A stay at home mummy who wants to be a mfw - Yes I can and Yes I will!

dizzyblnd

Hi, I have read your thread and I am inspired, but thought I would ask if you have any top tips for someone due their first baby that would like to be a SAHM?

I_want_a_baby

Sold some more baby clothes yesterday for £20, put it straight in the sealed tin.

£112.21 Saved in September so far.
£486.64 Saved since July 2012.

Mini September targets to focus the mind!
Target #1 ~Bronze~ = Save £100 in September (Achieved!:))
Target #2 ~Silver~ = Save £500 in Total (£13.36 to go)
Target #3 ~Gold~ = Save £150 in September (£37.79 to go)
Target #4 ~Platinum~= Save £600 in Total (£113.36 to go)

Hi dizzyblnd!
Thanks for the comment, my top tips for someone wanting to be a SAHM for the first time would be:

Budget!!! Write down your household income & household expenses. Check that you have got all your outgoings/bills as low as possible and then revisit the budget often to make sure you are sticking to it.

Draw out cash each month for the 3 F's - Food, Fuel, Fritter.
Food & Fuel can consume a lot of money, by using cash you are forced to spend only what is budgeted. Make sure you have a fritter budget for things such as parking/postage/playgroup fees/a treat for the kids/nice coffee for you - I have a fritter budget of £10 per week - without this budget you would go crazy as you need to get out of the house when you have kids.

Gifts - I have found that there are so many people (grandparents/aunties/uncles/cousins/friends) that want to buy your child a gift at christmas or birthdays. As the months go by keep a list of specific toys or items of clothing that would come in useful (specify size). Everyone I know would rather buy a gift that is much wanted and will be used over and over than something that will get dusty shoved under the bed.

Save money while you can - young children have no idea what things are new and what are 2nd hand. Save money buying good quality 2nd hand items. I have bought items such as clothing, pram, moses basket, nursery furniture, changing bags, bedding, wellies & overalls, toys, co-ordinating nursery lampshade/curtains/bedding etc.

Planning - Everytime you see a clothing sale look through all the items (See if it is good value) and if so buy clothes for the same season next year. I am always picking up the odd jumper/trousers/top in a size a year ahead for my kids and I get the satisfaction of seeing them in something new for a fraction of the price. Equally when you see a toy sale think ahead and buy things for your kids for the upcoming birthdays/christmas.

Vouchers/Loyalty Cards - Make the very most out of these.
Cards to have include - Tesco/Sainsburys/Boots
Vouchers - Sign up to hipp organic/ boots baby club/ sainsburys parenting club/ tesco baby club/ heinz baby/ ellas kitchen & similar to get vouchers sent to you through the post.

Rainy Day Savings - Try to put some money aside 'just in case'. Being a SAHM is stressful enough without loosing sleep over money matters. Start with a target of £50, when achieved double it, then double that target until your savings are at a level that gives you some security against unexpected bills.

Food - The best tip I could give here is always cook double the amount you need and freeze half. Those extra portions of 'ready meals' in the freezer will be invaluable on those days you are exhausted and are tempted by takeaways - this tip alone could save you up to £50 a month.
Look at the food threads on here and ensure that you find a balance between home cooking & baking and convenience and speed - don't beat yourself up on the night you 'only' serve beans on toast or pasta sauce out of the jar - instead pat yourself on the back that you didn't opt for a takeaway.

Activities - A £10 per week fritter budget should be absolutely loads as activites do not need to cost much. Playgroups tend to cost about £1 a time but other free options include:
Places to Go - Library, Park, A walk into town/ through woods/ down canel etc, visiting friends & relatives, childrens centre groups, look for free 'things to do' in your local paper, walk around the garden centre etc.
Things to do - Arts & crafts - poundland & wilkinsons do lots of cheap resources, print out things from activity village & sparklebox to colour in and educate, playdough is cheap and lasts for ages, get your kids involved in cooking/cleaning they will love to help, try growing your own - you will be able to buy compost, a planter and seeds for a £1 each in poundland when in season. Make obstacle courses in the garden or dens in the house - the options are endless - check out the netmums website for loads of ideas.

You - The same rule applys for you - make a list throughout the year of things you would really love - specific items of make up/toiletries, you could ask for vouchers for a certain clothing store so you can choose clothes youself that you know you will love. One of my aunties buys me a magazine subscription each christmas and I love it when it drops through the door and I can have a read with a cuppa - It also stops me buying magazines too. You could ask for a voucher for a coffee shop so you can wander into town and buy a luxury coffee on those days you are tired and drained. Think ahead and ask for specific items and thereby avoid getting another mug etc ...

I think that is all I can think of for now, but hope that helps xx

Debt_free_soon_2

Hi Stacey I've been following your thread for a while. I'm also a SAHM and agree with everything you've said.

Other advice for the PP would be don't get drawn into the alpha mum set. There are mums out there that see everything as a competition, since they don't work everything is about the child & trying to be the best. They try outdo each other with gift buying, which activities they take LO to etc. It is truly awful! The town I live in is very middle class & some of the women are like trophy wives! On the other hand there will always be people like you, you just need to find where like minded mums hang out!
Net mums is a good call, for meeting people or general ideas & tips, try & do "coffee mornings" at each others house & take turns. Much cheaper than soft play centres or cafe & more relaxed too.


Look forward to hearing more about your MFW journey! :-)

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Hi All,

Some great tips there Stacey. Many of them apply to children-free families too.

dizzyblnd

That is an amazing list and very helpful. Thank you ever do much. Good luck with your mortgage free journey, I will b following ur progress and hoping to join you in the future.

I_want_a_baby

Thanks Debt Free Soon & Mortgage Reduction Novice for your comments & glad you found the tips useful dizzyblnd!

Well we bid on some sofas on ebay and won them on Monday. We had budgeted £400 for some good quality leather sofas so were really pleased to win them for £290! We decided to break open the sealed house tin and use the notes out of there plus the rest from the bank as we were beggining to worry about the amount of cash in there.

The amount in the tin was £270.15 which means when I started seriously saving in July there was £55.55 in there already which is uncounted in my totals! Therefore new totals are:

£167.76 Saved in September so far.
£542.19 Saved since July 2012.

Mini September targets to focus the mind!
Target #1 ~Bronze~ = Save £100 in September (Achieved!:))
Target #2 ~Silver~ = Save £500 in Total (Achieved!:j)
Target #3 ~Gold~ = Save £150 in September (Achieved!:beer:)
Target #4 ~Platinum~= Save £600 in Total (£57.81 to go)

Very happy with this!!

Have friends coming round tomorrow night and would normally pay £20ish for a takeaway however dicussed it with them and decided to cook similar to takeaway and should cost me no more than £5!

Thats all for this morning x

I_want_a_baby

Morning All!

Took the time to update the banks and budgets as my son is at nursery!

£6.00 into sealed tin leftover from last weeks food budget.
£10.00 into sealed tin from sale of baby clothes.
£16.00 into sealed tin.

£1.29 Life insurance budget less DD's
£23.49 leftover from christening budget of £100
£24.78 TRF'd to ISA

Total saved today - £40.78
Total saved in September £208.54
Total saved since July 2012 £582.97

Mini September targets to focus the mind!
Target #1 ~Bronze~ = Save £100 in September (Achieved!:))
Target #2 ~Silver~ = Save £500 in Total (Achieved!:j)
Target #3 ~Gold~ = Save £150 in September (Achieved!:beer:)
Target #4 ~Platinum~= Save £600 in Total (£17.03 to go)
Target #5 ~Diamond~= Save £250 in September (£41.46 to go)

So happy with this months savings!

Hoping to sell our old sofas for £40 which will also go into the kitty although I won't include this into the figures until sold and the money goes into the tin.

I have so much clearing out to do ready for the move - hoping to sell some more things as well!

Stacey x

I_want_a_baby

Just a quick question on finding the balance...

We have been scrimping and saving for so long it comes naturally to us, however my hubby & I were discussing lifestyle last night and talking about what kind of life we wanted our children (2.5yo & 8mo) to have. Now whilst we don't want them to have a overly materialistic life there are experiences we want them to have and we also want to feel like we are just enjoying family life and not 'always scrimping back'.

Having saved for so long we are now currently buying a house and all along the thought has been 'let's not spend this £x because we would rather have our own home/decorated to our taste/garden full of flowers, veggies & birds/go on trips with the children/let the children experience new things.

Yet as the time is getting nearer I am thinking that when we are in I will become just as focused on OP'ing as I had been on saving for a deposit and despite probably making a huge financial impact we would probably have 'lived less' during that time. I guess I just don't want to look back and realised we didn't make the most of the children's childhood?!

So my questions are:

1 - How do YOU keep the balance between spending/saving.

2 - What would you say would be a sensible % split between spends/saves in my situation if you were to receive a one off bonus or odd bit of additional income.

3 - How far do you go in your quest for OP'ing? We have never had the opportunity to decorate somewhere how 'we' like it - yet I feel guilty when I think how much it would cost. ( we would however try to buy furniture 'we want' 2nd hand first but would buy new if we couldn't source it).

4. In my quest to save money we have so much 'stuff' heaps of things for preserving/massive approved food stash/lots of 2nd hand toys & clothes/ presents bought in advance and so on yet this 'stuff' is really cluttering up the house & bringing me down - how do you find a balance here?

Stacey x

toozie_2

Hi Stacey

We have fairly comfortable lifestyle now we are in our early 50's and the girls have flown the nest.

But things were hard in the early 90's with 2 young children, me working relief hours and due to a change in job our mortage interest rate doubled.

Our girls always remember our holidays-out of season in a caravan or the cheapest of cheapest cottage in this country self catering-and we DID self cater whilst away. But we did fun stuff every day.
Each year we always had a week's holiday, sometimes saving The Sun tokens.
I think this came from the fact that I never had a holiday with my parents.
The girls will still get the photo albums out and have a laugh at stuff we did.

On holiday or at home we have always played board games (and still do at Xmas) either ourselves or with friends and had a good laugh.
My eldest is now married and has a 3 year old, and they have started paying traditional games as well!

Another cheap thing we did was hire a video (remember it was the 90's!) and share a huge packet of crisps, cuddled up on the settee, especially in winter. Because we had girls this was a girly thing with usally a love story when they were a bit older. Again they have fond memories of this.

Don't feel guilty about decorating-it's your own place and you want it to be your special home. We made each room cosy but waited until we could afford to decorate as we wanted.
I love the Shabby Chic look on the oldy style thread, old second had car boot sale/or charity shop furniture can be made to look so classy with a bit of TLC. Old furniture lasts and lasts which is not the case with Ik-a/ Aro-s stuff.
It should be so much fun doing your own place up-don't have any guilty feelings!!

I always tried to have a bit of a "pot" in case of an emergency, but once you've got your own place I felt that life is too short to squirrel away every penny for a rainy day. Your kids will be grown up and gone in no time.

Will you have a room or corner/cupboard in your new home for keeping the preserves and Xmas pressies bought on sale etc. I used to have stuff in boxes under the beds, in the attic etc.

Very good luck for the future.

Alice:beer:

I_want_a_baby

Thanks so much for your reply Toozie, I really appreciate it.

We save £45 every month so that we can have a caravan holiday each year, normally near to the seaside. I take as much food as I can to leave as much spending money for days out & fun things. The holidays you had sound just like the thing we do/would like to do! My husband only had one holiday with his family as a child so this is important to us too and we would always try to make sure we could afford this (definately more important than decorating).

We do have board games here, along with too many 2nd hand toys, playdough/paints etc. We don't really watch too much TV during the day but do quite often watch disney dvds.

Thank you for telling me not to feel guilty lol, I think it stems from a real debt phobia and in my head I am thinking 'how dare I buy nice things whilst I have a mountain of mortgage debt' whilst my heart is saying 'this is what you have dreamed of your whole life you would be silly to deny yourself a happy life in a lovely family home just so you can overpay loads'.

Shabby chic is really my thing too. My husband is making a really chunky solid wooden dining table from pallet wood he has salvaged from a skip at work, and we already have a few 'decorative' things. We just need to paint the walls and co-ordinate the furniture a bit better.

The difficulty with the new house is that both the house and garden are smaller than where we are now and the loft has virtually no storage space. There is a tiny cupboard under the stairs but the main space is taken up with a downstairs toilet. However we are hoping to get another wardrobe so we may be able to store presents in there. We have been offered the use of attic storage at the in-laws so might use that for the preserving stuff and other items not used often.

We do have an emergency fund which we are hoping to increase significantly soon. We also save up for every bill/holiday/christmas/birthdays etc too so I am confident we will be meeting our liabilities.

I guess it is a weird feeling realising that all that you have worked hard for is finally coming together and that I am financially secure and I can loosen the reins slightly and really start enjoying life.

It is a really exciting feeling as we have never been able to choose a wallpaper or carpet, or design a garden and choose flowers, or 'just have a day out' or for me and my husband to just go out for some couple time. We have always been really restricted by money.

The day we get the keys I want to go and buy a proper bottle of champagne (we only ever buy fizzy wine to celebrate things!) to celebrate and then maybe go and get some paint tester pots and wallpaper samples!

Thank you so much for your reply I really do appreciate it and would love to hear others views as well.

Stacey x