With summer just around the corner, many of us are considering whether our children have a basic functioning wardrobe for the warmer months, or perhaps for a holiday in the sun.

This year, I've found myself having to buy a complete capsule wardrobe for two of my children as they've outgrown all of their previously purchased summer clothes! In an effort to ensure they can be adequately dressed on a minimal budget, I set about writing down the essential items they would need for the summer, which we can always add to later as necessity or finance see fit.

Here are my suggestions for capsule summer wardrobe items for both girls and boys, which should be suitable for children aged 2-12.

Girls Summer Capsule Wardrobe

With these selections, we've pretty much got every occasion covered, from playing on the beach to dressing smartly for a wedding. We're going for clothes in a rather limited palette, ensuring all items can be mixed and matched and layered on cooler days (leggings worn under dress; shirt worn over T-shirt, etc).

Of course, you may need to swap out some of the suggestions to suit the tastes and needs of your own children (some girls prefer leggings or skirts to shorts, for example), or add a few more essential items such as swimming costumes, hats and flip-flops. Generally speaking though, the number and type of clothing (tops, trousers, etc) should be sufficient for wear the whole summer through - provided you're able to launder frequently!

Where to buy a children's capsule wardrobe

What would you recommend?

Preparing for the arrival of a new baby is a very exciting time, whether this is your first child or your fifth! Chances are you'll be bombarded with choices for baby products, clothes and toiletries, and can be left wondering what exactly you really need to be prepared for when your little one is born.

As many mothers will attest, it is way too easy to buy more than you need, and if you're working to a tight budget you'll probably want to stick with the essentials rather than spend on niceties you may never get around to using.

Here then is a list of the most essential items you will need to be prepared for the arrival of a new baby, with a few suggestions for additional items you might want. I've also created a printable PDF version of this list as a handy reference guide.

What you will need for baby

• Lots of bibs and/or muslin squares
• 1-2 packs of newborn size nappies
• Nappy sacks
• Cotton wool balls or pads
• Changing mat
• Fully reclining pram/pushchair/travel system
• Car seat (suitable from birth)
• 6 sleepsuits
• 6 short-sleeved vests/bodysuits
• 2 cardigans/light jackets
• Shawl or snowsuit (depending on the time of year)
• 2 pairs of scratch mittens
• 2 pairs of bootees
• 2 hats
• A cot, complete with a new mattress
• 3-4 fitted cot sheets
• 2-3 flat cot sheets
• 2-3 cellular blankets
• If bottlefeeding: 6 bottles with newborn teats, a steriliser and infant formula milk

Extras you may like for baby

What are your tips for new baby purchases?

About the Live Below The Line Campaign

We're passionate about equipping people to make a real difference in fighting poverty, and so we focus on connecting people up to the organisations and issues that have the biggest impact. We run Live Below the Line because we think that to really fight poverty, we've got to try to understand it - and what better way than by spending just a few days below the poverty line.

In 2013, Live Below the Line is running in the UK, Canada, Australia and the USA simultaneously, with more than 20,000 people spending 5 days living below the line including celebrity participants Hugh Jackman and Ben Affleck.

I discovered the campaign (albeit belatedly) via Jack Monroe, a blogger famed for her £10 a week food recipes which she devised to feed both herself and her young boy through months of living well below the line right here in the UK. Although used to living on a consistently low food budget, Ms. Monroe will be taking part in the challenge too, making it even more difficult by "getting back to basics" and not allowing use of any growing herbs or store cupboard stocks during her five day challenge.

What can we buy (and eat) with just £5?

The Global Poverty Project has produced a guide for the challenge which includes sample shopping lists and recipe plans for single people. Whilst one of the sample weeks includes a pack of 99p sausages, these plans generally don't include any meat since a pack of meat could cost most (if not all) of the allowance for the whole five days!

Here's an example of a five day shopping/recipe plan. Though no specific supermarket is mentioned, I'd guess all ingredients are sourced from the Basics range at Sainsbury's.

Shopping List:

1 box of 15 eggs – £1.25
1 bag of apples - 71p
1 pack of baking potatoes - 60p
1 bag of frozen vegetables - 73p
1 bag of rice - 40p
1 jar of curry sauce - 17p
1 jar of sweet and sour sauce - 27p
1 tin of kidney beans - 18p
1 loaf of bread - 47p

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Day 5:

I had approached the week not really having thought about the cost of food, or even the amount of food we consume on a daily basis. I even made an unconscious mistake early in the week when I put butter on toast without accounting for the price. It was a reminder of how little I equate food with cost, and a reminder one of my work colleague’s didn’t let me forget as I added 10p onto my total.

The week was surprisingly hard, more so than I had prepared for, as my energy began to wane and I felt constantly tired. Poverty hits children the hardest as it fuels a situation that is detrimental to a child’s development – imagine trying to concentrate in school when you haven’t eaten all day.

How you can help

Although it may be a little late to take the challenge this year, but you can still help by raising awareness of Live Below The Line or by contributing to one of the thousands of participants.

For health reasons, I won't personally be taking part in the challenge this year, though I am supporting others who have chosen to take part and hope to help raise awareness through this post and other social media outlets.

Join the conversation

Are you participating in the Live Below the Line challenge this year? What are your thoughts on the sample menu and the possibility of living on just £5 for five days' worth of food? Please feel free to add your experiences and commentary below.

Photo credit: SashaW, via Flickr

January. The time of year when we begin to dread the snow we know will come sometime before the end of next month.

Personally I dread the thought of running late for the school run, only to find my car is frozen solid and I can't even get the key into the door lock to let us all in out of the cold!

Unfortunately I'm not among the privileged car owners with access to a garage, and often forget to take my cans of de-icer back into the house with me... So I've learned a few thrifty (and fairly speedy) tips to thaw my car in the winter months which I hope Glamumous readers may find useful on icy days.

1. Prevention is better than cure!

2. Use lukewarm water instead of chemical de-icer spray

3. Cooking oil can stop your door seals from sticking

4. Use hand sanitizer to unfreeze door locks

5. Hot water bottles help de-mist the windscreen

6. Don't have an ice-scraper? Use an old loyalty card!

Do you have any tips to add?

I originally wrote this post and eBook back in 2009. Since then our food bills have become even more expensive, but the advice offered remains as useful. 

So I've decided to re-publish this post and (hopefully) rekindle a little interest for Glamumous readers who may find it useful in 2013.

As I'm sure we're all aware, the cost of our family food bills has skyrocketed these past few months! According to the price comparison site, MySupermarket, the average weekly spend for a family of four has increased by as much as 25%.
Shocking, isn't it?

While we have little control over the rising cost of fuel, housing and other household bills, we can control just how much of our hard-earned cash we part with to feed the family. Switching over to supermarket own brands is not the only solution: there are many more ways we can choose to save money yet feed our families healthy and satisfying meals.

I've always considered myself a frugal mum. Compared to my friends and family, our food shopping bills are positively miniscule, and yet we always have food on the table, in the cupboards, stored in the freezer... In short, we are never hungry and I often feel smug in my knowledge of thrifty ways which are helping us survive this credit crunch.

So in response to encouragement from my friends (and all the articles in magazines which seem to teach us nothing new about saving on food bills), I decided to write my own ebook: Fabulous Frugal Food Bills.

This ebook offers useful tips, tricks and a scattering of family-friendly recipes to help you save money on your family food bills. From learning how to organize your food stores for maximum efficiency to saving money at the supermarket and even growing your own, I hope you will find something useful to lessen the burden of your weekly shopping trips.




In the spirit of sharing and of embracing thrifty ways, I offer this ebook for free. No cost, and certainly no advertisements! You can download this ebook in PDF format to read on your computer or ebook reader, or simply flick through the pages in the embedded ebook further down this page.

Licensing

Frugal Food Bills is licensed under the Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial lisense (which is to protect my rights as the author, and to prevent profit-makers from selling this free guide when it's intended to be free!). Feel free to download, share, re-use and redistribute this ebook however you like. All I ask is that you adhere to these simple conditions:

• Attribution: please credit me as the original author of this ebook.
• No commercial use: do not sell this ebook!

Please feel free to get in touch if you would like to discuss this license or any other aspect of Fabulous Frugal Food Bills, and I'll be happy to help.

Download this ebook

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If your daughter(s) are anything like mine, your house will have bobbles and hair clips hiding in every corner of the house! Nefotlak has devised a wonderful project to upcycle glass jars and create an organised hair station which I'm sure any little princess will adore!

Use any old doorknobs you may have around the house (or scour charity shops and car boot sales) and decorate the board with paint or fabrics to match the decor of the room. This looks so pretty, I think my little one will have to share with me!

Via Nefotlak