Threads of Knowledge

I’m trying to win an iPad 2 in the iSave, iWrite, iPad competition from PlayPennies.com!

I (and my husband, let’s say for the record) have just decided that I should not return to work and be a full time mum to our 10 month old. This has not been a decision taken lightly as the thought of living off one salary is scary enough without adding the expensive business of raising a child.

We began the process of looking at our monthly spending over the past year and we were shocked to realise how much money we were wasting on unnecessary things. The saying “save the pennies and the pounds will save themselves” has to ring true as we could not believe how quickly little spends added up to a lot of money. As children of a throw away generation we now have to teach ourselves to be thrifty and although this is not easy, the sooner we start the easier our pensionable years will be.

As a parent you can almost see your money flying out the window when you realise how quickly your tiny baby outgrows clothes and toys. When I was pregnant, I dipped my feet into the world of recycled maternity clothing. My logic was that as you actually wear maternity clothing for such a limited time, it was a waste to pay such extortionate prices for something with such a limited use. This logic has now extended to baby clothes and certain baby related items, within the boundaries of still remaining a responsible parent. There is a world of value in sites such as E-bay, gum tree. Fo.lk and freecycle etc.

We also stumbled across a site quite by accident that has become a daily favourite. It is a site designed for “pennywise parents”, called Playpennies. This site does the hard work for us in scanning the internet and shops for good deals. No-one loves a bargain more than a parent trying to keep costs down and we would honestly say that we love this site even if we weren’t trying to win a competition. They are part of the Hotdeals network and have sister sites too, all aimed at helping consumers.

We have also found that we, I mean our son, gets bored of his toys, even with weekly alternations and this is how we have come to find the value of  the Sure Start Centres.  They are government funded, at least for now, and are a completely free resource where I can take our son during the week and allow him to play with an impressive array of toys and at the same time interact with other children.

So I guess it wouldn’t be fair of us to only cut back on expenses relating to my son, so we have had to re-assess what we do, too. The fundamentals to saving money are knowing what things cost and knowing what you need. If you know what you need, you will be less tempted to shop compulsively and if you know what things cost, you will be able to recognise and take advantage of a bargain or know when you are being “fooled”.

Food shopping has been our main focus of late. We have taken this money saving effort as an opportunity to try new things and develop new meal ideas and it is proving to be a double positive. How many of us just replace a brand with a brand every time we shop without a second thought. We have found that many of the ‘own brands’ are actually just as good and a fraction of the price and we would never have learned this without changing our mindset.

Pre baby, we used to enjoy wondering through shopping malls and this often meant something more, whether it be a bite to eat or a naughty treat, let alone the temptations of compulsive buying at the other stores. Besides the obvious expenses, this was compounded by excessive parking charges and rising fuel costs. Now we are actually saving money and having more fun, walking to parks and play areas with the pram and being out in the fresh air. We found an invaluable book produced by the NCT in our area at our local bookshop. It is a guide for the under fives and is a detailed list of things to do with your child, whether it be playgrounds, activities, groups, classes or many more. It is compiled by local parents based on their experiences of child-friendly things-to-do in the local area. We are able to plan fun and interesting activities to suit our means and you can be amazed by just how much free or inexpensive fun you can find if you know where to look and luckily this guide makes it so easy.