April Degustabox Review | Food

Hey all, how are you doing? Today I am bringing you something which is very close to my heart and that is food. As a student we are known for only eating takeaways and cheap foods because of our budget but I am here today to talk to you about a box I have recently come across which I think you will all LOVE. It's a box full of gorgeous food items from chocolate to amazing sauces to make food and even some unique and fun drinks for you to try. This box is called the Degustabox and the idea of the box is to introduce you to some new products you may not have tried before to incorporate them into your everyday life. The box comes in at £12.99 including delivery and the contents in the box always exceed that amount, which you can't argue with. I thought I'd share with you what I got in my box this month and hopefully it will inspire some of you to get tryin' these awesome boxes. 

Canderel Sugarly: 
The first item which caught my eye was this amazing sweeter which is a similar consistency to sugar but with 0 calories. According to the information with the product it is the perfect way to maintain a healthy lifestyle without compromising the flavour. I personally cannot wait to try this on top of my pancakes!

Price: £3.00

Milkybar Milk and Crunch and Smarties Sharing Block: 
Who can say no to chocolate right? I love Milkybar and am so excited by their new flavour and it's something a little bit different from the plain white chocolate as much as I do LOVE their classic bar. I love the fact that this comes in mini bars as once I start eating chocolate I can't stop. With the smarties bar I have tried this before and I loved it so I am happy that I get to try it again. A normal chocolate bar with mini smarties inside, win!

Prices: £1.00/£1.20 

Levi Roots- Jerk Sauce!
My boyfriend was super excited when he saw this packet in the box as he loves any new sauces to try with chicken. I am not a fan on the other hand as I don't eat chicken but the fact that it says it's hot and perfect with chicken won him straight over.

Price: £1.00

Rejuvenation Water: 
Although this again wasn't my cup of tea with the health benefits of this water my boyfriend was very happy to help me out and drink this. Although I do plan on picking up a different flavour myself because the benefits stated have persuaded me. With building a natural resilience to stress, depression and anxiety, it seems like a win all round!

Price £1.99 

Popchips: 
This isn't the first time the amazing work from Popchips has been featured on my blog, they have made a few appearances before with their their lighter ways to snack. Full of flavour and less of the bad stuff which fried crisps have. Popchips have introduced two limited edition flavours which both sound devine.

Price £1.99 

Bebeto: 
The perfect sweet selection for those vegetarians and vegans in your life! Being a vegetarian it is often hard to find sweets which don't taste like cardboard as most of them do. But I have to admit these are SO nice and they also are reduced in sugar and are made from fruit juice, so you can feel good about having a little treat!

Price: £1.99 

Pimms:
With the weather picking up *touch wood* it's the perfect time to crack out the pimms, I am not a huge fan of cider but the unique and fun flavours which pimms create always sway me. According to the bottle it is best served with friends and ice, so I'll bare that in mind before cracking mine open!

Price: £2.29 

Veetee Rice: 
I have previously tried a selection of these gorgeous rices with so many varieties and so simple to make how can you say no. The box came with two flavours one which is pictured and the other is Basmati which is the usual rice I use. On their website they have a load of suggestions for their yummy rice too!

Price: £1.49 / £1.29 

Parle: 
The final items in the box were Rusks and Parle G biscuits out of the box these were the two things I haven't heard of before. Perfect companions for tea and full of goodness why would you say no to these beauties? Also another bonus is the amazing price tag which comes with them!

Price: Parle G 25p and Rusks 89p  

Total =20.46 

To trial the Degustabox yourself I have an amazing discount code for £6.00 off your first box using the code: BLDEG15

5 thoughts every student has whilst writing an essay | Life

It's that time of year again when university deadlines are in full force, if not already completed I am wishing mine were already, but I know it is not long to go *party* but when sat at your desk/laptop thinking what to write I've noticed random things pop into my brain which are totally not related at all, but I am pretty sure post students share these thoughts with me and I thought it would make a funny post to share them with you.

1. I have done approximately five minutes work... it's totally okay to order a pizza now as a reward right? 

2. I think I'd rather be doing anything but this is damn essay... this possibly includes the gorging out of eyeballs.

3. WHY DID I GO TO UNI, WHY NOT DO ANYTHING BUT THIS!

4. I've been at this SO long now... I deserve a TV break (in reality it's been 30 minutes)

5. Sleep sounds good right now... *sleeps for eternity* AH WELL THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW!

Bonus thing which I think most people do whilst writing/procrastinating:
Totally draw the weirdest thing on any scraps of paper laying around, mine usually ends up being a weird stick man with flowers taking over him then a pizza slice.

Festival Fields | Travel

Being British, festivals have become a huge part of our summer and it's always a question we are always asked during the summer months, "are you going to any festivals this year?" asks Maggie on the checkouts at Sainsuburys and you almost feel wrong if you respond back with answer of no, anybody else get that? Being a student festivals are not always something which is within a budget especially for a whole weekend, some of us go for the day but it's often a miss *boo* BUT there is a solution to this problem, Madame Tussauds have brought their own festival to the lovely visitors of Blackpool! Their idea was to create an amazing festival experience inside of Madame Tussauds, it even includes the smells and sights which you would see at a classic British festival including the portaloos *woohoo* and a funky dance area along with three legendary wax works to top off this amazing experience, one of them Taylor Swift, persuaded yet?

Amongst all of this unique and fun stuff there is a user controlled light show and a karaoke stage where people can share their talents along with a 'campfire' and a traditional retro VW campervan food stall *win* it's also something new and modern featuring at Madame Tussauds and the perfect time to get your camera out and get some snaps with the 'celebrities' and features all of the best parts of the festivals without getting muddy or smelly. With the atrraction open 364 days a year you can pick the perfect time to take a visit and treat yourself to a look around the main attraction as well with many iconic British idols including The Beatles and Alan Carr. With a visit to Madame Tussauds costing a bargain price £13.00 (if booked online) or even only £16.50 on the door a bit of a saving from your usual festival price if you ask me!

If you want any more information on the attraction Madame Tussauds have it all on their website or you can watch the video below to find out more information on Festival Fields!

Madame Tussauds Blackpool Festival Fields from Madame Tussauds London on Vimeo.

The art of passive aggressive notes | Lifestyle

The lovely people of Data Label recently created a hilarious but true infographic about 'the art of passive aggressive notes' which to me is something I am all too familiar with, although mine is more likely to take place online. Living with 4 other people can be incredibly tough and a lot of the time the cleaning doesn't get done and the music is played far too loud, but being adult about things we mostly take to Twitter or even our group Facebook chat, with a message similar to 'cleaning would be great' or even 'if people didn't have their music SO loud, some of us would be able to sleep' somehow though this is less peaceful than saying it someone's face, as when it is said to the face of that person it usually ends in a massive argument which is even less fun. I think if you are going to make a passive aggressive note or tweet to make it totally obvious who it is for without even mentioning their name, if that person is guilty they'll know STRAIGHT OUT that it is about them. 

The passive aggressive thing works well for students and when your mum is shouting out you from work via a note, but when it's your other half I usually find talking helps a lot better. Mostly because my boyfriend would totally ignore a note and carry on exactly the same as before! But when someone makes you mad instead of starting a HUGE feud I'd totally recommend notes/tweets to vent your anger! When reading this infographic I decided to find some other funny PA notes and I came a whole website dedicated to them which you can read here! I was also super amused to see that the infographic had been shared a variety of comedy sites (such as The Cheers) which is always good when something takes off especially when teaching those the art of the passive aggressive note!

*A Collaborative Post! 

Juggling your blog and university work! | Tips and Tricks

I was requested this post by another blogger which I can't remember who (so sorry) so I decided to bring this post to you as it's something which may help even not with just student bloggers but bloggers with full times jobs and other commitments. It's no secret I have a lot of posts scheduled in advance even a month or sometimes longer and it's just something I've done since I came back to blogging last February. With my mental health being so poor in the past I decided I didn't want to ever have no posts to go live so I made sure I had a huge load ready to go, same with my tweets it's more recently I've gotten round to scheduling my tweets but I am glad I do as it takes a weight off and gives me more regular views then ever (totally recommend Buffer, they are the bomb!) Today I am going to share my three top tips for staying on top of your blog and university work, although I only manage to stay on top of one blog and this one suffers a little bit- sorry blog!

Drafts @ The Ready: 
Having plenty of draft posts is a perfect way to keep on top of your blog, if you start writing a post and have to take a break it's always great to keep going back until you've finished some posts and then get them scheduled. Having a folder of photos which you can always go back to is an amazing thing too, I love seeing which photos I have left to use and then quickly draft up a post when I get the chance and then that way I have photos already there so I don't have to spend more time taking them.

Do Simpler Posts: 
By Simpler I mean things that don't involve a lot of your time doing, for example a tag these are always quick and easy posts and you can always grab a free image or two (totally recommend Pixabay) to make the post a bit more interesting! Other simple post ideas could be a wishlist post or even just writing your top tips about something. I have a post all about 25 ideas when you're stuck in a rut.

Using Blogging As An Escape:
When you're taking a break from university work, instead of watching TV or going to sleep take that time to blog, although you may need a bit longer to have a bit of a munch too. I'd totally recommend taking that hour you give yourself from studying to write a post or even just compile a load of pretty images and write a simple quote with them at the end of the day it's inspiring and still gives your readers something to go with.

At the end of the day if you can't manage blogging and studying it's important to remember your readers will understand!

*All GIFS are from Giphy

Student Resources Guide | Tips and Tricks

Today I am bringing you something every student needs in their life which is a resources guide, perfect for finding out different bits of information which is helpful to students. I can't believe this will be my second post of the week, if you missed the first one feel free to read it here. So for this post I decided I would compile a list of links which I've used from time to time which help me deal with everyday student life, some are more serious than others, but take what you wish from this post. I hope you enjoy and have a fabulous rest of the day!

Living in a shared house hacks:

Being in a house share can be incredibly tough, for one sharing space with your friends can often mean you get on each others nerves for doing silly stuff. When deciding the amount of people you are going to be living with I think it's important to think about it properly because fitting too many people in a small space can be stressful and cause even more problems. Also living with housemates can be tough as they don't always cooperate with their share of house chores. This post written by Bellvue is amazing for sharing tips and ideas on how to cope whilst living in a house share and the best ways to remain argument free. 

Living well on a budget: 

I found this website Wisebread and it's great for tips on how to survive on a small budget and how to keep within your money amounts, there are many useful articles which teach you the best way to keep track of your money and how to save more money. I am sure there are other similar sites but I like the clear layout of Wisebread and how simple it is to navigate around.

Making meals from what you have:

I love the website Supercook because it enables you to make the best meals from the ingredients you have. The way the site works is by entering some ingredients you have in your cupboards and the website creates recipes to suit what you have, occasionally it tells you to add extra ingredients but it's a good way to use up what you have and also a great thing to do at the end of term to use up all of your stock. 

Where can I get the cheapest pint?: 

This info-graphic literally made me think straight to students, us students are forever trying to find the cheapest deal for alcohol and finding out where in the UK has the cheapest pint in advance is awesome because when you go to visit your mates uni's you know in advance roughly about what you are going to get charged. I totally wouldn't recommend buying a pint in Hampshire as it's £3.51 per pint, but Herefordshire is totally the space to be at £3.15 a pint, yay! P.s. if you are looking at going on holiday anytime soon hit up Belgium where the pint is only £1.27.. deal!

What websites do you recommend for other students? 

5 Ways To Deal With Stress | Trips & Tricks

If you are a third year student of university or a student of any kind that is required to do exams, this post may be perfect for you. As most of you know April/May are the most stressful months of the year for students as it's when most of the deadlines fall along with exam period *boo* so I thought I'd pop up a post today about how to deal with stress in the most positive ways I can think of and most of these things I've done myself so I am not just recommending you a load of bull poo. I hope you find this tips easy and enjoy at least one of them and also good luck with your exams and coursework if you are dealing with any of those.

1. Reward yourself: 
You've worked all day on that revision, reward yourself with something it doesn't have to be a monetary item it can be as simple as taking an hour out to chill and watching something you enjoy, I usually watch old TV series which I used watch growing up because they make me smile and feel good. My favourite at the moment is Drake and Josh. Because honestly all work and no play doesn't work it just makes you feel worse in the long run.

2. Pamper yourself: 
My recommendation on this one would be take at least one night during the week to pamper yourself, whether that be a bath with a lovely bath bomb or maybe even just a face mask and a film or a massage from a loved one. Take the time to care for yourself and you'll feel tons better. Also make sure you're getting enough sleep as it makes you more productive the next day.

3. Chat to someone: 
Whether this be a person in real life, or somebody online just talk to someone, tell them what you are struggling with and they may even be able to help or suggest some tips which might help. Afterall a problem shared is a problem halved.

4. Exercise: 
It may sound weird but exercise is a perfect way to de-stress, I love to exercise when I am in a bad mood as I can take out all the anger on working out and the same works for stress. Funnily enough exercise is known to improve your mood, so you can have a great workout followed by a lovely study session (sarcasm)

5. Remind yourself of what's to come: 
Say you're going on holiday after your exams, so you can just remind yourself, cover your room in photos of where you're going. Buy yourself some holiday treats and remind yourself once you're through the tough times, it's over and you can enjoy yourself. Even have a big calender on your wall counting down the days until you finish for summer!