Entertainment · Family

3 Ways To Ensure You Have Fun With Your Family This Summer

When it comes to summer time, a lot of parents often start to feel as though there is a lot of pressure on them to engage in as many activities as possible and have as much fun as possible. While it is certainly true that you probably want to be fairly active in the warmer months, and your children will want to too, that pressure is misguided. You should not feel that you have to fill every waking moment with something new and exciting, though of course doing so as much as possible is no bad idea. In this article, we are going to look at some of the things that you might want to do to make sure that you can have some fun with your family this summer. As long as you consider these, you should find that is much simpler to make a reality.

Pic

Get The Finances Sorted

The financial side of things is hugely important, and you need to make sure that you are going to sort this out first if you hope to have plenty of fun over the holidays. For those activities which require a fair amount of money, you should budget for them as early as you can, so that you know you are going to be able to do it without causing yourself any trouble. But you should also make sure that you are filling your time with as many no-spend activities as you possibly can, of which there are plenty. This LittleLoans article will show you some of the better things that you can hope to do without spending any money, and these are going to be a great place to start if that is what you are looking for.

Plan Together

It’s important when you are planning your summer out that you take on board the opinions of everyone who is going to be involved, otherwise you might not find that you are going to all have as much fun as you would hope. At the very least, you need to know that everyone is happy taking part in something, and if not then you might need to change your plans somewhat. By planning together in this way, you ensure that you maximize the fun for all, and that is important if you hope for your family to be truly happy during the summer months and beyond.

Pic

Keep Your Spirits Up

We all know how easy it can be for family activities to descend into arguments. Because of how often that can happen, it is essential to make sure that you are doing whatever you can to keep your spirits up – and the spirits of all the other people in your family. If you can do that, then it will make for a much better time between you all, and that will mean that you are going to be able to enjoy your summer much more together. You might even feel that you get a little closer than you have before, which can be especially enjoyable to know.

Entertainment

Four Shows You Should Be Watching Right Now

When it comes to TV, there’s never been such a variety of platforms to watch your favourite shows on. From Netflix to Amazon Prime, there’s a never-ending supply of shows and films that are available at just the click of the button. So what shows should you be watching right now? Here are four shows to watch on your next free evening or weekend at home.

Image Source

If this selection isn’t enough, then you can find plenty of new shows to watch here.

The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann

It’s a case that shocked the globe. The disappearance of a three, nearly four-year-old girl from a holiday vacation spot in Praia da Luz. Praia da Luz will, unfortunately, be forever known as the place where a UK child went missing, and it’s mysterious circumstances. The documentary is pretty much made up of information a lot of us would have heard about around the time it all happened, but it’s interesting because it presents quite a balanced argument for all possible theories. Many of the latest documentaries that have appeared on Netflix like Making A Murderer, is particularly one-sided, so for this one to be so balanced, it’s surprising that the McCann’s didn’t want to be involved.

The case is still unsolved, and with the additional £150,000 that’s recently been given to the fund, it seems like there’s still lines of enquiry that are being pursued. Let’s hope Madeleine gets found one day.

Sex Education

It’s not as raw and hard-hitting like Skins, a similar TV show, was. However, Sex Education is a hilarious and accurate account of how difficult it can be to navigate high school. From fitting into to clicks and finding your crowd, the show follows a socially awkward teenager, Otis. He’s a virgin but manages somehow to create an underground sex clinic, giving advice to other teenagers having problems of their own. It touches on other topics like sexuality and troubles within family life, and that’s probably why it’s currently so popular, it’s confirmed to have a second series!

Cheat

A series that’s currently on air is ITV’s Cheat is about a dangerous relationship between a tutor and a student that spirals out of control. It stars Katherine Kelly who has had a glittering career already on TV and is a pro when it comes to hard-hitting dramas. What was meant to be a simple open and close case of academic deception turns into two fiercely intelligent minds willing to do anything to prove the other wrong.

Good Omens

Featuring two legends in TV and Film, David Tennant and Michael Sheen play opposite each other in Good Omens. Playing a devil and angel, they must join forces to save the world from Armageddon. The first episode is due to come out on Amazon Prime on the 31st May, so keep it in your diaries for then.

There’s a fantastic variety of shows in all genres to suit even the fussiest of viewers. So set aside some time to spend some quality time with friends or family in front of the TV.

Entertainment · Family

Unlocking Netflix Content From Across the Globe

Unlocking Netflix with a VPN
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Despite the fact that we have a Sky box, I would guess that at least 75% of what gets watched in our house is through on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. The kids love being able to watch what they want, when they want (although that’s usually a strict rotation of Full House, Sam and Cat and Victorious!) and Husband and I get really tired of the usual ‘flicking through Sky before announcing there’s nothing on’ routine that we get sucked into almost every evening.

However, despite the fact that Netflix adds a lot of new content all the time, we’re starting to get to a point where we feel like we’re exhausting all of the films and shows that are available to us. There’s no doubt that Netflix still offers great value for money – as of 2016, statistics showed that the average user pays around $0.20 per hour of viewing and managed to avoid a massive 160 hours of adverts per year by watching on-demand. But, hey, we’re greedy and want more from the service!

We recently discovered that if you watch Netflix through a VPN, you can access WAAAY more content – if you don’t know what a VPN is, it’s an app that you can utilise on your phone, computer or pretty much anything that connects to the internet to secure your internet connection through another server.

When you connect to a server, you can connect to most places in the world (depending on the VPN provider) so your IP Address will appear as if you are in that location. What’s great about this is that in doing this you can access content from that country – so say you’re based in the UK, you can access US Netflix – which has almost double the content the UK Netflix has!

The best part is, a VPN doesn’t have to be pricey, with some just costing a couple of dollars per month, which means that you’ll still be paying very little for absolutely loads more content than you’d usually be able to access.

With estimates that Netflix will spend a mind-boggling $13 BILLION on content this year alone, it’s well worth using a VPN to allow yourself to get access to as much of this content as possible, especially if foreign film and TV is your thing! Husband and I are big fans of Scandinavian crime dramas, of which there seems to be very few on UK Netflix, but unlocking our subscription with a VPN would allow us to enjoy more of what we like.

According to The Motley Fool “The results speak for themselves. Netflix added over 26 million subscribers in the trailing 12 months ending in March, nearly 6 million of those in the “saturated” U.S. market. As long as Netflix continues to add subscribers at that kind of pace, the content spending is working. At some point, the company will hit an equilibrium where increased spending doesn’t result in a meaningful increase in subscribers, but that day still seems far away.”