Bargain Addicts Anonymous 3

My partner and I have never been 'big spenders'. We have never liked spending more than we need to and often just make do. This was not because we 'had' to live this way, although neither of us had jobs that paid the 'big bucks' we certainly lived well within our means and this made us happy. As mentioned in previous posts, I left my job when I was 3 months pregnant which meant our budgeting became more of a necessity. As my other posts have shown I have been trying to buy everything for the baby with this new budget in mind. 

With recent articles suggesting that first time parents often spend £1000-£2000 on items for their new arrival I was worried that spending less would be a struggle. It really has not been though! Yes there are some things that are expensive (travel system, cot bed etc) but I do think that if you spend a bit of time looking around for the best prices and also consider what you can buy second hand or even made do without you can save a lot of money. Gratefully accepting all gifts and hand me downs helps too! 

I have a few new additions to my bargain hunting. The first is my amazing second hand nursing chair. We decided that as I fully intend to give breast feeding a really good go, having a nursing chair would be a good idea. Even if breast feeding fails I am sure we will both appreciate somewhere comfy to sit during late night bottle feeds. I decided that if I wanted one it would have to be second hand as the cheapest one we could find in the shops was £130 (Argos). I looked daily on Ebay and Preloved to see what had been added in the local area. I also joined a few local baby and toddler item selling groups on facebook. In the end after a few weeks of searching I managed to get a barely used chair and stool in immaculate condition for only £50. We had to collect it but as it was only across town this was not a problem. I am so pleased with this purchase and how much money we managed to save!

My other new bargains come from George (ASDA) online. I have been trying to buy some of the smaller items that we need so that we don't have too much to get all at once. I have been looking around for hooded baby towels, which most places seem to sell for between £5 and £10 each. I was very pleased to find that George sold them for only £5 for a pack of two. They also sold packs of 2 jersey fitted moses basket sheets for just £5 too. I ordered a couple of packs of each and got free delivery to my local store. I am very pleased with the quality of the products and am very glad I didn't spend more. They have good reviews too, with most people saying that the quality and softness lasts after washing. It is well worth looking through the George Baby department as they have quite a few good bargains!

Photos taken from www.direct.asda.com Both products available in other colours/designs.

Bargain Addicts Anonymous 2

Now that all my Ebay clothing bundles have arrived and we have pretty much got all the clothes we think (and hope) we will need for the first 6 months I thought I would do an update. 

Through a combination of second hand purchases and a few gifts from friends we now have:

27 x Sleep Suits (sizes newborn, 0-3 and 3-6 months)
26 x Body Suits - long and short sleeved (sizes newborn, 0-3 and 3-6 months)
3 x Full outfits (sized 0-3 months) 
2 x Coats (0-3 months)
1 x Pram suit (3-6 months)
10 x Bibs
6 x Hats 
12 x socks
3 x shoes (0-3 months) 

I have worked out this has cost £47.00. Even if I went to the cheapest places to attempt to purchase all these items brand new (Asda/Primark etc) I worked out that this would have cost almost £100. Considering that the vast majority is brands such as NEXT and Mothercare I know that if I worked it out properly it would have actually cost a lot more! 

I am hoping that we only need to pick up a few more bits such as another pram suit and maybe a few more day outfits for 3-6 months (I plan for her to spend most of the first 3 months in sleep suits but will probably have to start dressing her properly by then!) I am definitely hoping that we don't have to spend too much more to do this. I really am so pleased that a bit of time consuming Ebay trawling and charity shop hunting has meant that we may have managed to get all the clothes we need for the first 6 months for around £50. Well worth the effort! 

Bargain Addicts Anonymous

This week has officially been the 'week of bargains'. Being on a budget has meant that every single purchase for baby has been properly researched to ensure we get the best price possible. 

Thursday was the start of Aldi's Baby and Toddler event. Knowing it might be quite busy and there might be limited stock we actually got there for 8am to make sure we could get what we wanted. This also meant my partner could still make it to work on time for 9am. I am really pleased with what we managed to buy. There were large items for sale, such as high chairs and travel cots, but we only wanted smaller items. We got a changing mat for £3.99, cellular blankets at £2.49 each and muslin clothes for £1.99 each (should of been £3.29 but were scanning through wrong). 

My next set of bargains came from Ebay. About a week ago I started to look on Ebay to see what clothing items were being sold. I was pleasantly surprised to find lots of 'bundles' of baby clothes for sale, with the vast majority described as barely used. Knowing how quickly babies grow, and also how a lot of people buy far too many clothes it makes sense that there would be a lot of 'never worn' or 'worn once' items for sale. I have already purchased 4 bundles and am aiming to get all the basics for up to 6 months. The first parcels arrived today and I am so pleased. I got 9 sleep suits and 7 body suits from a mix of brands (Mothercare, TU, NEXT, Jasper Conran, Gap) for £12.50 including postage.

  

 

I can't wait for my other parcels to arrive and I think sitting trawling through Ebay each evening might be my newest hobby!  

Don't Look a Gift Horse In The Mouth

With money being an issue for us, I said all along that I would be more than happy to save a few pounds by getting most baby things second hand. The only items we wanted brand new were the cotbed, mattress and travel system. I am lucky in that my mum is a very recently retired childminder and having worked as one for 28 years she has amassed a wide range of baby and child items. Her gift to us last weekend was a large collected of these items, including: 

A bouncy chair
An activity gym 
A sit up donut 
A light weight pushchair
A nappy bin
A bumbo seat
A selection of outdoor toys (including ball pool and caterpillar tunnel)
A selection of Fisher Price Little People toys
A Little Tikes dolls house
A selection of baby clothing
A selection of baby toys & rattles

All of these items are in great condition (some barely used). We have managed to wash the activity gym and donut and have washed all the clothing too. A lot of the toys we have boxed up and put in the attic as they are not suitable until 1 year plus. I did have to sort (read play with) them all first to check they are all in good working order!

More Spending

With all the sales on at the moment we have done a bit more purchasing. When we first started looking at nursery furniture and cot bedding I fell in love with a lot of very expensive items. I am glad that we took some time to research things in more depth and also to think about what we really needed. We already have an inbuilt wardrobe in the nursery but it terms of other furniture we decided we would just get a cot and a nursing chair. We decided against a changing unit after reading that a lot of people felt they never got full use out of it and found it just as easy to change baby on the floor. 

We managed to get a cotbed we loved in the Babies r Us sale for £129.00 down from £199.99. It felt really solid and sturdy, has 3 mattress positions and the colour matched the wardrobe that is already in the room. 

Hampshire Cotbed Babies r Us. http://www.toysrus.co.uk/

We also managed to get the cot bedding we loved in the Babies r Us sale too. We got a bedding set that included a bumper, fitted sheet, quilt and a blanket and we also got a matching mobile and changing mat. All of this combined should of cost £117.97 but we got it all for £75.00. This still seemed really expensive but unless we got second hand (which I didn't really want for bedding) this was the cheapest we could find. We have the cot on the 'Lay away' scheme with Toys r Us so wont collect it until the end of July. I can't wait to get it all set up, we just need to get the room decorated first!

 

Vintage Love & Kisses Range at Babies r Us. Bedding Set £79.99 full price, Mobile £27.99 full price & Changing Mat £9.99 full price. 

First Purchases for Baby

Now that we have passed the halfway mark, and had the all clear from our 20 week scan we have allowed ourselves to start thinking about buying things. The one thing we decided from the start is that we didn't want to spend lots of unnecessary money (largely because we can't). Although I will be getting maternity pay from June onwards, not having worked since March has made an impact on our finances. This has made it all the more important to research the best prices and value for money with pretty much every purchase we make. 

We are very lucky in that my partner's parents have asked if they can put some money towards a travel system. My parents are also donating a lot of items (my mother is a recently retired childminder). We have also had a few offers of hand me down clothing too. All this will be a huge help but we still want to hunt out bargains for everything else we buy. 

We went on a research shopping mission after our scan on Monday. It was a long day of dragging round many, many stores. We took photos and made notes but on the whole feel more confused now about what we need than ever! We did manage to purchase a few bargains as ASDA currently have a 'Baby and Toddler Event' running in store. We purchased a moses basket and stand for £38.00. It had really good reviews online and considering most moses baskets in mother care were over £50.00 for the basket alone we are very pleased with our buy. 

Photo from ASDA: Kinder Valley Tiny Ted Moses Basket (£23.00) & Stand (£15.00)

We did also buy a couple of very cute things (had to be done when finding out we were having a girl!). We bought a 'My First Teddy' Bunny from NEXT and a little outfit from Morrisons. The teddy cost us nothing as we had a £10.00 voucher and the outfit was only £4.50 - so not a huge over spend. We have said that we will not be buying lots of outfits though, and will try to make do with multi-pack clothing as they work out much cheaper, and I am sure it will be a while before she becomes fashion conscious! 

Batch Cooking

One of the ways I have been trying to save a few pennies is by reducing our weekly shopping bill. This could easily be achieved by eating beans on toast and £1 frozen pizzas BUT we are also trying to eat healthier too. One of the other issues we have is finding the time (and motivation) to cook meals from scratch. There is nothing worse than coming home from work tired and having to spend time cooking a meal. 

Our solution to solve all of the above issues was batch cooking. This is something we have been threatening to do for a long time but never got round to. With me not working I really have no excuse. The plan is to cook up batches of cheap, healthy meals that do not take long to reheat and serve. If it saves money and we can keep it up I also think it will be a huge help when baby comes along. 

The first thing we needed (other than recipes) was containers. We had a look at ASDA but found that even their cheapest containers worked out at about 25p each. We have a membership at Costco and it occurred to us that they sell supplies for caterers. We were very pleased to find a box of 100 for just over £10. They are microwave safe, freezer safe and just the right size for a portion. They are easily washed and re-used too so will last us a long time (we have been cooking batch meals for about a month now and still have over 3/4 of the box sat unused). 

Costco Plastic Take Away Tubs. Price correct as of 27.03.2015. 

So far the batch cooking is going well. I will admit it is hard work the days I spend cooking but it is nice knowing I have made enough meals to last several weeks. When each meal is cooked I use a sticker on each tub to say what it is, when it was cooked and how many servings the tub contains. I will go by the suggested use by three months too. As far as cost goes what we have found is that we probably need to do it over a good few months to work out how much we save. So far we have a very expensive month when we stock up on all the ingredients to cook, followed by 2 very cheap weeks when we do not have to buy food for dinner. I shall update on our progress. 

Meals tried and liked so far:

Beef & Vegetable Casserole

Cheese & Bacon Lasagne

Lentil Ragu

Smokey Bacon & Tomato Spaghetti

Points Mean Prizes

Whilst my hunt for work is proving unsuccessful I decided to look for other ways to earn money. Google's first return for 'earn money from home' is an article from Money Saving Expert.com. Their first suggestion is online surveys. Now this is something is not new to me, having completed many a survey in my student years. The article states that if you are dedicated you can earn around £200 to £800 in cash and vouchers in a year. 

I signed up for the top three sites: Ipsos, Swagbucks and Global Test Market. Having found the Swagbucks site the most easy to use I have focused on this one for the past 2 weeks and am pleased to say I have racked up almost enough 'swag points' to claim a £10 amazon voucher. Not quite the £800 a year mark but I have only been spending 30 minutes or so each evening on the site. So far I have only focused on answering surveys but you can also earn points by answering polls, watching videos and searching via their page instead of Google. There have been some occasions where I have half completed a survey and then been disqualified which is frustrating, but on the whole most surveys are quick, easy and sometimes even interesting too - I completed one about the new Ghostbusters Movie last week. 

I am going to start using the other two sites and try and be a bit more dedicated to spending time on them each day - even if I can earn £10 from each site a month that is £30 I would not have had.  

Money Money Money

One of the things I have mentioned a few times is the fact my partner and I are on a budget. The main reason for this is that as of 2 weeks ago I am currently unemployed. I decided to hand my notice in when I found out I was pregnant. This may seem very drastic but I do have very valid reasons and it was a decision my partner and I spent a lot of time making. Unfortunately in the end I just felt that the job I had been in had too many risks to my pregnancy, largely due to working with livestock. It also required a commute of over 2 hours each day and came with a large deal of stress due to multiple issues with staffing. After looking at our finances we decided that it would be better for us to have to cut back than us worry constantly. I finished at 12 weeks pregnant and just before lambing season began (high risk for pregnant women). 

My plan was to find some temporary work for 4 or 5 months - however this is proving easier said than done. I cannot realistically apply for a permanent role as I would only be there for a few months before I went on maternity leave and I do not feel I would be comfortable doing this to an employer. Luckily having worked full time for the last 3 years I will quality for maternity allowance which will help out us out. Until then I will be keeping up the job hunt and be looking for creative ways in which we can save as much money as possible - I foresee a lot of beans on toast in my future! 

Money Explained

The category of 'Money' will be used to cover anything relating to work, spending and saving. I gave this aspect of my life a rating of 3 out of 10. Having just left my job (for many, many reasons that would require the penning of a novel to cover) and having only a small amount of savings, this page will mostly be used to cover my search for work and my search and trial of ways to save money in all aspects of our life.