It was at this point that I began to feel that I might have to stop spending over £100 every time I fancied a jolly if I was going to stretch that £710 over the entire year. Maybe another low cost/free day might be on the cards, especially as the weather had turned much nicer and outdoorsy day out ideas were starting to present themselves. I'm a Yorkshire girl, so Scarborough is a place that immediately jumps to mind when I think of sunny day trips, and I had some new walking boots that I needed an excuse to break out. Therefore, a coastal walk it was to be! For those of us that had our Sunday night routines set in stone by the theme tunes to Heartbeat, Where the Heart Is, or The Royal, you will appreciate the fact that I chose to park at the end of Holbeck Road in Scarborough, almost exactly where the entrance to The Royal's reception was. I text my mum to tell her that I'd left my car in the hands of Ken and Alan at The Royal, lathered on some sun cream, and off I went. I...

After hitting the museums last month, I was feeling like I wanted to continue that historical theme. One place that I hadn't been to for a number of years was Beamish. Beamish is an open air museum with several different areas, featuring different time periods that you can immerse yourself in. I quickly worked out that a 2 hour drive each way, plus all that walking round, was not going to be feasible for me to do in one day without absolutely knackering myself out. I'm fairly game for a drive, but I wouldn't wish that length of time on the A1 on anyone! So, this was a trip that called for an overnight stay somewhere. Taking to booking.com, filtering by lowest price first (I am from Yorkshire after all), you can imagine how surprised I was to find the first option being a really snazzy looking 600 year old castle. The historical theme would continue into the accommodation it would seem. Lumley Castle is supposed to be haunted by the former resident from the 14th century, who...

The main trouble with living very close to somewhere, is that you never seem to bother to find the time to explore it properly, or really appreciate its history. I studied history at The University of Hull, graduating in 2010. How many times do you think that I've bothered to go and take a look around the museums quarter in the old town since then? If you were to guess that I'd been once, I'm afraid you would be overestimating me. I decided that I probably should put this right and actually pay a visit to check out the history that is right on my doorstep. Hull's Old Town is often used as a filming location, especially when there's a need to portray Victorian London, usually areas like Whitechapel. If you watched the brilliant Bodies on Netflix, you'll already recognise a few spots on the stroll from the station to the museums. In the museums quarter, there are 3 free museums that are all next door to one another, which is bloody handy if nothing else. There is ...

I decided that, if I was going to make an effort to have a trip once a month, I should start off strong and bugger off for a bit in the first week of the year. Let me preface this by saying that my job is very, very busy in December, so booking the first week of January off seemed like a sensible way to unwind after the madness! Liverpool seemed like a good option when looking for a place to do that in. It's a place with lots of history, especially around the dock area where I was staying. Of course, I was aware that The Beatles were very famously from Liverpool, and I wanted to be a Beatles tourist. Also, I knew that there were plenty of indoor places to explore if the weather was a little bit less than ideal. In the end, I couldn't have predicted that a weather warning would leave me having to grab my bags and scarper back to the correct side of the Pennines before I got myself trapped there!  When I arrived in Liverpool, it was just past 1pm and my hotel check in wasn't ...

  £710.32 That's how this year began. In 2025, I had hit upon a plan to save some money based on the books I was reading. I decided that I was going to save 5p per page that I read that year. Every time I finished a book, I would tot up the number of pages I'd just gone through, and put that amount into a separate savings account to keep track of. And, if Carol Vorderman happens to be reading this and spots that £710.32 isn't divisible by 5, she's obviously not clued up to the fact that savings accounts add interest in every month, not necessarily in 5p amounts.  I have always been good at saving money. But this is because I have not always been good at spending it frivolously. We've always had a kind of saying/motto in our family that you should always have a "roof fund" i.e. if your roof blew off tomorrow, could you afford to sort it out? If you could, then there's no harm in the odd treat here and there with your hard earned cash. Even so, dipping ...