Starting today we’re running a competition with Pick Me Up Magazine online to give four lucky hectic mums (and dads) the chance to win £50 to spend at Get The Label – perfect for kick starting your winter wardrobe.

(I’ve just treated myself to this Bench jacket to help keep the winters chills at bay when I’m out and about!)

Just click on this link to the competition section of Pick Me Up and answer the question on there to be in with a chance to win £50, easy peasy!

Crossed fingers for you!

Just thought I’d upload a quick post to let you all know that we’re currently running a competition with Bad Mothers Club for one lucky hectic mum to win £100 to spend at Get The Label.

With the new catalogue just launched we’ve got loads of new brands and products on the site from Lipsy party dresses and rain macs, to Diesel jeans and French Connection tops - so go wild!

All you need to do is go to Bad Mothers Club and then send your name and address to jo.bmc@hages.co.uk by 30th September 2009.

Good luck!

It’s that time of year again – yes sale season is here at Get The Label!! And we at Hectic Mum love this time of year - we can fill our wardrobes – and those of our loved ones – for half the price. And when you’ve got kids it’s all about budgeting wisely as we all know well!!

So, what is the sensible way to shop the sales to ensure that you don’t end up wasting money on stuff you won’t wear and you only bought because it was cheap? My three sale rules are keep it simple, go for the basics and try everything on!!! If it doesn’t fit you now it probably never will – so take a deep breath and if it doesn’t do up – walk away!!

I’ve had a look on the Get The Label site and found a few perfect pieces for you to snap up…

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I read in the one of the newspapers today that the UK is over the worse of the credit crunch.

A French organisation called the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (a bit of a mouthful I know!) said that British people were looking for houses again, High Street sales were up and banks were starting to lend money a bit more easily.

I’ve no idea if any of this is true or not, but I think there’s one thing that won’t change for a while yet. Everyone loves a bargain and if the credit crunch has done thing, it’s made us all shop around for the best deal, which is a habit I’m sure I won’t be giving up for a while.

Whether it’s cheap groceries, discount fashion or bargain breaks, every hectic mum I know is looking for the biggest savings they can get.

Having all the information to hand and being able to compare prices is obviously easier over the internet. Whether you’re buying online or on the High Street, there are lots of price comparison sites that can help.

I’ve stumbled across one where you can compare grocery prices My Supermarket is a useful one because not only does it allow you to compare cost, so you can make sure you’re making the biggest savings, it even compares calorie content and other health and diet-related things.

It is limited in that it only compares products from ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury and Ocado. If any one knows of another site that covers all the supermarkets then please posts a comment and let me know.

There wasn’t a lot for mums to get excited about in the budget announced by the Government this week, but I did spot a few plus points.

Child tax credit is increasing by an extra £20 per year, which will help some people, while parents with disabled children will now get an extra £100 towards their Child Trust Fund.

One of the new initiatives I did like is that grandparents who help with childcare will get National Insurance credits towards their state pension from April 2011.

This is long overdue. I’ll bet a lot of Hectic Mum readers agree when I say that lots of us couldn’t survive without a bit of help from Nan and/or Grandad. Maybe someone wants to set up a new blog called the Hectic Nan!

Anyway, here is a link to a quick budget calculator to see how the 2009 budget affects your family finances.