Does it ever "get better"?

goodwithsaving

lulu_92 wrote: »

I hope you weren't intending to sound as rude as this came across .

It didn't come across as rude, it was constructive. Whether your wedding is £2000 or £20,000 - it is money you currently need. You don't have to get married. You could always go to the registry office for a couple of hundred pounds, if that, if the concept of marriage is that important.

I appreciate that you're going through a hard time and was sorry to read of it, but the poster had a point.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Are you a union member? If so, they could advise whether the company has made an unrealistic/inappropriate offer, which on the face of, this sounds like.


If the redundancy settlement figure is a good one, I'd be inclined to take the money and just breathe for a bit. It won't necessarily be money scattered around, but it's a lot less stressful to have little money when you aren't slogging your guts out in a job that doesn't allow for your childcare responsibilities and doesn't take ages to get to and from each day; you're saving on fulltime childcare, for a start - as somebody working a full night and then looking after two babies all day is not going to be able to do that forever; his physical and mental health will begin to suffer, too - that's a cost beyond £££.

POPPYOSCAR

Most people have ups and downs like this in their life.

You will get through it, and yes you do need to 'count your blessings as they say.

In our family everything for all of us was quite normal for years until one day my niece was diagnosed with cancer and died 3 months later at the age of 31.

Then 6 months later my nephew at the age of 39 collapsed and died leaving 2 young children.

To top it all my brother had a brain tumour operated on and now has another one.

It never rains but it pours as they say.

It has changed me considerably and I appreciate every day with the ones I love, money and material things are much less important.

Try if you can to put it all into perspective. The twins do not need to go to soft play, they are not missing out. They can have just as much fun in a free playground or playing with a ball in the park.

Are there any other areas you could cut back on until you get over this difficult period? It will not be forever.

gettingtheresometime

As Poppyoscar says we've all got stories where you think the powers that be are having a right laugh at your expense.

Mine...

- MIL falls ill & dies within 6 weeks
- Hubby, who gave up a secure job 4 months earlier, is made redundant 4 months later & starts his own company .....bearing in mind we had no savings, I was working part time, & eventually wouldn't be able to take anything out of the company for 6 months.

I won't lie it was a horrendous time but 17 years later I can look back on that time & think yes it was tough but we got through it.

You learn to cut your cloth accordingly & if you've got good friends & family they will rally around you (apparently I 'won' a Christmas hamper in my mum's works raffle that year - & I still don't know to this day whether I actually won it or whether it was from my mum)

Yes the weather is turning now but in a blink of an eye it will be spring & then you won't need soft play .....& as a child of the 70s we never had soft play & still turned out ok

lulu_92

I used soft play as an example of things we cant afford to take the girls to. I know these arent "necessary" but i am absolutely fed up of not being able to treat the girls once in a while to something fun. There's not much around here that's free and suitable for them at the age they are, apart from the park, which we do to death because it's free!

Yes we didnt have to get married but we planned everything when we were secure financially and we made sure it was affordable. We really don't want to put any of the wedding on credit now we're in difficulty. We haven't done any new bookings or wedding purchases since two months before i found out about redundancy.

(As an aside it makes me laugh that in my thready history i have people criticising us for not being married, and then when i do decide to i have people saying i shouldn't :rotfl: even though I've not mentioned the budget so nobody can judge if it's too much to spend)

lulu_92

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Are you a union member? If so, they could advise whether the company has made an unrealistic/inappropriate offer, which on the face of, this sounds like.


If the redundancy settlement figure is a good one, I'd be inclined to take the money and just breathe for a bit. It won't necessarily be money scattered around, but it's a lot less stressful to have little money when you aren't slogging your guts out in a job that doesn't allow for your childcare responsibilities and doesn't take ages to get to and from each day; you're saving on fulltime childcare, for a start - as somebody working a full night and then looking after two babies all day is not going to be able to do that forever; his physical and mental health will begin to suffer, too - that's a cost beyond £££.

Nope, no union. There's 20 of us being made redundant but about half have found work. The company said the payout is non negotiable. Legally they have made sure they have done the bare minimum required, but they haven't been very ethical about it.

Redundancy would be about 5k before the tax on my pay in lieu of notice.

OH has already realised he can't do this much longer. He had an hour and a half in bed between tuesday morning and wednesday night.

He said he can do enough overtime to cover the pay cut, but cant make up the other 75% of my wage I'd lose if i packed it in. Been trying to find a job more local to us but employers don't want to know.

Grumpelstiltskin

Lulu Your twins are too young to understand 'treats'.

As people have said thing like Soft Play didn't exist years ago and children survived.

When I was young a trip to the park was the highlight of the summer holidays so don't think you are depriving them by not spending money, don't get sucked into this modern idea that if you are not constantly spending then you are not a good parent.

On the wedding front can you ask guests for money instead of presents?

lulu_92

Yes, kids do survive without this stuff, but my point is we want to be able to do things as a family and make memories but unfortunately things are expensive. We have exhausted the free options and i don't think it's entirely unreasonable to want to take my kids to new places and experience new things and be upset that i can't, especially as this might still be the case when they're old enough to understand treats and days out

I have never understood the spending money = better parent thing. We have always been quite savvy with our money, you have to be with twins! I'm frustrated because even when my job was secure we weren't living beyond our means. Anything we bought or paid for was always budgeted for and cost effective, so it's not even like we've been spending money like water and now we're having to make a dramatic adjustment to our lifestyle.

We've not explicity asked for gifts or money, but I'm against people gifting money towards the wedding when it was my decision to have a wedding. Cutting my nose to spite my face a bit but is it really anyone else's responsibility to pay for it? If people insist then fair enough but I am not comfortable with asking for money.

hazyjo

There's a competition board on here. If you have time (which I appreciate you're short of), enter for kids' stuff/days out. You don't have to enter everything for everyone, but if you just do the kids ones or wedding ones, you may get lucky.


My wins are posted in my signature for this year so far. (I don't have kids so don't enter those comps.)

goodwithsaving

You really need to remove the chip off your shoulder you have when people are trying to offer some useful insight / advice.