I have always been interested in recycling way before it became a hot topic and a part of every day life. It just seemed like a no brainer but then more recently I started receiving emails and facebook requests to join 10:10 and that seemed like an incredible challenge. How could we a family of four cut back our carbon emissions by 10% in 2010? I also felt torn though in that for the sake of my children I thought that I ought to be signing up for it. Thinking about my coaching training which indicated that when we use COWS (could have, ought to, would or should) then there is something forced in what we are aiming to do, I ignored all the calls to action for at least a month. Then I had a light bulb moment and it occurred to me that 10:10 is possible if one is creative about how one does it. So below are some of my thoughts on how to approach it as a family.
It is all about finding stuff that fits with your lifestyle. My small step for 10:10 was to throw myself into the North Herts NCT's toy sale this week. This meant sorting through the girls' toys and putting to one side those that they were too old for. The key to success with these sales is to get the pricing right so that items will go and you are not left with them at the end, whilst ensuring that you get a reasonable price for them especially the new-looking ones. This year I only brought about three items back and that was only because I had not indicated that unsold items could be donated to charity.
The whole process felt very cathartic because we were recycling some great toys and books, and I made about £100 from it. 30% of what a seller make goes to the NCT so that feels good too. Now there is some space at home for the Christmas deluge and I managed to buy quite a few Christmas presents whilst I was there. If all that sounds like far too much hard work, you can always advertise unwanted items via email on freecycle and people come to collect them from you at a mutually convenient time.
The more environmentally minded amongst you will probably notice that recycling toys is not the same as cutting one's carbon emissions but it is a start in the right direction and each small step leads to a bigger step. As a result of these thoughts I have now signed up to 10:10! So what are your thoughts about being my ecologically aware and taking some sort of action towards living a greener lifestyle?
Monday, 16 November 2009
Monday, 9 November 2009
Mum's Monday: organising kids' birthday parties you either love it or hate it
How do you feel as your child's birthday party looms on the horizon? Do you like hosting parties for your kids, try and avoid doing anything major at all costs or fall somewhere in between? Inspired by the carnival of parties insomniac mummy is hosting on her blogsite, I got thinking about my experiences and what follows was the result.
I have always enjoyed hosting dinner parties because I love cooking and the whole social interaction with others. However for the first two years of my eldest's life birthday parties were low key events and that was partly to do with the fact that there is only 15 months between my two girls and it was enough getting through each day. This year coming up to three, Sienna really understood for the first time that she was going to have a birthday so I felt it was important to mark it. And yet the idea of a theme or a party entertainer just did not appeal.
It just so happened that one of my friends from our postnatal group also wanted to make it more of an occasion so we decided to join forces, as we had a common core of six people. We wanted to keep it manageable so we agreed that we would each invite up to six other children. However we had forgotten to take into account that many of our children's friends had siblings and that as it was a family affair and we often knew both kids, the whole family would expect to come. We had also both thought that we would keep the family celebrations separate so as to contain numbers but our families had other ideas. On the day we ended up hosting a party for 50!
It nearly did not happen because I have the most appalling hand writing, which comes from the fact that I experimented with different writing styles when I was at school for the fun of it and the end result is a real hodge podge. It turned out many people thought I had written that the party was going to be on 10 rather than 19 even though the former was good Friday. I then had to text everyone to confirm the date so that there was no one turning up 9 days early and it meant that one or two were then unable to attend.
Naively I thought that holding a party in a village hall where we had access to the hall's toys and so had the entertainment covered would mean that we would be able to keep costs down. We had not taken into account the cost of producing party bags and we felt that we needed to do them as our kids always seemed to get them. I spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time on ebay sourcing the best deals. Only to find that the other Mum had bought a whole load of stuff at Sainsburys which was a valuable addition to the booty but added significantly to the price. I had wanted to have all wooden toys but they were much more expensive so there was a lot of plastic tat in the bags.
We had lots of discussions about food. We decided who would provide what which worked. I was keen that we had high quality ingredients so ended up buying organic sausages, cooking them and cutting them into cocktail sausage size just so that I knew what the kids and adults were eating. That approach of course meant the costs went up and my co-party organiser was not sure we would have enough so supplemented with some ready to go cocktail sausages from Morrisons. We also felt that adults often got a raw deal at kids' parties so produced a number of smoked salmon and cheese bagels for them. These went down very well but I had not realised how long it took to put bagels together and probably over-catered. We bought 50 mini bagels and I think managed to prepare about 30 for the party!
For me the highlight was making the cake. My friend was concerned because her son had set his heart on a Thomas cake from Waitrose which was around £20 so I promised to do something fun. Initially my daughter wanted a pink heart but I did think that was a bit too girly for a boy so she then chose a gumball machine - you know the ones where you put in a penny and get out a handful of jelly babies. It was red and white with a black piece for the slot machine and four black screws, one in each corner. I filled it with mini chocolate easter eggs as their birthdays are near Easter, and stuck a 1p into the slot machine. It was quite a healthy carrot cake with orange flavoured cream cheese icing, and despite one of the cakes being a bit over done because I am not used to a fan oven - which needs a slightly lower temperature than a conventional oven - the cake went down well w/ adults and children alike. In fact I felt chuffed that one Dad is very fussy about cakes said it was the tastiest carrot cake he had ever had - he must have had a bit from the non-burnt end.
In spite of all the mini dramas along the way, it was very enjoyable to organise the party with someone else and as long as you keep your sense of humour, I can highly recommend this approach. In the end the event cost two hundred pounds which when you think of the numbers attending is about four quid a head so pretty reasonable. I would love to hear about your experiences of organising kids' birthday parties so please do leave me a comment.
I have always enjoyed hosting dinner parties because I love cooking and the whole social interaction with others. However for the first two years of my eldest's life birthday parties were low key events and that was partly to do with the fact that there is only 15 months between my two girls and it was enough getting through each day. This year coming up to three, Sienna really understood for the first time that she was going to have a birthday so I felt it was important to mark it. And yet the idea of a theme or a party entertainer just did not appeal.
It just so happened that one of my friends from our postnatal group also wanted to make it more of an occasion so we decided to join forces, as we had a common core of six people. We wanted to keep it manageable so we agreed that we would each invite up to six other children. However we had forgotten to take into account that many of our children's friends had siblings and that as it was a family affair and we often knew both kids, the whole family would expect to come. We had also both thought that we would keep the family celebrations separate so as to contain numbers but our families had other ideas. On the day we ended up hosting a party for 50!
It nearly did not happen because I have the most appalling hand writing, which comes from the fact that I experimented with different writing styles when I was at school for the fun of it and the end result is a real hodge podge. It turned out many people thought I had written that the party was going to be on 10 rather than 19 even though the former was good Friday. I then had to text everyone to confirm the date so that there was no one turning up 9 days early and it meant that one or two were then unable to attend.
Naively I thought that holding a party in a village hall where we had access to the hall's toys and so had the entertainment covered would mean that we would be able to keep costs down. We had not taken into account the cost of producing party bags and we felt that we needed to do them as our kids always seemed to get them. I spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time on ebay sourcing the best deals. Only to find that the other Mum had bought a whole load of stuff at Sainsburys which was a valuable addition to the booty but added significantly to the price. I had wanted to have all wooden toys but they were much more expensive so there was a lot of plastic tat in the bags.
We had lots of discussions about food. We decided who would provide what which worked. I was keen that we had high quality ingredients so ended up buying organic sausages, cooking them and cutting them into cocktail sausage size just so that I knew what the kids and adults were eating. That approach of course meant the costs went up and my co-party organiser was not sure we would have enough so supplemented with some ready to go cocktail sausages from Morrisons. We also felt that adults often got a raw deal at kids' parties so produced a number of smoked salmon and cheese bagels for them. These went down very well but I had not realised how long it took to put bagels together and probably over-catered. We bought 50 mini bagels and I think managed to prepare about 30 for the party!
For me the highlight was making the cake. My friend was concerned because her son had set his heart on a Thomas cake from Waitrose which was around £20 so I promised to do something fun. Initially my daughter wanted a pink heart but I did think that was a bit too girly for a boy so she then chose a gumball machine - you know the ones where you put in a penny and get out a handful of jelly babies. It was red and white with a black piece for the slot machine and four black screws, one in each corner. I filled it with mini chocolate easter eggs as their birthdays are near Easter, and stuck a 1p into the slot machine. It was quite a healthy carrot cake with orange flavoured cream cheese icing, and despite one of the cakes being a bit over done because I am not used to a fan oven - which needs a slightly lower temperature than a conventional oven - the cake went down well w/ adults and children alike. In fact I felt chuffed that one Dad is very fussy about cakes said it was the tastiest carrot cake he had ever had - he must have had a bit from the non-burnt end.
In spite of all the mini dramas along the way, it was very enjoyable to organise the party with someone else and as long as you keep your sense of humour, I can highly recommend this approach. In the end the event cost two hundred pounds which when you think of the numbers attending is about four quid a head so pretty reasonable. I would love to hear about your experiences of organising kids' birthday parties so please do leave me a comment.
Monday, 2 November 2009
MM: some dos and don'ts when starting a business
In talking with a couple of people recently I realised that I needed some left brain energy to tackle some burning issues such as dealing with paper work that had got lost in the all consuming world of Minerva's Mind. As I looked into the matter further I learnt all kinds of useful information that I wish I had known when I had started. Here follow some helpful tips for anyone in the early stages of running a business. I was thinking of Mumpreneurs who are starting out, as this is Mums' Monday but the advice applies to all new business owners:
1. When you set up your business you have 13 weeks in which to inform the Inland Revenue that you are a business owner. If you miss that deadline then you could be charged a £100 penalty fee. This is where you need a good accountant who can show how some of your initial activity relates to pre-start up costs etc. If you are self-employed click on HMRC to register.
2. It is vital to set up a separate business account because then if the Inland Revenue decide to investigate you they are limited to looking at the transactions in your business account. If they want to extend their investigation then they need to go and ask for further powers. It does make sorting your accounts out much easier too as all transactions go in and out the same place. Which banks?
1. When you set up your business you have 13 weeks in which to inform the Inland Revenue that you are a business owner. If you miss that deadline then you could be charged a £100 penalty fee. This is where you need a good accountant who can show how some of your initial activity relates to pre-start up costs etc. If you are self-employed click on HMRC to register.
2. It is vital to set up a separate business account because then if the Inland Revenue decide to investigate you they are limited to looking at the transactions in your business account. If they want to extend their investigation then they need to go and ask for further powers. It does make sorting your accounts out much easier too as all transactions go in and out the same place. Which banks?
- Abbey offers free banking for life. There are no major catches but they encourage business owners to do everything on line as there are limits such as cashing no more than 100 cheques a month;
- The Co-Op bank interested me because my personal account is with their Internet bank. They offer free banking for life for as long as you are a member of the Federation of Small Businesses; and
- HSBC has a good package if all your transactions are online.
3. It is worth having the services of a good accountant because he/ she can save you a lot of money by helping you identify allowable expenses. For example, did you know that if you work at home then you can claim £1,000 a year towards electricity, gas and heating costs? I can highly recommend Will Farnell. He gives very generously of his time and before setting up his own business, worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In other words don't do what I did and leave it until the last minute! So what tips can you add to this list? Feel free to drop them down in a comment at the end of this post.
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