Wise Thoughts

For years I have been a loyal customer to Avon, some products that they offer are cheaper and better than other brands. They also continuously come up with new ideas and products that appeal to everyone. Whether you are a teenager, middle aged or older you will surely find products to suit both your skin type and budget.

The one thing I don’t like about Avon is no matter how much you spend you still need to pay delivery, most places nowadays offer free delivery if you spend over a certain amount but Avon doesn’t no matter how much you spend. Free delivery is always an incentive for buying but with Avon their standard delivery charge is £3.50 no matter how much you spend. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot but if you only need a few items and it comes up to a mere £20 then adding £3.50 to that doesn’t really seem worth it.

Avon free delivery
Of course you can always contact your local representative and have them deliver it for you free of charge but I find that they are not always reliable and delivery can take weeks in some cases. Also I have had problems with free gifts that are also supposed to come with certain products, they are not always guaranteed through your local Avon representative. Ordering online is easier and also stock is guaranteed.

Avon poor delivery service

On the last few occasions that I have ordered Avon products I have found that the box that it all arrives in is damaged completely, not a squashed box but ripped open. When I called them and complained they said that there was nothing they can do! The call centre is in India so beware, then customer service said to check the box and if anything was missing they would replace it free of charge. I had ordered £200 worth of Avon products, I was very tempted to call and say half of the items were missing but then I was afraid that Karma would come and bite me in the bum so I didn’t. Looking back if I had the time I would have tried my luck but I am very disappointed in Avon for not taking action.

Also Avon does not let you order more than £200 worth of goods at a time if you go over you need to call customer service. I know it seems like a lot of money but I order for my mum and other family members so we don’t all have to pay the delivery charge, plus I am A-List member and get many products cheaper than those who are not. One of the Avon moisturisers that my mum uses is £25 so buying a day cream plus a night cream already costs £50 it’s very easy to spend £100 without realising especially when you are tempted with so many offers.

Nearly three years ago I bought my house through Connells estate agents in Welwyn Garden City, the house was not really what we were looking to buy but it had so much potential that we went ahead. We gutted it completely and did the whole house, it took six months before we could live in it but it was so worth it in the end. Well now three years later we need to sell and fast! After a business opportunity arose we decided to sell and start again in Australia. Well we called Connells because when we bought the house it took only six weeks until the sale was completed but that was mostly down to the house being vacant and I being a first time buyer so there was no chain in either side.

Well an agent came round yesterday and even after explaining when I called for them to come round that we needed the house to sell fast he still asked ‘so we need to establish why I’m here’ I was like duh to sell the house! I told him I had already explained this and he jotted it all down, then he took more details before walking round the house to ‘value’ value the property. Like I said we need to sell fast and now not next week or next month. Before he told us the value he talked us through the process blah blah blah and said ‘well I can sell by Christmas’ I was like CHRISTMAS!!! That’s 10 weeks away, on top of that he’s going on holiday for a few weeks and we all know what that means. I am not being unreasonable when I say this house needs to sell now, if the price is right it will sell fast. He then said he can ‘guarantee’ the house to be sold in 4 weeks, well that is by far too long.

Well anyway he valued the house far too high and we know that it would never sell so we were like hmmm then he said we ‘we’ll push for 15k lower than that’ which still was too high. Looking at the properties selling right now there are bigger and better houses for the price he ‘valued’ the house at. Well on top of that he was just really pushy and not taking into account anything we said.

Fees
On top of all that the estate agent fees were 2% that he then lowered to 1.75% that was £5,000 for sole agency fees and a whopping £10,000 for the multiple agency fees. Also he offered the EPC for around £50 and solicitor fees for £1,000. Then he was like ok you want to sign the contract then, we were like whoa we need to read the contract so he was a little taken back. I did find this strange who signs something without reading the contract first? Well on top of this he wanted us to sign the opt out option that applies to the ‘7 day cooling off period’ that we are entitled to. He was very strange, he was so sure that we would use him as the house was through Connells the first time. We said we’d read it and get back to him. He then got up and started measuring up the rooms thinking he was so in there, what a plonker. There is also a £125 fee you need to pay them if you do decide to break the contract; this is a marketing fee that they pay to advertise the property so if you pull out at any time you need to pay this.

When we asked if there were any penalties to pulling out of the contract if we change our minds he said no, we asked this as we may need to leave suddenly without selling but he then said ‘well leave the keys and we’ll do the rest’ then when the paperwork was done we just need to fly back and sign. We were shocked and said no when leave we won’t be coming back soon!

He called us the next day and we told him that we were waiting on a few other agents to value the property; he was very surprised to say the least. Well we decided to go with Haart instead as we found that they weren’t pushy and listed to us and what we were looking for in term of an agent to sell the house quickly.

So if you do decide to go with Connells then beware and get another quote, their fees are far too high to Haart’s were approximately £1,000 cheaper and every penny counts!

I knew that at some point I would need a baby monitor, if I’m downstairs and my baby is upstairs it’s really hard to hear if she is awake or crying. Having a baby monitor also provides us with reassurance that our baby is fine. They range in greatly in price; they can be bought for as little as £20 and as much as £300+, they also have different features such as movement monitoring, night light, lullaby’s etc. When my baby started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks we used to keep her in her travel cot downstairs with us but as time went on we found that we couldn’t talk, laugh or make any noise as it would wake her up. Eventually we decided to get a monitor, I was originally going to get a sound monitor that had a sensor mat so I would be sure that she was ok but my husband insisted what we had a video one instead. The sound monitor would’ve cost around £60-£80 and a video monitor anywhere between £90-£350!

After much research we decided to purchase Summer Infant Baby Touch touch-screen Digital Video Monitor, it didn’t come cheap we paid around £170 for it but there were other places charging as much as £250 for the same thing. Some of the features it has are: zoom and pan, temperature indicator, a large LCD colour screen, two way talk back, wireless and the ability to add additional cameras.

We have found the picture quality to be amazing! My daughter usually has a dummy when she goes to bed and when it falls out she can get upset sometimes with the monitor you can clearly see when it has fallen out, the sound control is good too, can be turned up or down to suit or you can see the lights indicator on the unit when movement is detected.

Now that we have a video monitor I don’t think we could ever settle on a sound one instead, of course features vary depending on the make and model so it’s good to know what you want beforehand as some also have the ability to take pictures but I don’t the quality would be any good. Summer Infant also have fantastic customer service as I had a problem with another product of theirs and they sent me a replacement free of charge!

In my opinion this monitor is fantastic if you can afford it otherwise you can get it second and cheaper on eBay, it is definitely a must for all parents.

We all know how hard the school holidays are, kids need entertaining and in most cases that costs money. Whether it’s some more toys, new games for the Wii or a day out, whatever you decide to do it will cost you. Many families nowadays have to work most of the time including during school holidays so when they manage to get time off for the holidays most will take the time to go out for the day usually to a farm or park. Unfortunately most places charge for entry these days but on top of that you may need to fork out extra for other games and activities whilst inside. Food is also a big expense as most places charge silly money for a small plate of chips.

Willows farm
We recently went to Willows farm before the weather decided to act up, it was a lovely sunny day when my partner and I decided we should go for it. We took along our four month old daughter as we thought it would be a nice family day out. First of all entry for adults cost £12.50 and children over two cost £13.50, a day trip for a family of four costs a whopping £77! Then when you get to the entrance there are signs for ‘animal feed’, although it costs a mere 50p for a small cup you may be tempted to buy more than one cup each as there are many animals that need feeding.

As you enter there is a small indoor farmyard favourites area with small animals such as piglets, goats, rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens etc, it’s fairly small and can get crowded at times. Be careful as most children have used up all their animal feed by this time. As you continue there are stables that consist of just two horses! It can get so busy that people are lining up just for a glimpse of them, there are various other animals that can be fed around the ‘farm’ such as cows, donkeys, goats sheep, reindeers and wallabies. What was disappointing is that young children couldn’t reach to feed most animals so it wasn’t much of a farm!

There is an abundance of children’s play areas such as swings, slides, ball games, trampolines and more but this was mostly for older children aged 5+, older children seemed to enjoy the so called farm but for younger children there wasn’t much to entertain them with. It is very commercialised and not at all like an actual farm.

I will not go back there and advise all families to steer clear there are far cheaper and real working farms out there that accept visitors for a small and reasonable fee. £77 for a family of four to visit what I can only describe as a park is just a rip off!

I have recently started an evening course at Oaklands College, St Albans City campus. Although all students get free bus travel to and from college it is a little inconvenient for me as they do not run often. As I am already a car driver I find it easier to just drive but then I need to find parking. I recently did a test run to St Albans City campus so I know where I’m going as I’ve never been before. I also made sure I knew of a few places to park.

Parking St Albans City campus
Well as my course starts at 7pm it shouldn’t be too much of a problem so I called up the college and they said that I could use the pay and display car park on site if there was room, they said they didn’t know about the off road parking nearby. Well you can park for free after 6.30pm on Bricket Road and the nearby roads, the campus car park costs £1.20 for 4 hours and whilst I understand that it is a bargain I don’t like having to pay for a service that I won’t need for the duration, I only need parking for 2 hours.

Well St Peters Road is the road that the college is situated on; the day that I went for my test run I stupidly forgot to check if I could park there. Well the first day that my course started I found that it was fine to park there are 6pm every evening. So lucky for me I do not need to pay £1.20 when the road opposite is perfectly fine.

So I’m glad I didn’t listen to the people at Oaklands when they said to use the car park because over the duration of my course Oaklands would pocket nearly £50 in parking alone! I would like to point out that many people do park on the campus car park and it does get full up pretty quick, strange I know. Saying this St Peter’s Road also gets full but there are many other roads that are fine to park on after 6-6.30 pm.

So for all you evening students out there that need to park near St Albans City campus, save yourself some money and time by parking close by without having to spend a penny!

Before my daughter was born I had a lot of free samples of Pampers new Baby in sizes 1 and 2. I brought size 2 to the hospital thinking they would be fine but my daughter was too small weighing only 6lb 5oz at birth. Luckily the hospital gave me some Pampers new Baby size 1 as they are suitable for babies weight 4-11lbs. She was in them for ages, eventually we moved onto size 2 a few months later, when she was nearing the maximum of 13lbs in size 2 I didn’t think it was worth moving to size 3 and thought I’d try Pampers Baby Dry.

Pampers Baby Dry size 3 review
After reading some reviews they seemed ok and thought that it was worth buying so when I saw them on offer I went for it, I got two jumbo boxes of Pamper Baby Dry in size 3. The first few times my daughter wore them I noticed that they would bulge after her wearing it for a short period of time of an hour or less. I was constantly changing her! On closer inspection her nappy was nowhere near full but reacts to moisture so they always look full. The previous Pampers I bought were new Baby and had different absorbent material known as dry max and this one is Baby Dry. Disappointed that I still had hundreds to go through I decided to try Pampers active fit instead.

Instead of buying a big economy box of nappies like I usually do I decided to buy a small box instead just to ‘try’ it. At first they seem to be really thin so I was a little worried but my daughter only takes a 3-4 ounce bottle so I doubt that her nappies will ever leak. After the first time I tried Pampers Active Fit size 3 it was fantastic! No more bulges and no more constant nappy changes.

So I have come to the conclusion that Pampers new Baby and Active Fit use Dry Max and Baby Dry is completely different. They react to moisture too intensely so you feel that your baby is sitting in a full wet nappy when in fact in most cases the opposite is true.

I prefer Active Fit and will stick to these in future but many people have found that they are too thin and leak at night but as my daughter doesn’t drink much anyway they suit her fine. For those that have babies that drink a lot then Baby Dry is probably best suited for night time. Baby Dry did in fact keep my daughter dry as I checked her in the morning and found that you couldn’t feel any wetness in the absorbent part.

So for those people that have the same problem as I did with Baby Dry switch to Active Fit it is by far the best I have tried so far!

Since my daughter was born she has been swaddled, as a newborn until the age of around 4 months she fit perfectly but as she outgrew it the next stage up was the graduate swaddle blanket also by Summer Infant.

I bought my Graduate swaddle blanket from eBay as it was brand new but cheaper than the high street shops. As I waited I could see that the standard swaddle blanket was no longer doing its job of keeping my daughter swaddled. When she was around 12 weeks old I noticed that her hands were starting to break free, she is a very strong girl and also a terrible wriggler that’s why swaddling works so well for her.

Since she has been swaddled she sleeps great going to bed at around 9pm and waking at around 7am and not waking in between for feeds. On the few occasions that I didn’t swaddle her because it was too hot she would wake up at least twice through the night and finding it harder to settle.

So the graduate swaddle blanket had arrived and I was eager to give it a try, so after her evening bottle I put her in it, as she started to fall asleep I then went to wrap up her arms but the swaddle blanket is by far too big and doesn’t connect to Velcro. As it is too large, when my daughter frees her hands the blanket part that wraps over covers her face! I was lucky to check on her just before I went to bed; I was so angry and scared that I had to put her back in her old swaddle blanket as I find an alternative! I will be contacting Summer Infant to tell them that it is unsafe but in the meantime I do not recommend it as it will not contain your little one especially if they are a wriggler!

I know in time I will have to wean her of swaddling but right now she is far too young to sleep train and swaddling works great for us.

As a mother of a young child I cannot always be there to keep an eye on my little one, the dishes need washing, dinner to cook and of course when I go to bed at night. Thankfully you can get baby monitors so you can be sure that your little one is ok, they are by no means a substitute to parenting but it means you can wash the dishes while you baby is playing or sleeping and still able to keep an ear or eye on them.

When I first fell pregnant I was happy to buy a monitor that had a sensor pad to make sure that baby was moving and breathing ok, when I told hubby he insisted that we get a video monitor instead. If you are on a budget then it will be hard to find one cheap unless it’s not got very good night vision or its second hand. After do much research we found that the video monitor is the way to go rather than the standard sound monitors.

You do need to spend at least £120 for a decent one though so unless you intend to use all the functions you could settle for a less expensive one instead. My little on is over three months now and sleeps through the night it’s a shame that we need to keep her downstairs while we watch TV instead of putting her in her crib. If she was to cry we wouldn’t hear a thing as the house it too big. It also looks like she’ll be outgrowing her crib soon so we might have to put her in her own room before the ‘recommended’ 6 months, then we will need a monitor for sure.

What’s important in a video monitor?
These features are what I need them to have and not necessary what all parents look for in a monitor. I need:
Clear night vision
Temperature indication
Light indications for movement
Zoom, pan and tilt
The ability to link to a TV or pc
Night light
2 way talk back
… I could go on

For me having a video monitor is important as my child grows and I need to make sure she is ok without disturbing her. Read reviews well and research before forking out an average of £150 for a video monitor.

It has now been one year since we scattered shake and rake seeds around the garden, we had three varieties, butterfly and bee, scented flowers and wild flowers. We did get some lovely flowers just a few weeks later and an abundance of butterflies and bees that seemed to like the new flower additions in the garden. Although we didn’t get nowhere near as much as the colourful variations as shown on the box we did get some nice flowers that are not so commonly found elsewhere in parks and so forth.

There were some weird ones such as coriander, we found that this fell into the scented flowers pack other than that I cannot recall what other flowers were there that were supposed to be scented. At the time we had just planted more than a dozen roses and some bedding plants, we felt that the garden needed a little more colour and variety in flowers so that’s why we went with shake and rake. Also at the time of buying they were quite expensive, retailing around £5 a box but now you can buy them in your local supermarket for as little as £1 a box with some lovely flowers that you won’t find in your local garden centre.

Well now that we are in summer we were looking forward to having a bright garden with a variety of flowers like we did last year, unfortunately we were greeted with more weeds than flowers! They are supposed to come back every year but for some reason we have seen an abundance of weeds, now I constantly have to de-weed my garden whereas before my flower beds were fine. I am extremely disappointed to say the least, if I want to achieve what I had last year I need to go and buy some bedding plants. As I have such a large garden that’s why I went for shake and rake as it was supposed to be the least expensive.

So initially have shake and rake flowers it did do what it says on the box but a year later there are no flowers and just weeds instead. So beware of this if you decide to go down the shake and rake route, this year I have decided to buy seeds and sow them myself, works out pretty cheap too and so far no weeds!

It was recently my husband’s 30th birthday and I realised that I needed a special cake at the last minute. I’ve had so much to do that I forgot that to order a custom made cake it needs to be ordered months if not weeks in advance. Luckily for me Marks and Spencer’s now do catering for parties and special occasions. It was a life saver being able to order a cake one week before the party, there are a few cakes to choose from though there isn’t that much choice when it comes to colour and themes etc. I originally wanted a number 30 cake but it was too expensive, in the in end I settled for a triple layer chocolate cake as my husband and I are both chocoholics.

I placed the order on a Friday evening and it was ready for pick up the following Saturday, I even got to choose a time slot which was practical for me. The cake was very pricey at the cost of £50 but I really didn’t have much choice and it was very big, large enough for 40 people. I got an email the day before to tell me my cake was ready for the time slot I had chosen, all I needed to bring was my printed invoice or order number with proof of identity.

When I went to pick up my cake all I was asked for was my name so I’m glad I didn’t bother digging out the printer to print out my order. I wasn’t even asked for identity confirmation either, the cake was very big and heavy so I’m glad my sister was there to carry it for me. As it was a very hot weekend I put the cake in the fridge as you do with most cakes, it was for the party the next day so I wanted it to be as fresh as possible, it’s also good for up to 7 days.

24 hours later I took the cake out of the fridge so that the party could start but when my husband came to cut it, it was rock hard! I didn’t realise that it should’ve been left out, we had to leave it out overnight to thaw out! There was nothing on the box to advise of storage such as the ideal temperature, whether it should be in the fridge etc. When we finally got to taste the cake it was ok but nothing special! I did feel a little ripped off, a cheaper £10 cake off the shelve would’ve been better. My husband didn’t really complain as he loved it but I was the one that paid £50 for a rock hard cake!

I don’t really advise buying a Marks and Spencer’s personalised birthday cake it was nothing special and they are all really expensive. You can get shop bought ones and personalise them yourself for a fraction of the price.