How to save money on your passport application (or not).

If:

You have identical twins.

 
And if:

They need new passports.

And if:

A passport application requires two photos.

And if:

Passport photos come in over-priced sets of four.

Do I really need to pay for two sets?  

Just a thought.

ps:  And if anyone from the passport agency is reading this, I didn't. Honest.

Outsourcing my posting

I am inundated with family this week. There are nine of us at the moment with a tenth to come on Thursday... As a result, blogging has rather fallen down the priority list.  Which explains also why I've been rubbish at replying to comments, for which many apologies and I promise to get back to you soon.

So, as with so much else in my life, I've decided to outsource my blogging.  And as a result, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you.... drum roll please.... my first guest post.   

Proudly presenting...

Sarah Kensington, writer on PlayPennies.com, a UK blog about parenting and saving money.:

Mother Nature is a canny one you know - if you looked at starting a family from a rational and economic point of view you’d never do it.  But when that maternal desire kicks in, there are few things in this world that can stop the ‘cravings.’

So we go through pregnancy, try to forget all the indignity that comes with it, and end up with a little bundle of joy at the other end – a VERY expensive bundle of joy at that.

Time passes; your little progeny is growing at an alarming rate and the too-small clothes mountain is growing in proportion to the amount of money you’re haemorrhaging in Mothercare every other week. 

THEN somehow, it seems like a good idea to add to this financial black hole and have another baby, and for some of us another one after that, and if you’re really after some punishment big family joy, then FOUR babies seems like a plan (Harriet!).

Mother Nature…genius!

I have three children – ‘the teenagers’ and ‘the toddler’.

The teenagers are 15 and 14 and share the same birthday (it seemed like a good idea at the time!) and ‘unfortunately’ one is a boy and one is a girl, so there wasn’t a great deal of clothes swapping going on once we were out of the babygro phase.

The amount of money I’ve spent on vests, babygros, t-shirts, shorts, socks, dresses, trousers and jumpers  is too frightening to contemplate.  The memory of having things in the drawers that the kids grew out of without actually getting to wear is shameful.  (They’re at that awkward growing thing again by the way, J is 5ft 11 now and grew half an inch last month – I do wish he’d stop it!).

As I’m writing I’m trying to remember what I did with all of the clothes the teenagers grew out of.  In the early years most of it was still like new by the time it was too small and back then we didn’t have eBay. Heck most homes didn’t even have computers and if you had a mobile, well you were right up there with the modern moment! 

So what DO we do with all the clothes that are now surplus to requirements?  And as most of us aren’t dripping with cash, or feel very inclined to spend millions on our little darling’s wardrobe a la Tom, Katie and Suri Cruise, how can we get canny when it comes to clothing our kids?

There are lots of options and I have to try and rein in my inner-snob with some of them. I can’t help it, I have a bit of an irrational double-standard when it comes to clothes from charity shops – I am MORE than happy to give them bags of lovely stuff but have a very hard time getting to grips with the reverse transactions; daft, I know.

If you’re a member of any mother and baby groups or your kids go to nursery or crèche, then how about getting all of your clothing mountains together, sorting them out into age groups and swapping your too-small items for those in the next age range up?  Think Blue Peter Bring and Buy sales of yesteryear but without the ‘buying’ bit! 

I’ve recently discovered that teenage girls are already doing this too, judging by the ‘foreign’ clothing items that appeared in the washing basket over the weekend, “Oh, that’s Anna’s, we’ve swapped some stuff for a while…” I’m not sure if I should be irritated with them or impressed by their initiative.

If you want to grab back some of your hard-earned cash then list everything on eBay.  I bought lots of clothes for the toddler from eBay before he was born – I’m not sure how this is any different from buying things from a charity shop, other than the charity doesn’t get my money.

I’ve also listed clothes on eBay and found that things sell better as sets or collections that are presented well.  So washing, ironing, folding and presenting things nicely will be time well spent and reaps its rewards.

If you’re in a more benevolent and generous mood then consider listing your items on your local Freecycle group.  I came across Freecycle when I was pregnant with the toddler; essentially, it’s an online community in your local area where you can OFFER items you have no further use for but which are too good to end up at the rubbish dump – the aim of the game here is to keep things out of landfill whilst helping each other out at the same time.

So, you place your offer ‘on the board,’ people who would like to be the recipient of your items contact you by email and you then have to decide who to give it to, for free.  That’s the hardest part about Freecycle, the amount of times I wish I could give things to everyone who responded.

A friend of mine was an amazing seamstress and she used to make the most AMAZING clothes from stitching together lots of pieces of her favourite outfits that didn’t fit the kids anymore.  She also used to keep her eyes open for lengths of material that were going cheap and make fabulous kiddy clothes from that too….I knew I’d missed a trick not taking that GCSE in textiles and dress making!

If you’re an early-bird on Sunday mornings then car boot sales are also good ways to release the equity tied up in tiny clothes, and any other baby items you have no further need for, for that matter.

Of course, the only sure fire way to get around this financial inevitability is to not have little yous at all, just watch out for that Mother Nature…she’s a canny one you know.

*******************************************************************

Many thanks to Sarah for both rescuing me from an empty blog (may find space for the Gallery on Wednesday though...) and coming up with some top tips for clothes that aren't just "passed downs"..... why do you think I'm so delighted to have three girls?!

£hildcare - the numbers game.

I've been thinking (again) about working and not-working and being a full-time mum and being a part-time employee and all that sort of stuff.

But two things in particular have made me put fingers to keyboard this time.  First is Muddling along Mummy's post here - she's wondering why, still, in 2010, the majority of childcare is still done by mothers.

And the other is an article in today's Observer (which weirdly doesn't seem to feature in their online edition) about the costs of childcare.  Apparently more than half of all children's centres are making a financial loss*; 58% of parents have suffered from a lack of childcare in the past 12 months, and local authorities' own assessments of available childcare show a shortage.  They interview a woman who gave up work because after childcare she was earning £20 a week...

How does this happen when we're being told that every effort is being made to encourage parents back into work? (Let's ignore the childcare voucher issue for a moment shall we?  And the fact that there is no state childcare for children under 3 anyway). It is surely a simple calculation. If the government wants women to return to work, it has to make it possible, both practically and financially.

For us it's a financial and not a practical question. There are plenty of (private) nurseries around us.  But here's the maths:

I am in a well-paid industry and am relatively senior.  By national terms, I am extremely well paid, although not stratospherically.  Given that I am now only working two days a week, it's helpful to think in daily amounts.

After tax and National Insurance, I earn almost exactly £180 a day.

That's quite a lot right?

Nope.  I pay just over £160 a day in childcare.

If I work eight hours a day (which I don't, I work more than that). I'm earning £2.50 an hour.  That's right.  If I go to Pret for lunch and buy a sandwich and a drink, that's two hours wages.  If I ladder my tights and go and buy a new pair, that's an hour. If I have to top up my Oyster card, that's a week's worth...

And the thing is, that for where we live (Central-ish London) our nursery fees are pretty average.  Admittedly we're unusual in that we have three children under school age, but then we're also better paid than many. What if I were a nurse? Or a teacher?  Bear in mind that the nursery discount our fees - we should be paying over £200 a day.  And a nanny wouldn't be any cheaper.  When I interviewed nannies, they all wanted over £10 an hour plus tax and national insurance. That works out at £140 a day, to which you have to add heat, light, food and activities.  They could easily add up to more than £20 a day, so you're back to square one. Indeed, that's one of the reasons we went for the nursery - we could be certain of costs.  Plus the nursery takes the (soon to be late-lamented) childcare vouchers. Nannies can, but the sort who do tend to be the more expensive....

I spoke to a lovely colleague of mine about this, and her solution?  Don't do the maths.  And in many ways she was right.  Because this is so demoralising.  If I have a bad day at work, or a difficult call with a client, or get caught up in some political shenanigans, I realise that I don't care.  Where once I would have made an effort, got involved, tried to solve things, now I don't.  It's very hard to care about a job, no matter how much you love it or how long you have trained for it, if you are effectively not being paid for the work you do.

Maybe I am wrong to be so hung up on the money, but that is how our employers have taught us how to value ourselves: you're good at your job, you get paid more.  So what does that make me?

For the moment though I'm sticking with it.  The promise of freelance work, to keep  my brain ticking over and my professional qualifications up-to-date when we move, is too good to turn down.  But it doesn't stop me being angry.  I know there's no easy solution to this one, but I just wish I could be convinced that someone was actually thinking about it, for all they all talk a good talk...

*We experienced this ourselves. The nursery L went to when I first went back to work after having her went bust (fortunately just as I went on maternity leave to have A&S so we were ok).  They owed us £800 which I have now been told we won't get back.  The total debts were, rumour has it, in excess of £7 million.  Even the liquidator isn't going to get paid...

How on earth does that happen?