Bringing up Children on a Budget

I’ve always thought it very strange when friends and work colleagues in the past have said, "We are waiting till we can afford children ". I don’t think if you wait you will ever afford to have them.

I myself decided not to wait but to have my children while I was young so that later on in life I can enjoy my mature years with a happy family and nice holidays. I had to give up work in order to have my children, as I am a very traditional person in the fact that I didn’t want to bring my children into the world only to be brought up by a nanny. It’s not that I’m against mothers doing this, you must understand it’s just my personal choice. So as you can imagine things were pretty tight in our household, with only my then husband’s wage coming in which was quite poor I have to say.
I came up with a few ways of getting around our money worries. I also managed to save money and quite enjoyed coming up with new ways of saving money. My babies never ever went without anything and never knew that we were any different from anyone else, possibly because we weren't. I think whether both parents are working or not, everyone goes through tough times. There are times when we all need to budget a little.

So I thought maybe if some of you were having a tough time with money worries whether you’re a working mum or a stay at home mum you might like to hear some of my parenting advice!

As babies, my children’s toys were mostly second hand and were quite often bought from charity shops, I felt good that at the same time as my children were benefiting from having a new toy someone else was receiving some much needed money too. These days eBay has kind of taken over the second hand market and is also a great place to buy toys for your baby. I still think you can find many bargains in charity shops though.

I also bought many of my baby clothes from charity shops too, and was never too shy to say no to anyone who was handing things down from their children. I also passed these on again to someone else to get some use from them, I still do. Children grow so quickly that they hardly wear their clothes out.

Meal times were always inventive as I used to boost my mince up with extra vegetables to make it go further and then split it into two lots. We would have one lot for our tea and I would make the other half into pasties, which I used to freeze for use at another time. I think I had a hidden agenda too as adding extra vegetables to most things meant the kids got used to eating them and there for loved them. Mince is great as it is cheap and versatile and if you get fed up with beef then you can always have pork mince!
A great way to shop is to always use stores that reward you with points that can be redeemed in vouchers off your next shopping trip i.e. Boots for your nappies, wipes and milk. Tesco's for your groceries and even Morrison’s give you vouchers to use in store when you collect enough points paying for fuel for your car. These are just a few great examples I'm sure, points defiantly make prizes for me though!

You could also shop online as this way you only buy what you need and not all the naughty things you might see while out shopping.

I think now in this day and age there really is no need to struggle as there are plenty of places to buy cheap clothing old or new. I also love to take the children for a walk around the Sunday car boot sales where I pick up some great toys, books and baby clothes. I also bought several nursery items from the boot fairs and enjoyed matching up my theme from week to week. Most things that I bought were virtually brand new and at a fraction of the cost from high street stores.
The best thing was when my babes no longer needed or out grew their toys we would do our own stall at a car boot sale and make our money back while having a fun day out at the same time.

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