Only freedom will do

AlexLK

Agreed regarding clothes. We didn't buy anything for our son for quite a while as it seemed everybody we knew wanted to buy him some item of clothing. Children are awfully messy and will think nothing of destroying their clothes, it's taken four years for us to do this but now we buy quite cheap clothes for him as he's messy and grows out of clothing quickly.

I would not buy cheap shoes though that's not really something you need to consider at the moment.

turtlemoose

for the year of him being 18m - 30m old I budgeted (and spent) £25 a month child costs - so £300, but that included shoes, clothes, coats, groups/activities, toys, books, birthday etc etc etc. Oh and £50 of it went towards his very expensive car seat (the rest was paid for by the very first profit my btl ever made, after previously always being a loss/break even woohoo).

If I had more local family, it'd have been less as I'm sure we'd have been given more stuff.

If you're not bothered about second hand, you can buy huge bundles in sizes, things like 30 x 3-6m items for silly money, £10 or £15. I bought a lot of second hand but I bought individual items from charity shops or NCT sales, but next time I will defo buy bundles and just pass on what I don't like. They only puke/poop on it anyway.

edinburgher

So much good advice, thank you all

Busymumofthreeplusdog - that's a great approach to budgeting - it's very similar to how we treat self insuring for pet insurance (i.e. we won't need most of the money for a while, but we'll be very glad when we do)

SSS - I think that's a plan - particularly like plastic crap avoidance!

AlexLK - Great point re. shoes. I am currently trying to rid myself of the false economy of buying cheap shoes, it is a tough habit to break when a decent pair of man's shoes can set you back £50-100.

turtlemoose - bundles sound like a good idea - is this online as well? There will be a fair proportion of new stuff to begin with (humouring Mrs E on this front), but sure it could be introduced over time. We're not expecting any hand-me-downs as inconsiderate siblings are currently in the process of expanding their own families :rotfl:

edinburgher

Mrs E has just relayed the positively wonderful news that our downstairs neighbours are moving out! :T

We have been living in our flat for 3 years now and have now successfully lost both next door (a DJ, smoker and occasional participant in comedically noisy sex) and now our downstairs neighbours (a family of 5 with multiple chain smokers, tweenagers, relationship breakdowns and the attendant angry partners etc.)

The new next door neighbours are a pair of mouse-quiet renters who I haven't even seen in the 6 weeks they've lived there. Assuming the new people downstairs aren't total nutters, I feel like I've just been given the gift of quiet and peace of mind

It is incredible the difference that your neighbours can make to the atmosphere of a block of flats, isn't it?

Dancing in my head at the moment!

Karmacat

I'm *so* with you on the neighbours! And even the party wall of a semi is the same thing, I might add ... my neighbours have lived here 20 years longer than me, and I almost didn't buy the house because of them. I do feel I'm going to have trouble selling eventually, because of the scrapheap of cars in their front yard. And they're so noisy so late at night - sometimes its tv or radio, sometimes its sort of whooping and shouting and banging. There's a young baby I can hear grizzling, which doesn't disturb me at all, but the adults are driving me crazy I might consider sound insulation, but if I don't, if I still live here after I stop face to face work, I'm moving my bed into the tiny room that doesn't connect to the party wall. It'll be worth it, to be able to think of getting a good night's sleep when I go to bed.

end rant mode [/end]

turtlemoose

ebay or facebook selling pages for mucho cheapo huge bags of baby clothes. Availability tails off as they get bigger sizes though.

Sainsbo often do a 25% off event, they do lovely kid's clothes. Boots often do buy one get one half price PLUS 25% off for parenting club members (you just have to accept the offer on your online account) - also lovely clothes.

I've found overall you go through phases - when they're brand new (The baby i mean) you want them in super soft lovely organic home spun hippy stuff, only the best for your darling!!!! then they get a bit older and there's just STUFF coming out of every end, and so you start putting them in the cheaper clothes. THen they start to crawl, and eat, and the clothes get cheaper still. Then they become toddlers and you actually start to view clothes as disposable items. Then they get towards the older end of toddler and you end up with a mis-matched wardrobe of "£1 -a-t-shirt-from-the-argos-sale-you-saw-on-hotukdeals" and "good-quality-stupidly-priced-jeans-that-are-worth-it-because-they-actually-survive-more-than-one-week's-worth-of-nursery".

You don't need to worry about soled shoes until she's walking outside, and then comes a whole host of decisions as do you go mainstream (clarks, startrite etc) or do you go 'barefoot' (bobux etc) ....save that research for nearer the time while she's crawling/cruising, if you reallly want something on her feet then mocc-ons are fab (and fairly cheap).

edinburgher

Thank you for that very informed wall of baby text turtlemoose, and thanks for giving me one more thing to have to learn/decide between as a new parent!

gallygirl

Shame the neighbours are going before you get your revenge noise wise

Watty1

Yeah neighbours make such a difference. Our place is detached but Mr and Mrs Laurel Hedge are very close - and - how I wish they were not. Everyone else in the hamlet is lovely - but - the laurel hedges - geesh!!

AlexLK

Can't believe I'm giving parenting advice. :rotfl: I'm going to agree about the Sainsburys children's clothes, there's certainly nothing wrong with them. Personally, I was reluctant to buy something for my son that I wouldn't wear myself but we were also tired of the expense as clothes only last so long with children. The only items we spend more money on (clothing wise) are coats and shoes for him.

This probably sounds a little cliched but spend as much time with your child as possible because time really does pass too quickly, my son is going to be going to school in September and I'll greatly miss not having him "helping" me in the daytime. No idea what you do for work but even the most mundane tasks my son finds interesting. I've found that the amount of effort you put into parenting is directly proportional to what you get out of it.

As for neighbours, I hope you have some better ones move in. Are you planning to stay in a flat when your child is a bit older? We are very lucky as we only have one, an old farming couple, that are great with our son and bring lots of free meat and vegetables around. Spent my whole childhood vowing to move away from the Bakewell area to a big city, went to university and couldn't wait to get back.