CHILDREN ARE EXPENSIVE

I love spending money, I think if you looked through my internet browsing history you can quite clearly see I have a slight obsession with Zara and Maisons du Monde. I just can't help it. I've spoken a lot about how fickle I generally am, that doesn't just apply to interiors and wanting to redecorate my house every third day, it goes for everything, the boys clothing, my fashion, the food I like and don't like. Everything varies from month to month and something I love one moment, can be completely relegated the next - possibly not the best trait to hold when your purse strings certainly don't allow for it. I am without a doubt the spender in our household, while John is much more frugal and thrifty, it makes a good balance, or so I'd like to think.


The boys clothing and upkeep is obviously the largest source of my splurges, I just love seeing them in all their new get-up. I'm not crazy, you won't see me ordering off Alex and Alexa every week, but I do try my best to make sure they're smart, well, as smart as a wild children can be? When I sit and think about it I'm sure it's all in vain and in a few years even I'll look back and wonder what on earth was on my mind. I do it now when I see Noah's newborn photos, and I tried to put him into a shirt and jeans at 3 months old, I cringe and I cringe hard. So I'm sure the boys will as they grow up and look back over the many outfits I've made them sport, just as I do when I flick through my Mums photo albums and see the horrendous day-glo knitted numbers she had me and my sister wearing. Matching too. *Shakes head*

It's actually pretty hard to be thrifty when it comes to children, I'm sure so many will disagree and I know people can make children as expensive as they like them to be. But take the first year of your little ones life, they're growing out of clothes every three months, it's crazy. With Noah he grew so fast, and he wasn't the smallest of babies to begin with, 9lb 13 to be exact (yeah thanks for that one son) and so you can imagine that 50% of his wardrobe didn't even fit him from day 1. With Patrick I was more savvy, I knew I wanted him in babygro's for as long as possible, and not to buy too much of each size. You can imagine my frustration now that he's been hovering around 9/12 month and 12/18 month clothing for as long as I can remember, the boy just wont grow. I was caught out both times. My sons were born at opposite seasons in the year, so while the initial 'Oh yes! he's a boy, we can reuse all of Noahs pieces' rang through our heads at Patricks gender scan, it was a quick realisation that actually when Noah was born it was midwinter and 1 degrees outside. I don't think Patrick, a summer baby and actually born on the hottest day of that year, would be wearing snowsuits and fleece lined sleep suits. Though I've made a few fair mistakes in parenthood, boiling a baby was not about to be added to my list.

So how on earth do you prepare yourself for the expenses of children? Realistically, you can never be completely prepared. Life will throw unexpected costs at you left, right and centre, whether it's an MOT fail or a simple car repair, that school trip that's going to cost a fortune (yes sorry Mum & Dad about insisting to go on school ski-trips) or a household appliance breaking. There will always be something, it's how life rolls, and chances are, it'll be at the worst possible time. So if you can be even a little prepared that is definitely the best course of action. Building up a money pot is a great idea, simply just setting aside an extra few pounds each week that you wouldn't otherwise miss, £5 or £10 is well enough to start building a nice little nest egg and if your partner does the same before long you'll have a fully fledged 'emergency fund'. Of course there are other methods, cash loans such as cash lady could help if you haven't quite got to the saving stage just yet, or make use of selling sites for all of those old things you don't need, outgrown clothes, old prams and baby toys, even if it's no use to you, you can bet that someone else will be wanting to snap it up. For us I'll never forget the disaster start to 2015 that we suffered, first up was a car accident with a lorry which comes with all the added costs of excess's and hire cars. Then we moved into our first home, and during that week someone stole our carpets - I know, carpets?! A long story but we hadn't actually moved anything in at that point, so it was all they could take, but really, carpet? And then to add the cherry on top of the financial drain, one morning I went to open my boot before setting off to work and the whole back window exploded into a thousand pieces before my eyes. It's safe to say whatever money we had saved up, was quickly burnt up.

Are children expensive? Well of course they are, you're trying to keep a tiny human happy and alive and that isn't no easy task. Things that don't seem important before children, suddenly are. Like if your car breaks down ordinarily and you can't afford a fix, you'd use public transport but if you have three children you have to cart around to different places, it's not quite as simple as making do. You have to put them first. Just like life, children through curve balls into the mix, Patrick developed cmpa last year and suddenly the £8 tub of formula that lasted us a couple of weeks, didn't seem so expensive when I compared it to the £2 carton of soya milk that lasted 2 days. But I do agree with the notion that children are only as expensive as you let them be, they don't need to be having the innocent fruit smoothies at £4 a pop, when you can make your own out of your fruit bowl contents, and they can enjoy a good run around a national trust property rather than the local amusement park.

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