When it comes to saving money during the school holidays, most parents would appreciate a little help and TV personality and mummy influencer Stacey Solomon has a few unusual ideas that are worth a try
She may have first caught our attention with her singing abilities on the X Factor, but it would seem Stacey Solomon knows a thing or two about parenting. Stacey was a teenager when she had her eldest son Zachary, now 17, and went on to have Leighton who is 12, then Rex, 5, Rose, 3, and one-year-old Belle with husband Joe Swash, 43.
And the former Loose Women panellist who now presents Sort Your Life Out on BBC One is also step-mum to Joe’s 17-year-old son, Harry. While the couple aren’t short of a bob or two – they are reported to have a combined net worth of just less than £9m – they do love a great hack. They recently revealed that they sometimes take all of their bumper brood to other kids’ birthday parties so “they don’t get invited again.”
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The mum revealed she gets away with the sneaky party hack by asking parents if siblings are allowed, without telling them there will be four siblings coming along. “It’s a free day out and they all get lunch,” Stacey added. “If the parent says yes I’m like ‘Bam! It’s party time’,” Stacey laughed.
Stacey also recently shared a brilliant way to keep kids entertained during the school holidays and it costs next to nothing. All you need is just two ingredients – plain flour and coconut oil – and if you don’t have them in the house already they’ll cost you about a fiver.
In a clip uploaded to Instagram, Stacey posted a video of herself making ‘homemade play sand’ with the help of her kids, Rex, 4, Rose 2, and one-year-old Belle. “Making our own sand with flour and coconut is better than ordering sand and ending up with a Ton of it like I did a few years ago,” Stacey wrote.
Stacey has also shared how she keeps things tidy – something most parents find more difficult during the school holidays when the kids are at home – by dedicating 15-20 minutes each day to tidying up.
Meanwhile, the Sort Your Life Out presenter uses baking soda for a variety of cleaning tasks and revealed a clever trick for eliminating stubborn sealant mould in a recent episode.
Cleaning expert Iwan Carrington, who works with Stacey on the show, headed to the bathroom to share a “really easy” mould removal hack. Pointing out the mould growth on the sealant by the bath, Iwan said: “All you need to do is get some neat bleach and then just run a line of it along that sealant.”
To hold the cleaning product in place, the expert covered the area with cotton wool balls. He continued: “We are going to leave this overnight, and by the morning they’ve had a nice little party together and it’s all going to be back to lovely and white.”
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