£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

XSpender

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Oh and another trauma yesterday - made the mistake of measuring the DCs feet. I'll be over here in the corner rocking if you need me, contemplating the purchase of one complete set of school shoes, trainers, weekend shoes, walking boots and wellies (remember the toddler days when all you needed was wellies and one pair of shoes?), plus another pair of wellies and trainers. Urgh.

I feel your pain with the footwear. After having had to replace all of DS school uniform last month due to a growth spurt and him losing some items, this month he needs new school shoes and trainers. And I only have one child!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Oh and another trauma yesterday - made the mistake of measuring the DCs feet. I'll be over here in the corner rocking if you need me, contemplating the purchase of one complete set of school shoes, trainers, weekend shoes, walking boots and wellies (remember the toddler days when all you needed was wellies and one pair of shoes?), plus another pair of wellies and trainers. Urgh.

Can you:
Leave the walking boots for a couple of months? Hand me downs? Again or part ex from a walking boots shop)
Hand me down wellies from one to another (we have a local welly exchange on Facebook, which is another option)
Trainers & weekend shoes could double
Up for a while.

Wish

museumworker

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Oh and another trauma yesterday - made the mistake of measuring the DCs feet. I'll be over here in the corner rocking if you need me, contemplating the purchase of one complete set of school shoes, trainers, weekend shoes, walking boots and wellies (remember the toddler days when all you needed was wellies and one pair of shoes?), plus another pair of wellies and trainers. Urgh.

We only just started buying two pairs of shoes for DS (5) - one pair of school shoes, and a pair of canvas type trainers to kick round in on the weekend. He also has cheap black pumps for PE at school. Walking boots or wellies are nice to haves, but not essential and he often doesn't want to wear them anyway. We just tell him to stay out of puddles (which he doesn't :rotfl:)

Treadingonplaymobil

Unfortunately all shoes necessary. I used to be a one-pair-of-shoes-per-child person!
- school shoes for obvious reasons!
- trainers - as they move up through school they need proper trainers not canvas plimsolls, which is what they had in reception and yr1
- walking boots - we walk a lot, in mud and all sorts, and everyone knows there is nothing worse than cold wet feet on a long walk, and wellies are uncomfortable for long walks.
- wellies - forest school, camping holidays, messing about by the river, beach on cold days. They get used a lot and, again, wet feet ruin good days.
- weekend shoes - the only possible compromise, but relies on DC1 bringing home his pe trainers every single week, and having tried it over winter (because walking boots would do in a pinch, but are too hot for everyday wear as the weather warms up) the reality was that they came home about one week in three, and failed to go back for Monday PE half the time too, so it was a complete disaster.

The full set of shoes is for DC1 - the younger ones get hand me downs where possible, but I find increasingly that shoes are totally trashed before getting handed down, with the occasional exception of walking boots (DC3 has DC2's old ones) and sandals/wetsuit shoes in the summer (have a couple of pairs ready to go).

Onebrokelady

Thank god for Percy pigs I say :rotfl:

Suffolk_lass

We have our commuting car at the main dealership today. It went to the friendly reliable garage that is local (cheaper by 50%) and preferred (while we were away at Easter) but their replacement of engine coils has not cured the problem. It has just been fed back that there is a suspected fuel contamination issue causing loss of power on hills and the car re-setting itself into "limp mode". This is apparently self-protect mode when there is a problem. Their laptop diagnosis tool on a test run says it is intermittent mis-firing.

So tomorrow they will remove the full tank of fuel, look to see if it is tank-cleaner, water or diesel in the tank, then flush the fuel tank, replace with proper unleaded 4* and charge us £360 for the privilege. DH is adamant he did not fill it up with diesel. I suppose the look at what they get our will tell us. Bang goes the reserve I was building up for hols.

I mention this because there have been a number of instances of supermarkets over-egging the tank-cleaner (causing subsequent fuel contamination), water in tanks (not cleaned or sealed, apparently, so it builds up) and replacing diesel with 4* unleaded (the diesel sinks and is then dispensed, causing our symptoms, if the level in the forecourt tank drops).

You might have something similar. I put a tank of BP Ultimate in mine once in a while if I think there is a build-up of rubbish - it is like Calgon for the diesel engine equivalent of limescale and seems to work for de-fragging it

fraserbooks

I feel for you with shoes. One of my boys ended up an adult size 14 so you can guess how many pairs of shoes I had to buy. I also had to buy football boots and hockey boots as he was quite sporty.

JoJoC

I alao feel your pain on the shoes front - both mine need new trainers as they have both grown but i need to check the welly boot and school shoes situation. Im hoping the school shoes can limp through to summer...come on, only 2.5 months to go!

I have a sneaky suspicion my eldest has outgrown his school trousers too as he's shot up recently and a lot of his jeans are too short. Will need to do an assessment then weep at the costs.

db2016

a note on some car related issues i've read.

sometimes the AA and RAC etc wont cover older cars or theres surcharges, as simply costs them too much to service, and also train staff, because any car after 2000 say, you more often than not use a computer to diagnose, the days of sucking teeth under the bonnet are long gone, the car tells the human whats wrong now, as someone mentioned the limp mode, this is the car protecting itself.
my dad has 2 cars, a daily 10 year old car (sporty model), and a 31 year old classic ford, they charge an uplift beacause of this, but hes used them once in past couple of years and it paid for itself as it needed to be lifted off the ground and on a flatbed truck and taken to a specalist in midlands, when we are NE. aside from that, USUALLY in car circles cars as classed as classics after 15 years, including insurance etc. this doesnt mean they have to be a sporty car or such, just over that age, so anyone out there with a car this age, it may be worth looking for classic insurers, no matter if you think its special or not!

fuel prices, try petrol prices uk, and once you find good price, only fill up half way or less, fuel weighs more than 1kg a litre so you may only notice a small improvement but why lug around excess weight?!

using a good fuel also helps, especially for older cars, but i'd not use it if your only going to use once a while, its complex but the different RON ratings of fuels being mixed can introduce problems too (eg unleaded here is usually 95-97, super unleaded is near 98-100), it may hiccup etc.

there are also proper cleaning methods such as terraclean which is a total flush of system with a cleaner, i dont know prices but a lot of car groups i'm in (you may have guessed i'm a car guy ha), swear by it. and claim improved fuel economy and generally better running. its kinda like cleaning the arteries of the engine. more furr'ed up they are the less efficient it will move the fuel around.

arsenalbarnie

Do you have an outlet centre near you for shoes? I remember when my eldest two were in year 7&8 I took the 5 of mine to Swindon Outlet centre for the day. We bought shoes x 5, trainers or similar x 5, rugby boots x 2 and I can't remember the other 3 but we had 15 pairs! Saved me loads. I remember them all hanging on DD's pushchair :rotfl: When we got home a magpie had fallen down the chimney and had been trapped in our living room all afternoon oh Gawd you should have seen the state of the room. Purple bird sh*t everywhere where it had been eating mulberries. We were all too chicken to go in there apart from DS2 who crept in and opened the patio doors to let it fly out.

I feel your pain with shoe buying. It is so frustrating trying to build up savings pots. I am trying but feel like I need to save for a year then start. It is so difficult.