A pound stretching maternity

MrsSave

It's been a few days since I posted on here. It's been a busy few days as well, which means I ended up in bed at 7 last night!

I've got my midwife appointment today, so will hopefully find out that this little one has turned and is no longer breech. *fingers crossed*

My credit card statement is ready for the month, and it is under £1000!! Yay :j it is £805. The lowest it has been for a few months. I bet there are a few transactions on there that I could've done without still, but it's much better than it has been. I've transferred the money to pay it off in full, will be sorting that this morning.

Other than 1 more dh pay (tomorrow) all the money is in for November, so I moved it all around to the correct accounts yesterday morning. I've also gone through what activities we have on during November :eek: and worked out how much we need for each one and then how much we have left.

My November targets:

• Stick to weekly spending money,
• Do not buy clothes for myself,
• Stick to grocery budget,
• Finish getting everything ready for baby,
• Start my maternity leave :j

I will add to them as I think of more!

I have £9 in the car parking pot in the car now, which should be enough for hospital visits (unless I'm in far longer than I intend being!!). It's £1 for up to 6 hours, so that's one (possibly 2) more consultant appointments, and then 3.5 days in hospital for dh to visit morning and evening.

I'm going to prep some more dump bags today. I'm going to do 8 different ones.

We went to an M&S food hall yesterday with our vouchers (then typically had another £5 ready to spend last night!!). We had 2 carrier bags full of things (Christmas pudding, tin salmon, breadsticks, crackers, biscuits, shortbread, soft drinks, crisps, cranberry sauce, turkey gravy (I checked dates!), nuts, etc) and it cost us a whole £1.95 :j Will be storing all these Christmas goodies in the baby's room until Christmas. Even once baby is here, he will be in our room so his room is purely decoration for now

[Deleted User]

Exciting times! You're so close now

That was a good haul from M&S too

angela110660

Blimey! The hospital car park is very reasonable. When I go to an appt it is £2.00 for the first hour alone. When I had an op in 2015, they gave my OH a chit to go and buy a "cheaper" week parking ticket so he could come and stay as long as needed without taking a 2nd mortgage to pay the parking fees.
Hope all goes well with your check up and fingers crossed the baby has moved.

Katzen

Morning mrsS. Well done on being so organised! You've inspired me to get similarly organised with our money for the month, it'll have to wait until we get back home

MrsSave

Wow Angela, that's expensive! I know most hospital car parks are free now, but ours is on a privately owned car park so we still have to pay!

I'm pleased I've inspired you Katzen. I find, though, that organising myself is one thing....sticking to it is another!!

I was very pleased with the M&S haul purplemum! It's nice to have 'treat' food as well, instead of the usual! Roll on Christmas

I've gone through the credit card statement this morning. :eek: On the whole it was ok. Petrol for the month was only £79.74 (the joys of working part time!), eating out was £19.79 (I think our lowest amount this year), top up shops at the Co-op came to £10.17 (less than usual), and Tesco shops were £225.06 (only slightly over budget).

Sounds good. Until I mention the clothes :eek: This month I have bought new maternity jeans, a load from Matalan to see me through the month or two after having the baby, shoes from DP, basic maternity tops from New Look, and a cardigan from Tesco. This month I have spent £181.18 on clothes :eek: That's not good at all. There is no money spare in November to buy new clothes. Not a penny. I will have to be completely strict and not buy anything. I have decided, though, that from December I will set a clothes budget for me and dh of £40 per month. (dh never buys clothes, though, he's happy wearing the same things that he's worn for ever! The only time he buys new is when I buy for him!). I figured that it's better to budget for clothes, and to try my best to stick to that budget, than not to budget at all and end up buying far too much and have to move money around to be able to pay for it. I've already got a clothes budget for ds (and the baby soon ), which will be less than our (poor things), but I usually stock up in the Next sale on jeans and then buy bits from Asda when needed which is far cheaper. I have already planned £100 for the next Next sale for the kiddies.

carlislelass

None of our hospital car parks are free

MrsSave

carlislelass wrote: »

None of our hospital car parks are free

In Wales they are! Well, other than the ones on privately owned car parks which have until the contracts run out. I think only 4 NHS car parks have charges in Wales now. Typically my local one is one of the 4!

MrsSave

Midiwfe didn't go quite as brilliantly as the other appointments. My blood pressure is starting to go up, and something showed up in my urine. Typical! She wasn't too worried today, though, but wants to see me on a regular basis now to keep an eye on things. Not much wiser as to which way the baby is, either. She couldn't work it out. I'm back in a fortnight and then I have the consultant and another scan the week afterwards.

She also said that they'd do what they could (other than an actual induction) to get the baby here as soon as possible after the due date. Not long to go. :eek:

I'm now doing a little planning work ready for my final 3 weeks in work, though I have little motivation for it today. I'd love to crawl back into bed for an hour now (I have a child free day today). If I don't do this planning today, though, I'll have to do it over the weekend!!

[Deleted User]

Sorry the appointment didn't go to plan, I'm sure everything will be ok.


I can imagine that you're on a bit of a wind down now, try and take things easy.

MrsSave

Ended up spending a couple of hours planning, but got everything I wanted done. Got a few things planned for today. Ds makes his own Christmas cards every year, so I've been looking for ideas on Pinterest and I think we'll make a start on them today. I just need a few more sheets of white card so will pop to the range this morning. I also need a moving house card (the second one I've bought this week, as the first one ended up not being a new house card - I blame baby brain!!).

I'm also going to prep another 8 dump bags today. Hopefully won't take much longer than an hour (especially as I've cheated and bought ready chopped up, frozen veg!!).

I need to catch up with laundry today, as we've been busy this week. If I've got time I may try to take ds to the park for a run around as well. We'll see how much we can fit it!