SOA - am I doing it right?

Gale_10

Hi there,

You are so well organized you put me to shame, I just bumbled my way through all my three babies, got the things we needed and tried to save here and there on stuff.

Just would like to say, Lidl nappies are marvelous, and you get 54 for £4.99. They are at least as good as Huggies. I breast feed my 5 month old, but we do keep Farleys milk, also available at Lidl, in case of emergencies.

A new baby goes through on average seven nappies a day, seven days a week, so you can calculate more accurately how many you would need. After a few weeks, the nappy rate goes down a bit.

I have tried to use reusable nappies with my DD and DS2, but without great success. If its a first baby then I don't mind upsetting the environmentalists and suggesting that your OH has enough on her plate without worrying about the demise of the planet.

All the best all round,

Gale

matthewking26

Proper update, going well so far! Spending diaries are scary! We're trying to be organised so we don't sink under the debt!

Thanks for that about nappies. Would love to use reuseables but OH is adamant and no amount of persuading will do anything. On the plus side, she is now considering breastfeeding with bottles as back up, not going to pressure her but will see what happens!
Will probably try cheapy nappies, as we realised we'd been buying the expensive ones to use the coupons they sent us, even though thats often more than own brand ones even with the discount, doh! No lidl near us but there are home bargains, nettos and aldi within driving distance.

August was audited properly, all spending recorded. Was good for credit card. Now down to £6745 after making another payment 1st Sept. Food costs were higher than anticipated but if the last shop of the month lasts a while it’ll make September’s costs substantially lower. Was able to pay a fair bit off the credit card as this was the last month paying half rent.
Having handed in the form to get tax sorted out meant I got full pay this month. Hoorah! Haven’t had P45 from old job yet but will turn up at some point this month hopefully to hand in to personnel.

Bought more nappies and got a baby playmat off freecycle worth £30 and a baby pram toy for £3 on ebay (half full price!) The stuff sold on ebay went wellish. Only got £5 for the telly but better than nothing. I remember what used to depress me about using ebay, the low price stuff goes for when you paid full price originally. But its all helping. Most went on paying credit card off but kept the £200 cash out for September shopping budget (set target of £50 pw)

Have got partners maternity clothes to ebay this month and probably some more dvds/CDs. Still not sold the car but OH’s dad is investigating the cheapest repair places for us. Need it sold but he is sure we can get £2500 for it if its repaired properly.

Feel guilty about the plants, but now the back yard is lovely and full of herbs which we can use through the winter. OH shopping on shoes and purse could have been a lot worse and our day out was our reward for doing so well in August.

Anything left at the end of this month will go on credit card. Am continually throwing any spare pennies at it. Any hints/encouragement greatly appreciated!

Outgoings from spending diary August 2007
Food - £231 (includes a £45 shop on 31st Aug, should last into Sept)
Paid off credit card - £744
Loan repayment - £196
Phone/broadband - £36
Baby stuff - £27
Council tax - £95
Rent – £262 (last payment at that level, from Sep its £525 as housemate gone)
Birthday presents/meal for OH - £33
Shoes - £25
Purse - £4
Petrol - £55 (should go down as OH now on maternity leave)
Car insurance £46 (last payment until renewal in October)
Plants £49 (we went mad at garden centre, oh the shame!(although they were all 75% off and lots of compost too!))
Paint for house £15
Water bill £16
Parking for day out £4.50
Day out entrance fees to roman festival £7.60
£15 ebay fees
£2 posting ebay items

Main income this month
£1069 my income
£300 partners income
£80 tax back from previous job

Extra income:
£200 for bike sold on ebay (paid in cash, keeping the cash in moneybox for months food budget)
£30 other ebay items

So will see what we spend for September.

Will apply for another card in 6 months. The barclaycard was cleared and when it expired about a year ago they didn't send another one. Probably because I hadn't spent on it since I first got it a few years before that.

RAS

Matthew

A couple of things re mat leave and the baby:

You mention for mat leave the next nine months, then 3 months of zero which will be very tough.

if she has not already done so can GF check the situation re paid leave with her HR? I believe it is the law (EU) that holiday leave entitlement continues to accrue throughout maternity leave. One of my colleagues came back from mat leave to discover that she had to take all her accrued leave and her outstanding holiday entitlement before the end of the leave year - some 5-6 weeks in the next ten weeks because personnel had not told her before she went off.

If she intends going back part-time, she is still entitled to accrue the holiday at the full-time rate until she changes her contract. Most of my colleagues now tack their accrued leave onto the end of their mat leave. I do not have any experience of the situation with unpaid mat leave as they have all come back when the baby was 6 months old, but certainly this applies to the time when she is on paid leave.

And from the 1st October 2007, the minimum holiday entitlement is 24 days plus 8 days statuatory holiday.

So she could do 9 months paid mat leave, 2 months unpaid mat leave and one month paid holiday (full pay for that month).

Breast feeding is a great idea but to get the full benefit, you need to stick to breast only. have alook at this brilliant article by Oliver James about his own partner http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1447727,00.html.

It would be worth tracking down the local sources of breast feeding support now rather than after the birth.

Once GF is settled, she could express a small amount of milk and then you or someone else could do a feed, so she gets a longer period of sleep a few times a week. Depends on her, but others have found the late evening and 5-6am feeds the best to get covered. Also be realistic about your own sleep needs and be prepared to sleep in another bed once or twice a week if you are getting overtired. It is worth talking about now, so that it does not become a big thing when you are both sleep deprived.

The other thing worth doing once she moves in a some bulk cooking. When you get in from work and she and the baby are fractious, it will be a lot easier if you can get a home cooked meal out of the freezer rather than having to go back out for a take away. it will save a fortune as well as your sanity. Obviously depends on your food like but try to get at least three or four things in the freezer for each of the early weeks.

Anyway, best of luck.

Jazzyjeff_2

You could try a bit of mystery shopping:

http://www.invisionplus.net/forums/index.php?mforum=mshoppertheoffi&showforum=3

www.retaileyes.co.uk

Some free meals out and you even get a small fee. Plus other jobs. You won't earn a fortune but some of the benefits like a £30 meal for free are pretty good!

matthewking26

One piece of good news.

The electric and gas bill I was expecting to be £150 was only £69, more money to throw at credit card.
Landline bill was £39, I pay an extra £4.50 as I refuse to pay by direct debit. The way I see it, if they "accidentally" bill me £400 instead of £40 the direct debit means they'd just take it and never refund any fees I incur.
Got to pay exhousemates deposit back to her over the next two months so £265 got be found from somewhere. On the plus side, ebay sales currently at £33 and they don't end until tonight. Shocking that I paid £20 for the die hard trilogy box set about a year ago and nobody is willing to bid 0.99 for it! Grrr!
I put some good dvds on there. The way I see it, if I really want to watch them I can wait 3 years until I'm debt free and then buy them again with actual money, not credit card ghost money.

Oh and thanks for the advice on holidays. My OH is getting a months paid holiday after the 9 months paid maternity leave so get another month with Thomas when he's born and without paying childcare costs.
Thanks muchly for that suggestion, has made us an extra months worth of money without much effort on our part.
And thanks aswell for suggesting bulk meals for the first few weeks. Will have to plan for that.

matthewking26

Someone at last wanted my die hard boxset. Makes it seem less painful selling something for a fiver that cost 20 instead of not selling it at all or it only going for a pound. Now if only the rest excited such interest. Auctions end tonight so fingers crossed they go for a fair amount. Then I can put up OHs maternity things that don't fit anymore.
Is it worth putting books up there anyone or do the postage costs outweigh the prices paid?
Service looks like being expensive for OH car, brake fluid needs changing to pass MOT, brakes need stripping ??? (whatever that is), wipers need changing. I hate cars! They swallow money!

angelfairy

Hello,

I haven't seen your thread about for a while so I have enjoyed catching up on it.

In relation to Ebay, I know it can be difficult when you don't get anything near what you paid for an item initially, but it is better to have the money in your hand and the item out of the house don't you think.

All the best.

Silverstar

Hi Matthew,

If you're selling books, dvds, cds and that kind of thing, it might be worth putting them up on Amazon Marketplace as opposed to eBay. I found cds sold pretty well on there (but then I have odd musical taste, so some of my stuff was hard to find), and you can also list items for the price you want ot sell them at. It's not quite as quick as eBay, though, so that's a downside. Might be worth a look, though.

learning_to_save

Not had time to catch up on how things are going, glad they are going well. You should mention to your GF that she will also accrue any bank holidays that fall during her 26 weeks OML that she could add on to the annual leave aswell, should get the ones from Christmas to take.

Hope this helps lts

matthewking26

Well the ebay stuff went for £100 altogether. Nowhere even close to what I paid for it all but more money to throw on the credit card. It’s now at £6671.99 but this months interest has yet to be added. Better than I estimated though.


Have paid off £1482 of cc debt since May.



I’ve put up a winnie the pooh moses basket on ebay we don’t need as OH dad buying us a new one and a travel cot from freecycle as we received two but no interest so far. Worth a try, need to list the maternity clothes when I have time, been a busy week.


OH car service was £340 but her dad helped so we only had to pay £160 of that. Eternal gratitude to him! The spending diary is still going strong and we’re inputting everything we spend.


Am going to have to stop second job soon though as getting close to the birth and OH finding it harder to do things, and I hate spending 6 days a week away from her, but it does mean that’ll be £123 less each month coming in. And finding ex housemates deposit to give back will be a squeeze but has to be done sooner rather than later. Owe her £265 after taking her half of electric and gas but she did say we could pay it over 2 months.


Spent £173.50 on food so far this month, not bad but not great. OH cravings for fish and chips must be obeyed! But we did buy pizza bases and make our own, just as nice as a takeaway and a fraction of the cost.



£55 on petrol this month, lots of hospital appointments to be driven to and a few days out.


£250 paid onto credit card and then ebay sales meant an extra £103 also put onto credit card.


£50 went on credit card today but probably won’t be processed until after this months interest added. So £403 on credit card instead of £250, minimum payment was £216 so not bad.


Had to buy a new toilet seat as ours snapped, false economy buying a £7 toilet seat, it only lasted 4 months, should have kept the receipt! Curse dunelm for its value! Went to B+Q and bought a reduced one, down from £48 to £19, solid pine so the darn thing better last until littlun goes to university!


Same with a £5 toaster bought from Argos just before Christmas, died a death with blue sparks flying everywhere, pretty but probably not very safe. Replaced with a £10 Asda one. Fingers crossed it lasts!


Going to collect my old mountain bike from my brothers house at the weekend. Hopefully that’ll make a few quid on ebay. Back in the bad old days I bought it for £550 on my credit card. Then about two years later bought a new one for a fortune instead of getting that one serviced and repaired when the chain was wearing out. Then gave the old one to my brother for nowt. He never rides it as has another one (that I gave him in lieu of £200 he leant me when I was a student, confused yet?). Did use them both a lot but shocking now to think I didn’t bat an eyelid at getting that much further into debt. Heh ho different perspective now!


Only 5 and a half weeks until baby due so will find out then whether dfd changes for the worse! Hopefully not. He’s pretty much engaged 2 weeks early according to the midwife. But the earliest antenatal class we can go to is 17th October, useful if he comes early!


Can ebay baby clothes as he grows out of them so a trickle of extra money coming in if I have the energy. I feel so guilty that OH has to go to the post office to post the ebay parcels when she’s getting so big!


Taking car to OHs dad on Friday to discuss paying for repairs and advertising it in various places. If it isn’t sold by Oct 16th I’ll no longer be insured and will have to shell out for another years insurance. Can’t declare it SORN and not insure myself as have nowhere to keep it and wouldn’t be able to let people testdrive it.


Get paid on the 28th. At least we can afford the rent each month. So the roof over our head is safe! And in 3 years time we’ll have an extra £450 per month to save for things! Trying to keep that at the front of my mind!