Thursday, March 1, 2012

Excuse me, I've bought this buggy and now I have no money left

I guess most people have to consider their finances before deciding to start a family; me and Mrs L both have secure (as they can be at the moment) jobs and finances that are more or less under control.  We're certainly not wealthy, but we're okay.  Reasonable to assume then that we could afford to embark on this baby-making journey, right?

Wrong.

I have never felt as poor as I do when I walk around the baby and toddler area of a department store.  I find myself staring in disbelief at the range of buggies (sorry, travel systems) on offer, prices nudging toward four figures.  Cots and car seats vie for your cash.  Except they're not vying for it, because you NEED to have all of it.  If we don't buy the latest, shiniest, expensivest pieces of baby paraphernalia does it make us bad parents?  I hope not.

Thankfully, we didn't have to re-mortgage our house in order to afford all the baby-bling, family came to the rescue.  With our nephew approaching eighteen months old Mrs L's brother and his wife had an attic full of pretty much everything we needed to welcome our own little person into the world.  A visit to London saw us return with a car so chock full of stuff that I'd had to hum the Tetris theme while I loaded it up.  This was when Mrs L was only about three months into the pregnancy, and it was one of those "oh wow, we're really having a baby!" moments.

A Quinny Buzz 3 - We have one, but ours didn't cost four hundred quid, phew!


Which was definitely preferable to the alternative; an "oh crap, we're bankrupt!" moment.

2 comments:

  1. A very true post. Our child transportation method of choice, when T was born, with all the accoutrements etc, cost more than our first car!

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    1. I can easily believe it. The salt in the wound is finding out the things actually require servicing! Might see about retro-fitting an engine to ours and using it to get to work...

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