KMNs diary - curbing spending and maximising saving with a new baby

kiss_me_now9

So... no-one got it. They offered an interview to the other applicant and then the other applicant didn't turn up! Karma I think

However I recently met with a lady who runs a lovely local hospice who has a part time job going. It sounds absolutely perfect and is right up my street. So screw them. It's got ample free parking (very important to me as I got a parking ticket today going to my KIT day!), it's set in a beautiful countryside location, basically a mile further from my current place of work so neglible difference in distance from my house, same pay, slower and pretty much guaranteed that I'll never work late again, no weekend working and they fully support people to go on courses including Masters if they want to. It's also very flexible on working hours as long as I meet the core hours of the service (9am to 3pm) and if I needed to do longer one day to go off shorter another day to fit in childcare needs they do this very regularly. 

kiss_me_now9

Soooo I've just reviewed my application for that other job to pinch some bits for this hospice job. And I must have somehow managed to delete my current job role off the application, making it look like my second to last job was all the work experience I had. NHS job applications go on a points based system and with no evidence of a band 6 post, a career in the NHS of over 5 years, evidence of management of other staff and prioritising workload etc. which is all in my current role I wouldn't have even scraped a point! It looks like a brand new grad has applied for a post that most people don't even consider until they're cemented in the career. 

On the one hand, I feel like a complete fool. On the other, had I got an interview for it I wouldn't have even looked for this other job, which is much better. Less money but not less than I was on before (before reducing my hours). 

Aimingforthegoodlife

It was meant to be! Best of luck with the new job, sounds like it could be perfect! Have read through your diary, congrats on DS, sounds like you have been on a rollercoaster! Well done on still spending time on trying to manage finances, I can imagine that when you are exhausted and trying to get new to a whole new person, money is the last thing you want to think of! 

kiss_me_now9

Aimingforthegoodlife said:

It was meant to be! Best of luck with the new job, sounds like it could be perfect! Have read through your diary, congrats on DS, sounds like you have been on a rollercoaster! Well done on still spending time on trying to manage finances, I can imagine that when you are exhausted and trying to get new to a whole new person, money is the last thing you want to think of! 

Thank you, it's been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions but we are finally starting to find our feet as a trio. Yes, it sounds absolutely perfect! The only thing is it's slightly outside of my experience but I think as long as no-one with tonnes of experience in that applies I've got a good shot. 

LO starts nursery two days a week next week, and I don't go back to my day job until early May so I'm thinking about seeing whether I could spend some of my days without him trying to figure out whether to set up a little online shop. I love stationery and planners, stickers, washi tape etc. but a lot of the shops you get in the UK are cutesy and Kawaii based - I prefer classic art stickers, florals and watercolours etc. (For example these are two of the biggest sticker shops in the UK atm - https://sutekistickers.co.uk/ and https://misopaper.co.uk/browse/products/stickers/ - Miso paper has some of the things that I'm talking about but is still very heavy on the Japanese style products). I would love to create something UK based that stocks things like https://sterling-ink.com/collections/february-2023-collection

I've always wanted to sell my own designs but I think after 3 years of trying to create and make stickers of my own, at present I'm not there yet. I can get my head around building a website with shop functionality, marketing it, getting traffic to it and taking/packaging orders. But I can't figure out how you get stock in. 

kiss_me_now9

We've had our first nursery bill through... £610 for 2 days a week (but a 5 week month).  We'll be adding at least £450 to that as well as LO is going to a different childcare setting 2 days a week so I can go back to work 3 days a week and have some time off during the week too. I think we'll be averaging about £1100 a month on childcare. Having a bit of a freak out about it but trying to remember that 1) I could cover that on my wages at 3 days a week (just - with not much wiggle room - but just) and 2) my OH can cover the household bills etc. on his wages perfectly fine so we're in a much better situation than some people. I just keep thinking about the first holiday we took together just after we got engaged, which was 10 days food inclusive (no drinks package) to Cyprus in October which cost us £2200... so two months of nursery... which we saved and ummed and ahhed over paying as it felt like so much money! 

Just a crazy amount of money. I dread to think how much we spend on him a month and we're very keen to not buy him toys all the time, he eats what we eat etc. so doesn't have a special diet. I knew it'd be expensive but I just didn't think it'd be that expensive. 

kiss_me_now9

I didn't get the job and I am absolutely gutted. So, so disappointed. Essentially this means the end of my career as there's nowhere else I can practice in my specialist area around here. There's only one hospice close enough for me to commute to (where the job was) and I have been effectively blocked from my old job in the hospital (only one in the county) so that's it for me. I'm not saying I was perfect but I was pretty good at my job I think and I am now feeling very lost and unsure what to do now. 

I can't stay in that trust. I just can't. The management is awful, the ward I'm going to is awful, there's no parking, when you can't park you have to put your car either on the road or in a local car park where cars regularly get vandalised as the hospital is in a dodgy part of town, you have to pay £5 for a tiny jacket potato with cheese on for lunch, they refuse and drag their feet about £20 training courses (not that I'd have any interest on going on any now my specialist knowledge isn't needed), they don't support their staff at all and promote their best mates rather than the best person for the job. But now we're spending nearly £1100 on childcare a month which we can't afford on one salary so I have to figure something out. 

beanielou

So sorry to read this.
Sending lots of positive vibes your way for your next chapter. 

beanielou

Also am I missing something? 

If you were not working then you would not need to pay £1,100 per month for childcare? 

kiss_me_now9

beanielou said:

Also am I missing something? 

If you were not working then you would not need to pay £1,100 per month for childcare? 

No, you're not missing anything at all! 

I have to go back to work until June at the earliest (and I've agreed with my OH that I will give it a good few months, so probably over the summer and then review how it's going in September time - if nothing else to get a bit of a buffer back in my accounts). 

Another complication is that I really do want a second child and don't want a huge age gap between them so would like to start trying at the end of the year. Trouble with that is then I'd need maternity pay really to cover childcare and being off work. So then we're looking at me staying in the job until I go back off again, perhaps May or July 2025. Which isn't ideal and not what I want but now I've had a few days to get over the disappointment is something that perhaps I could manage (a year isn't too bad, really, especially doing 3 days a week - that's only 156 days, minus any annual leave!). I still feel very sad about it all and am licking my wounds but slightly more positive today. 

The crux of the childcare though is that spaces in our area are non-existent, we signed our LO up for his spaces (we're across two providers as neither had enough space for the whole week) when he was 2 months old. I have friends who started looking when their babies were a little older than that who have been told there's no space until September this year. We have several nurseries here that run waiting lists from the first trimester. I'm loathed to lose the space we do have just in case I leave, then find something else that works out better for us. I know I can't have it both ways but it feels like the choice between the Devil and the deep blue sea at the moment. 

kiss_me_now9

Return to work is looming and every day I feel worse and worse about it. 

Interestingly the hospice job wasn't recruited into and I'm not sure why. It's been readvertised so I've contacted them to ask if I can be reinterviewed (bold - but I am so keen to try and get the job!). My interview was awful and the answers I gave were mere gibberish at times, as I was so nervous. Very unlike me but possibly to be expected when I've not had a professional conversation in 14 months. I'm waiting for a call back but I fear that they are waiting until the job post closes to call me and tell me they don't want to entertain me again. 

My current employer is insisting they haven't done anything wrong by changing my job roles, despite me having no written confirmation of why my role has changed and my job title being changed. Everything except my offer of employment letter states Palliative Care on it, my ID, my job description, my name badge. Yet apparently it's only the offer of employment letter (which states Senior XX) that means they can just throw my career away without a second thought. I seem to have no formal contract and haven't signed anything to state that I'm happy with the changes. 

They've had 'my' job out to advert for a month now, surprisingly no-one has applied. I saw my (old, and very nice) boss in Tesco the other week and asked her about it, she said they hadn't had any interest. I couldn't help myself from pointing out that they had two people interested a year ago and one who now has nearly 5 years experience in the field... but they bullied one out (my maternity cover) and are refusing to even consider the other because she wants slightly less hours! What really upsets me is that if they'd asked, I'd have been open to negotiating on hours. My OH drops my LO at nursery at half 7 and we don't pick him up until 5pm. If necessary I could have done 8am to 5pm all three days, making 27 hours a week and thus only dropping 3 hours from my previous appointment. But there was no discussion and absolutely no consideration of my skills, passion or knowledge. Never mind the impact on the public who access the service.   

Money wise things are so so, I've managed to finally get some money back in my savings (just £100) and put some aside for the end of the month when things get tighter.