Cost of living

How is everyone coping with the cost of living with 2 small children?? I am a newly single mum with a nearly 3 year old and a 7 week old. I am on maternity leave which is just about covering the bills - not the groceries or clothes plus anything extra that might occur and my BD is yet to help financially!! Does anyone have any cost cutting methods as really struggling and stressing about everything especially with my daughters birthday and christmas around the corner.

in our community

Always waiting for older sister.

I am here to vent.

For 10 years now I have been hearing things like “you cant get married before your sister”, “you cant have more than your sister”, “we can’t do that for you because we haven’t given the same / similar thing to your sister”. I’m so sick of this. I am in my 30s now. She a couple years older than me. Always got more than me / the more expensive things and I was ok with that because she is older.

Now it’s too much. She had a big expensive wedding, I never had a wedding as I got pregnant 5 years after waiting years for her to marry. She married straight after she found out I was pregnant.

I was having another baby unexpextedly after my first and I was crusified for it beyond any of you readers can understand. I was shouted at and treated terribly while being 8 months pregnant by my own parents as she was not pregnant yet.

They continued to treat me badly after the baby was born for a year.

After her baby was born everyone decided to forget how much they hated me.

Please be aware I never wanted children like this. And I feel terrible about myself everyday because of it. I wish I had the pride she had by being married before kids but I will never have that. I blame them for not having what I wanted.

Now my kids are older I want an extension on my house (my dad is a builder and gets cheap rates it would save us thousands). Well it has to be her house first even though he has spend all his money on her ground floor extension and garden. (now she wants second story extension).

I would do it without him and try to get the cheapest rate myself but he will probably act like I have betrayed him by employing someone else to do the work. It needs to be done now as kids will go to school soon.

I’m just very pissed off but I am not surprised obviously after everything.

My partner is very angry we can’t do what we want especially as I used all my money to buy this house.

Nursery bill

Would your nursery bill be adjusted to a slightly lower price if you made the nursery aware of your child having a day off for a holiday?

Am I crazy

So unfortunately I was helping my mother in law with her phone. I saw messages between her and my husband talking shit on me. What would you do? Most he instigated but she contributed a good amount...

MIL and childcare for baby no 2

Current scenario, my MIL has my 19mo at my house one day a week. For baby no 2, the thought of her coming over every Monday whilst I’m on mat leave gives me so much anxiery. Hormones, trying to bond with baby and also being able to have an extra day with my older son (I work full time at the mo) is really important to me, but I know it will cause issues.

Has anyone else navigated this? And what did you do?

Difficult Nursery drop offs

Please tell me your experiences - not for you to relive that painful experience but trying to figure out if it’s normal the way my little boy is acting (first time mum) he started nursery we are on week 4 and his meltdowns are getting worse and worse in the morning & effects his sleep …

Im so worried I’m doing more harm than good, sometimes nursery right now isn’t for every child - he’s a highly anxious child, terrible separation anxiety 😭

What’s your experience & anything help your little one ease into it ?

Nesting

I’m 33+2, I keep seeing reels about how people are like psychotically nesting in the third trimester, the whole expectation vs reality shtick showing people scrubbing ovens and wiping skirting boards… am I the only one not getting that..? I begrudgingly did my normal weekly clean yesterday and hoovered and mopped and it nearly killed me off, and I certainly didn’t do it for fun.