My Amazon basket is full of things that I want, currently it has £462.86 worth of items that I apparently want/need in my life.
Now, ever since going on maternity leave, a year and a half ago now, we have had to watch our money. Even when I went back to work, we were never suddenly relaxed about our bank accounts, now we had Nursery fees to pay, so a large chunk disappeared pretty quickly.
Looking back before we had Littleman, we often wonder where we threw our money; surely we should have been living the high life, but it never seemed that way. Whatever your circumstances, you always live to your means. If you earn it, you spend it, and if you don’t have it to start with, you learn to be very thrifty.
I have learnt to be very thrifty, we are comfortable and we are extremely lucky to have never had serious money troubles. The husband lives on the words, it’s worth what it’s worth to you and he hates that I get excited because there is money off an item. To him it doesn’t matter how much it was previously, are you willing to pay what it is worth now. Wise words ay, but shhh, let’s not tell him there is some truth in it, he’s already pretty smug.
We as mums don’t spend half as much money as we spend on our babies and for me I don’t even want my husband going without. He works hard and has the majority of the money stress and what’s more he is a great dad so yes why would I not want him to have everything he wants. He has also never ever stopped me from buying something for me, but I question pretty much every purchase. 9 times out of 10 I have items in my hands ready to walk to the till and the words ‘do you really need them’ goes through me and the items go back. Maybe I’ve suddenly realised that I have enough? My years of being lavish with my wardrobe and actually, they are only clothes.
I heard about a rule for the new year about becoming thoughtful with your money. They said, if what you want is over £30.00, make a note of it, and if you still want it in 30 days then it is yours. If it comes to day 40 and you suddenly remember it, then you actually forgot about it so you can do without it. This has seem to have stuck with me and is the reason my Amazon basket is always full. Every now and again I will go through it and either keep or delete, and then I usually add a few more items! At the end of the month, we will make a purchase, usually 1-2 items but they are items that I know will be of use to the family, usually toys for Littleman.
So here I sit, ploughing through my basket wondering if we do need a £56.35 paddling pool, with blow up dinosaurs and a slide!!! probably not. Or a £69.99 sandbox which looks like a pirate ship….well maybe we will save these for later. Ooooh a Tee-Pee…