tattycrafts

I've been struggling to decide what the theme of my next entry should be about as my mind has been occupies lately by a whirlwind of things, and it's actually been pretty hard to shut them all off and try to just relax. I was catching up on a few blogs this evening and found an entry on  Confessions of a single mum  which kind of prompted me to make this post.   I suppose all the things in my mind have been connected by one thing..... money. Yes, the thing we would all like to have a little more of, and there never seems to be enough no matter how hard we work. Since my return from holiday in September I've done overtime most Saturdays, and tomorrow is no exception.  Christmas is coming, a baby on the way, and it feels like it won't be long before I'll be going on maternity leave and we then not long after that reduced pay for a while. I've never been brilliant at making the most of my finances and getting the best deals, not on services anyway.  I'm

When I found out I was expecting I knew that there would be a stage which meant I would struggle to find clothes to wear. .. never did I imagine my first issue would be my underwear! ! At only 11 weeks I was measured and found that I'd gone from more than a handful 36DD to a rather explosive 38GG! To my utmost horror the bra fitter of a well known high street chain told me I had to stop wearing my underwires and brought me two maternity bras to try on. If this wasn't bad enough the bras were horrid.  I asked if they had any others and the answer was "Yes" but not in my rather large size.   As I was rather desperate I bought them but now I'm fed up and want something pretty but practical.  This is proving much harder than I realised without breaking the bank! So I've been doing a little research.  My boobs are only going to grow more, and now I'm finding I need to wear something at night too.  So I need comfy bras during the day, something to sle

We were recently invited by Mothercare to attend a late night shopping night and encouraged by the lure of a goodie bag and vouchers.  Ordinarily I'm not a fan of shopping for a large number of things in one place and like to shop around and find deals on the interweb. But a discount and a goodie bag encouraged me to at least take a look.  We had already spied a travel system that we liked which was Mothercare own brand after all so we could at least order that and get a discount. I took my mum and D and we were welcomed at the door by a lovely member of staff with my bag of goodies and a 10% voucher on all shopping, on top of the 30% across certain items.  Good start! We were quickly nabbed by a lady from Water Babies encouraging me to guess the number of sweets in the jar, for free,  and potentially win a water babies swimming course.  Worth a punt! Upstairs first stop had to be the travel system we've earmarked. D gave my mum a demo and I got busy writing our s

Blimey, this having a baby malarkey isn't half expensive isn't it?  It's no real surprise, and it's something I've thought about a lot.  We're determined not to get carried away buying loads of stuff we don't need for ages, and stuff which is just "silly". So far we've got a cot bed, the car seat and isofix bars, and that's it, but we did get absolute killer bargains!  The cot bed is secondhand and will either be varnished or painted to match other furniture.  The car seat was a steal and includes rain covers etc, and will fit the travel system we intend to purchase. We're off to an open night with Mothercare next week which will give us the opportunity to order anything we want from there and put it on a payment plan so that we can budget easily.  I'll also get a little a goodie bag, and some vouchers too which will no doubt come in handy! We've just started putting together a list of everything else we need, and we'r