything books to fresh food. The Bluecoat, in Liverpool, located in the heart of the shopping district is filled with a diverse mix of products sure to please even the most picky purchaser.

Tip Four, Rest. The important thing to remember when traveling with an Auntie, or Grandmother, is that they will need adequate rest. There’s no point in burning the candle at both ends. Vacations should be fun, not stressful and over-exhausting. If you go on vacation, and come back needing one, it seems just a little pointless.

Tip Five, Bed and Breakfasts. Leave the resorts and hotel chains for your honeymoon, or spring break, B&B’s allow for a charming little oasis away from home. They usually have rooms with different décor, and provide an amazing selection for breakfast and even afternoon tea.

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HolidayExtras.co.uk offer a wide variety of airport hotels you can book to make your departure process much easier and simpler, offering rooms at discount Manchester airport hotels, and at a variety of Stansted airport hotels among others.

However, if you stay in one of the many Dublin airport hotels or book a Gatwick hotel and parking deal, you could turn the beginning of your holiday into a mini city break! If you have to book into an airport hotel the night before an early morning flight, why not book two nights in advance and give yourself two holidays instead of one?

Stay in one of the many Dublin airport hotels and experience the sights and attractions of one of Europe’s most visited cities. There are a host of city walks you can go on, as well as visiting some of its main tourist attractions along the River Liffy as well historical monuments including St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Dublin Castle. Oh, and do not leave Dublin without visiting the Guinness Store House to get a real taste of Dublin, quite literally.

And if you stay in a hotel as part of a Gatwick hotel and parking package, with London only 30 minutes away by train you can discover all the delights and history of one of the world’s most famous cities. Go on the London Eye to look over the spectacular views of the city, visit the Queen at Buckingham Palace, wander through some of the best green and leafy parks, and try and pick one out of the hundreds of museums dotted around the city to learn about art, culture, science and history.

With all this on offer, why would you not book into an airport hotel and give yourself a holiday before you have even left the country? I know I would.

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1. Readying the House for the Holidays

My house sees more visitors during the holiday season than any other time of year. From casual dinner parties to roaring holiday parties, we have a lot of company. While this may sound expensive, it really can be quite affordable. Food can be bought at discount food stores, and arranged nicely on your own entertaining dishes. You may also want to do a pot-luck, where guests bring a dish. This is also a good idea for alcohol. Now that you have food and drink covered, take a quick look around at the furnishings of your home, make sure you have plenty of seating. Most importantly, make sure you have somewhere for intoxicated praters to stay the night. This is actually a good time of year to look into buying a new sofa bed.

2. Watch for Sales and Special Offers

With the past few holiday shopping seasons being a bust for retailers, they are out in full force offering a wide array of special offers and sales to entice you. Black Friday really can be the best day of the holiday shopping season to buy “big ticket items” and electronics. Don’t forget Cyber Monday as well, where online retailers offer deep discounts. Throughout the holiday season retailers will be offering coupons and deep discounts. Keep an eye out and you really can get some great deals. Be sure to check out the BBC America Shop for great deals on British goods.

3. Be Choosey

The holidays offer lots of activities that offer festive fun. Many times this festive fun ends up costing a small fortune. However it doesn’t have to. My husband and I love Christmas and we became experts at free holiday fun. There a few things that we paid for that we did not want to give up, so we chose what events we wanted to go to. We saved a ton of money by doing this. We also created our own Christmas tradition. For instance, we have a Christmas movie marathon every year. We highly recommend getting a Netflix subscription – it’s a cheap way to get all the best holidays movies for a low monthly price.

4. Homemade Holidays

There really isn’t any reason why decor and gifts have to cost so much if your are handy. Last year my family did a homemade holiday. Every gift had to be homemade. I received delicious home-baked cookies and I gave a knitted scarf. It was nice to shrug off the materialism of the holidays. Besides, a homemade gift really can mean a lot more than a store bought gift. Also decor can be found and made out of virtually anything. Use your imagination!

5. Make Your Own Traditions

Wither it’s a walk on Christmas Eve to look at the houses in your neighborhood or going to worship at Holiday mass, make your own traditions. The holidays really are about family and friends. Like George Bailey said in It’s A Wonderful Life, ” No man is poor, who has friends.” So if your new tradition includes baking a million cookies with your best friends or opening a bottle of wine and watching a holiday movie, make sure to enjoy the season.

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I have two coats, one is a Columbia brand winter coat and the other is a wool coat. I have gotten lots of wear out of both coats. I also got both on sale. I have had them both for about three years now.  While the Columbia coat is looking a bit shabby,  but it is still wearable. I wear it when I am working outside, so it’s a little dirty.

My wool coat however, really has seen better days. I got it about 4 years ago at Target. They had the coat on sale for $50. It was made well, and most important it was warm. I live in Chicago and a warm coat is priceless when it gets really cold, and it does. My wool coat is warm. I can wear it on the coldest day and be nice and toasty. It is showing it’s wear. I have sown and resown the buttons on, mended tears and so on. The bottom line is, it is time for a new wool coat.

I began looking for a new coat in September. I have been amazed how thin women’s coats are being made, and women are buying them! I have looked from Nordstroms to K-Mart and everywhere in between. I am still searching for a reasonably priced, warm coat. I consider a reasonably priced coat to cost me between $50 and $70.  Do these coats exist? I am starting to think that they do not.

Last weekend I saw an ad from Target advertising wool pea coats for $30. I figured that I would go take a look. The styles were cute and they came in lots of colors, there was just one problem, they were paper thin! I just don’t get it, why aren’t warm coats being made anymore?  I have looked at many stores that sell coats at many different prices and the result is the same the coats are flimsy. I don’t want to be waiting for a train shivering in my winter coat.

Virginia asked if there was a Santa Clause, I ask is there a warm coat at a reasonable price out there?

To be continued…. (as the coat hunt continues)

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Photo from Flickr

Every year I complain how the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier every year. This year I started to see Christmas items creeping on to store shelves in August!  I would just shrug my shoulders and walk by. However this year, it has been decided that we as a nation will just skip thanksgiving. The Sunday after Halloween my husband and I were reading the Sunday paper and the sales flyers were decked out for the holidays. We also noticed Christmas commercials on television on November 1st.

I don’t know about all of you, but I still have pumpkins on my porch, and as far as I know pumpkins are not a Christmas decoration. I see more and more houses lighting up their Christmas decorations. Has America forgotten that there is a between Halloween and Christmas? I admit it is usually pretty common to see Christmas decor before Thanksgiving, but I cannot recall seeing it this early. A few of my local radio stations have started playing Christmas music only.

I understand that with the economy still recovering that stores do not quite know what the retail sales will look like this holiday season. I went into a Kohls this past weekend and was amazed that they had decked their halls, with Christmas music included! My husband and I just looked at each other as if we had stepped into another dimension. It’s just too early.

The last thing I would like to say on this topic; keep a good eye on those advertisements for amazing deals. I was watching tv about two weeks ago when an advertisement for Walmart came on. They were advertising a gaming system for a deeply discounted price along with a $100. gift card for purchasing the system.  This sale was to take place on a Saturday morning starting at 8am. I thought to myself, wow what a great deal. Then the commercial aired again, this time I read the small print at the bottom of the screen and it said, “limit 10 consols per store.” WHAT? That just seemed so wrong to me as desperate parents would be crowded in to their local Walmart stores  to take advantage of this sale, and learn that the store only had 10 gamming consols.

There are good deals to be had out there, I am sure of it. Just make sure to read the small print. As for me, I will not be hanging my Christmas lights until AFTER Thanksgiving.

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My sister and I getting ready for Halloween

I grew up in a lower-middle class home. We had the basic necessities but extras such as store bought halloween costumes were something that we just didn’t buy. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few time when we were able to do that. However we found that usually the quality wasn’t very good and the costumes did not last very long. My mother decided to instutue a new costume policy in our house, we had to make our own costumes. This may sound cueul but actually it was a blast! My sister and I were discussing this recently and she said, “half the fun was seeing who could be more inventive…and usaully i would lose.” Some of my happiest memories were putting together our costumes.

My sister and I would brainstorm for weeks about what we wanted to dress up as for Halloween. Once we had decided what we wanted to be, we would set to making our costumes. We would usually go the thrifts store and find pieces that would work for our costumes. The thrift store always had wonderful surprises for us. From there we would raid our closets and our mother’s closet. We could usually put together a costume for under $10. My mom would do our make-up to go along with our costumes. We would have so much fun that our friends soon joined in as well, and stated making their costumes too.

The funnest part of Halloween was making my costume with my sister. We always had so much fun.

Some of our thrift store costumes included:

A Geisha- made with a silk Japanese robe found at the thrift store

A 1950′s Woman- Made with a vintage dress and jewelry from the thrift store

A witch- Made with a black dress that we shredded ends of.

Fall (the season)- Made with sprigs of fall leaves from the dollar store

A mouse- Made with an old gray terry-cloth robe found at the thrift store, and a pair of store bought mouse ears.

Cleopatra- A large white sheet draped across like a Egyptian dress bought at the thrift store.

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I have been a Martha Stewart fan since I was a teenager. My mother and sister used to make fun of me for my Martha Stewart obsession. I have always admired how she has such attention to detail and makes sure that things are done properly. I do recognize and always have, that she tends to go a bit overboard on some things. I have been a loyal reader of her magazine and I used to watch her show on NBC. I bought her products and I was even going to go to a book signing.

As the recession hit, I continued to watch her show. She had on guests like Jim Cramer who was talking about stocks and the stock market. While this is helpful to some, it is not helpful to all. While the rest of the country geared up for the recession, to me it seem as if it was business as usual at Martha Stewart Omnimedia. I watched her show to see if she would have money saving tips for the average American household, but I never saw anything of the sort. Eventually I got fed up and just stopped watching her show. Last week I read an article that said that viewership was down for her show.  I was not surprised.

My annoyance did not stop with her television show either. I continued to read the magazine but I soon found myself feeling betrayed. I felt like the Martha magazine was targeted to a different audience, one that had not been effected by the recent recession. Recipes and crafts in the magazine still required pricey ingredients and pieces. While she talked about the recession did she actually realize what the average middle class household was going through? The final straw for me was a piece about what every woman should have in their closet. While the pictures were beautiful, the clothing was outrageously priced.

I eventually started reading the magazine Real Simple. I like this magazine because I feel like it has the same quality as the Martha magazine but that it is more accessible to the average middle income house hold. They too have their out- of touch artciles too, but not as bad.

Even though I have been annoyed by Martha Stewart’s constant bragging about the vacations she goes on or the show about designer dresses, I do not hate her and I occasionally do watch her show.  I just wish that she would realize that we aren’t all millionaires and target her show that way. I bet if she did, her ratings would go back up.

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Harvest fresh from the Garden

One weekend not to long ago I received my first lesson on how to can tomatoes. I have always been interested in the process but I have never had the chance to learn until now. My mother-in-law called me one Saturday and asked me if I would like to learn how to can tomatoes from their garden. I am always up for learning new things, especially if it was save me money down the line. So off I went to learn how to do it.

The process was relatively simple. Here is a quick breakdown.

1. Wash your tomatoes in a cold water bath to wash off dirt. Inspect them for holes, mold and anything else that you would not want to eat.

2. Boil your washed tomatoes  for about 2 minutes or until the skin starts to peel.

3. Peel the skin off the tomatoes, cut into medium size pieces and put into a bowl

4. We choose to leave the seeds in our tomatoes so we simply mashed them with a potatoe masher.

5. We made sure to boil our Mason jars and lids prior to starting this process- This is VERY important.

6. We filled each jar, leaving about 1/2 inch unfilled at the top.

7. We submerged each jar in boiling water, using a canning pan, until each jar made a “pop.” You must wait until you hear the “pop” noise to know that the jar is sealed. Do not store jars that do not seal as the  contents will spoil.

I had a lot of fun learning how to can tomatoes. I think I may actually do it again in the future.  If you are interested in canning, I would picking up a book on how to do so at your local library. The process may look overwhelming but it is actually pretty easy. Happy Canning!

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I love Halloween, it is my favorite holiday of the year. This year I decided to host a halloween dinner in my home. My goal was do throw my party as inexpensively as possible. I scoured the internet religiously for ideas for my spooky menu. I finally figured out what I am going to serve, and I will share it with all of you.

As a rule, I do not serve “gross” food. I came across many recipes that were so unappetizing that there was no way that I would ever eat it, such as kitty litter cake. (which looks like a box of used kitty litter) So without further ado here is my Spooky Menu.

Appetizers

Deep Fried Blisters with Blood Dipping Sauce (Deep fried ravioli with marinara sauce)

Crushed Mummy Brains with bone shaped bread (Garlic Hummus and pita bread cut into the shape of bones)

Steamed Maggots (Gnocchi thats been cooked)

Pumpkin Cheese ball with crackers

Moldy Monster Brain Dip with skin pieces to dip (Spinach dip in a hollowed out bread bowl, using the innards of the bowl for dipping)

Dinner

Roadkill Spaghetti Sauce on a bed of worms (Marinara with meat on top of linguini)

Poison Leaf Salad (Basic salad with many colors of lettuce leaves)

Garlic Bread

Dessert

Pumpkin Pie with whip Cream on top

Chocolate worm Mousse

Recipes

Deep Fried Ravioli

This Recipe is super easy and looks like it was very difficult to make.

1 package of pre-made ravioli with cheese filling

1/2 cup of milk

1 cup of Italian Bread crumbs

3 cups of oil heated to 350 Degrees

Simply dip each ravioli in the milk, then into the bread crumbs and then into the oil.

Make sure to coat each ravioli completely with bread crumbs.

When you fry your ravioli do not crowd them in the pan. they cook for about 3 minutes. Make sure to watch them. They will need to be flipped half way through frying.

Place the ravioli on paper towel to absorb excess grease when done.

Steamed Maggots

1 package of pre-made gnocchi that just needs to be boiled
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup of olive oil, heated over medium flame in a frying pan
3/4 cup of parmesan cheese (optional)

Boil the Gnocchi according to the directions on the package or when they begin to float. Scoop them out of the pan and put them into the hot frying pan with oil. Fry the Gnocchi for 1-2 minutes. Add red pepper flakes and cheese. Place a toothpick in each piece of Gnocchi and arrange on a creepy platter.

Pumpkin Cheese Ball

1 store bought cheese pall
2 olives that have been cut width wise (eyeball Shape)
1 slice of red pepper, cut into a jack-o-lantern mouth shape

Push olives into the cheese ball to make eyes and red pepper to make the mouth Add crackers.

Moldy Monster Brain

1 Small to Medium Sized Bread Bowl
2 cups of Spinach Dip (I buy mine pre-made from the store)

Hallow out the bread bowl, reserving the inside. Scoop the dip into the bread bowl. Tear the reserved bread into dipping size pieces. You can make a face on the bowl like the cheese ball above.

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This current recession has hit everyone hard, from the average jane, to retailers and even restaurants. People have been frugal with their money and have been eating at home. In most cases it is easier to buy from the grocery store and make a meal yourself, rather than pay someone else to cook it and serve it to you. As a result of these difficult economic times, restaurants have had to find a way to adapt in this challenging market. This means one thing, costumers are now eating cheaper.

My husband and I signed up for T.G.IF’s meal club card. It is not a credit card, you know how we feel about those here at austerity. Instead, for every dollar that you spend in their restaurant, you earn points towards a free meal, and other good coupons. Now I know that this restaurant is not considered fine dinning, but if you are looking for eating out on a budget, I would not suggest the five star bistro in your area, that is guaranteed to be pricey.

Jon and I have had our club card for almost a year now, and we have received almost 5 free entrees with our club card. We usually go about twice a month. The best thing about this club card is that every dollar counts, you can order just drinks, or just appetizers… whatever you want, it all counts as points! I usually order an appetizer when we go out, it keeps our bill cheap and the portion size correct.

I highly suggest looking to see if your favorite restaurant has a club card, or coupons.  You would be surprised how many restraunts offer deals, aside from senior hour….

Here are My Favorite Tips for Eating Cheap at a Restaurant:

Order an Appetizer for Dinner

They are usually the yummiest things on the menu, and the least expensive. Ordering an appitizer also allows you to have adequate portion control, which is sorely lacking in most restraunts. I find that even with this portion size, I still end up taking some food home.

Watch What you

Drinks can be the biggest expense on the bill after a meal. As a rule of thumb, I won’t pay anymore than three dollars for a soft drink or beer. In some cases if beer is cheaper than soda, and you like beer, go for it. If you are interested in an alcoholic beverage, ask your server what the specials are for the evening. As a rule, if I am going to have a drink, I order good liquor, don’t settle for something that tastes bad just because it was cheap, it’s not worth it. If you decide not to order an alcholic beverage, ask your server if the restaurant has free refills.

Order a Meal to Share

This is an awesome trick to keep you bill down. If you are going with someone who is not such a big eater, or you are going somewhere that has enormous portions, consider spliting a dish.  My in-laws do this all of the time. They are good eaters too, no one is walking away from the table hungry. If you are not sure if a meal is large enough to split, consider ordering a salad or bowl of soup prior to your meal coming. Both soup and a side salad will cost much less than a whole meal. I usually find that this works well when I go to lunch with a girlfriend.

Choose Where You Go to Eat Wisely

Some restaurants are pretty much a given that they are going to be pricey. Usually seafood restaurants, steakhouses, and foreign food tends to be pricey. However, this does not mean to avoid these places entirely. Go on a special occasion or not very often. Try not to order the most expensive item on the menu, and watch what you drink as well.  Sometimes, you need a good meal, and you are worth it. If you splurge on your favorite French bistro every now and then, don’t beat yourself up over it… enjoy it.

I hope that some of these tips will help keep your bill affordable when you eat out. Bon Appetite

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