Feeling Thrifty | Boots Haul

If there's one thing in life that I really love, it's a bargain! My family joke about how I am the bargain guru, and it's pretty common for my Dad to text me and ask where the cheapest place to get something is. 

Anyway, one of my money saving staples is store loyalty cards, I have them for pretty much every place that I shop in, if they do them obviously. Boots is no exception, and one of my favourite things to do is build up my points until I have enough to get a 'free' perfume. Over the past couple of weeks Boots have been giving out No7 vouchers while also running a 3 for 2 offer on cosmetics, so I went a little crazy.

I recently had a thorough make up clear out, and made a list of the things I needed to replenish as I went along. Armed with a list, I spent a bit of time looking at products online and in the shop, and then worked out which would be the most cost effective way of buying the items I wanted. I worked out which 3 for 2 combinations would save me the most money split between 5 separate transactions, along with the No7 vouchers and my boots points, my entire haul cost me a grand total of £27 pounds. Individually this lot would have cost over £135, so I'm pretty proud of my bargains.

Here's a breakdown of what I bought:

No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder | No7 Creme Touch Face Powder 

No7 Concealer | No7 Beautifully Matte Primer | No7 Essentially Natural Foundation | No7 Beautifully Matte Foundation

No7 Lip Liner | No7 Lip Crayons | No7 Moisture Drench Lipsticks

Essie Base Coat | Essie Nail Polishes

The ladies on the No7 counter were fantastic and did the colour match foundation test on me, and then told me which shades of lipstick would suit my skin tone. I'm new to the world of lipstick and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

Do you have any money saving tips? I'd love to hear them.

Sarah

xx

New York | Day Four

On our fourth day in the big apple we went on a longggg walk down to lower Manhattan, ending up in Brooklyn. We walked down through Greenwich Village towards Washington Square Park, through the financial district and on to Ground Zero. The last time I went to NYC they hadn't even begun to build the memorial site so going back on this trip was pretty special.

Walking around the site was slightly surreal but really emotional. The hardest thing for me was reading the names of all the people who died there, you know it's a lot but until you see name after name it doesn't really sink in.

After looking around Ground Zero we headed down to Battery Park for the views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We decided not to go out to the islands because it was so cold and none of us could face it being even colder out on the water. I have been out to Liberty Island on a previous trip and can definitely recommend it, if nothing else you should go for the view of Manhattan. 

Thank you for bearing with my many New York posts, the end is so close and I had so many photos I wanted to share with you. 

Sarah

xx

Birthday

Today is my birthday!!! I'm a lot more excited about having a day off work than turning 28, but I am off to the rare breeds farm with my sister and nephew, after I've demolished this epic breakfast that is.

Have a great weekend folks.

Sarah

xx

The Three Pieketeers

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music made me smile... Don't worry this isn't going to be a post about Don McLean BUT it is all about the pie! A few years ago a group of friends and I went out for a pub meal and devoured a good old slice of steak and ale pie. During one of our recent catch ups my lovely buddies Jess, Carly and I were reminiscing and discussing our mutual love of all things pie related, and how we should go on regular outings in search of the best pie. It was on this night that 'The Three Pieketeers' were born, a nickname we have given ourselves for our search of pie.

Whilst in Paperchase a couple of weeks ago I stumbled across these postcards and had to send them to Jess and Carly, formally inviting them on our first official outing. We met up on Wednesday evening and headed to the Black Horse for a slice of steak and ale, a lot of chatting and a couple of drinks.

The verdict: for £6.99 we each had a big ass plate of homemade pie, mash, peas and gravy. The meat to pie ratio was strong, the flavours were good, there was a generous amount of gravy, and you can't go wrong with peas. The only thing letting this plate of goodness down was the mash, it was definitely instant and pretty dry, but when your pie tastes that good you don't really care. 

Being the attractive ladies that we are, we also brought back another tradition, the pie face. I think we can all agree that we gurn like the best of them, and have little shame. 

Obviously our pie related adventures will be documented on this here blog, but if you're on Instagram and fancy having a nose, we've set up the hashtag #the3pieketeers. If you've got any recommendations for pie we would love to hear them.

Sarah
xx

Life's a Beach

Hello Monday, you cheeky devil you! This weekend has been pretty awesome and very eventful. On Saturday my day of decluttering was hijacked by taking my brother to A&E with a dodgy eye (he's fine, thankfully), followed by an evening with some lovely new friends celebrating the opening of Sandyman Chop Shop, an awesome new Barbershop that has opened in Exeter. 

Thankfully Sunday was far more relaxed with a trip to the church to take my Mum some flowers, followed by a dog walk at the beach with my Brother and his girlfriend, Alice. There may have been a lack of sunshine but it was great to get out and blow away the cobwebs, plus who doesn't love the beach, and dogs? 

I'm a little bit obsessed with beach huts, I'm not sure if it's the variety of colours or the fact that they are like a den/shed by the sea and you can fill them with treasures. I'd definitely love to have my own one day, who knew they were so expensive? I'm talking tens of thousands of pounds for a shed, crazy!

After our walk along the beach we headed back to Alice's to cook up a roast and fill our bellies with yummy food, I totally mothered a beaut of a food baby, ha!

I hope you all had  lovely Mothers Day and weekend.

Sarah

xx

New York | Central Park

From the moment we booked our trip to New York I started hoping that it would snow while we were there. The thought of walking through a snow covered Central Park was a great one and with their standard cold, snowy winter weather I thought our chances were good. Well we had no snow while we were there, the beautiful white stuff waited for us to leave before giving the East coast some of the biggest amounts of snow fall for years.

But anyway, I wasn't going to complain about the lack of snow too much because we had pretty great weather the whole time we were there. On a particularly sunny day we ventured up to Central Park for a wander around and a visit to the ice rink and Strawberry Fields.

 

If I ever move to New York I will definitely be learning how to rollerblade/ice skate like the cool New Yorkers do. Seriously, it's just like the movies!!

Sarah

xx

February

It's March, you guys, March!! I've never been so happy to be going into Spring. Blossom is starting to appear on the trees, crocus' and snow drops are popping up everywhere, the UK is coming back to life. Winter seems to have gone on for so long this year with the cold weather sticking around for so long but I'm hoping it'll be warming up in no time.

In February I...

• Perfected the art of pancake making, and then ate too many;
• Found a frog on the allotment & made it sit in my deckchair for photos;
• Took some scenic routes home from work and discovered some fabulous buildings;
• Bought a lot of new pens, I blooming love stationary;
• Invited my pie loving buddies to go on a pie date;
• Bought a lot of daffodils;
• Continued to go to all my gym classes, I've only missed one so far this year. 

I've been a bit quiet here the last few weeks but I have a lot of posts to catch up on, including the last of my New York photos which I'm sure you've had enough of already, ha! 

But for now, welcome Spring - I'm so glad to be in you.

Sarah

xx

New York | Billy Joel

The main reason we went to New York was because my Dad managed to get us tickets to see God aka Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden for the Christmas show as part of his franchise. My whole family are huge Bill fans and have travelled to the states to see him a couple of times now, dedication hey?

Our seats were up on the highest level, which actually worked out well because we had bar seats on a clear glass balcony, not far from the stage. The view was perfect so obviously I took a lot of photos, which you'll be pleased to hear I've condensed. The other bonus was Jamie Cullum was the support act and he was really great too.

If you've seen the Joel before you may have had the pleasure of seeing 'Chainsaw', the guitar tech, come on and sing Highway to Hell. It's just amazing and so much fun, especially with fire extinguishers. A cool little story... years ago when we saw Bill at Southampton Rose Bowl we took a chainsaw banner and ran to the front of the crowd when he came on. Bill saw it and pointed to us, it was one of the proudest moments of my life, and definitely my Dads, ha. His hero pointing to his kids definitely made his day, probably year even.

And that was Bill. Three hours of singing our hearts out, almost losing our voices and our shit with excitement. Until next time Mr Joel, you rock!!

Sarah

xx