Summer Salad Season

With the sunnier weather, this week has been all about salad. Take a sneak peak in my lunchbox...

Avocado and pesto
Thrifty tip: shop in Lidl or at the greengrocer for your avocados, supermarket prices are always hideous

Egg and ham
Thrifty tip: buy eggs in bigger quantities, they tend to have a long sell-by date and if you're not sure, you can always do the float test

Mozzarella and olive
Thrifty tip: buy a jar of pimento olives, they're delicious and keep well in the fridge, so you can enjoy olives in your salad any time they take your fancy

Potato salad
Thrifty tip: make your own with a little bit of cream or mayonnaise, lemon juice and chives

Let's hope the nicer weather lasts so I stay inspired to stick with salad!

Sold

Big news... the house is under offer! Fingers crossed the sale goes smoothly.

Now I'm busy finding somewhere to make a fresh start, progress update soon!

How to Give a Little Bit More

Did you know that you can boost the value of your charity shop donations by allowing the charity to claim an additional 28% on top of the sale price in the form of gift aid?

More and more of the charity shops on our high streets are now offering the opportunity to gift aid your donations, including Sue Ryder, Oxfam, British Heart Foundation and Help the Aged. New rules starting last month mean that the charity shops no longer have to send lots of letters to seek our permission to claim the gift aid. Providing the value of the sale of the donations does not exceed a set amount, they can claim it directly, making it easy to give a little bit more.

I took my latest donations into our local Cancer Research and they gave me a very short form to fill in and a card to bring with me when I donate. To make the process even easier, they even gave me some pre-filled stickers, so all I had to do next time I donated was affix it to the bag.

It always feels good to donate to charity, but now it's just that little bit better (I like to think even more so when the donation is made in a bag with a topless David Beckham on!)