‘Motherhood is a divine feeling!’
True, but it comes with its own challenges and compromises we women have to do for our little ones and their well being. For instance, a tough tiring pregnancy, numerous medicines and injections, days in the hospital with nurses ready to pinch you in every nerve they could find, sleep less nights with a baby who herself is wondering where she is and crying her heart out, aches in every possible bone in the body, zombie like feeling with heavy heads and unwaxed unthread face and body, energy draining out with even a small task, the unhappy feeling of having lost your enviable figure .....
Then in few months you settle yourself and start enjoying the new phase of life when your baby smiles at you, wants to be in your arms even if there are hundred other people craving to carry her... this feeling makes you forget all the pains. What next.. with less or no support system backing you, you are left with no choice but to leave your hard earned job to be with your lil one and help her grow in a better way in those initial months of her life. Like me, after working for 8 years, slogging myself eachday to reach to a level I was a month back and expecting an appraisal and a hefty bonus in a months time, what I chose was to be a stay at home mom and work freelance. With mixed feeling, I tried to focus on what’s coming up in life only to realise that I am gonna miss being independent so much. With little saving in my kitty, I wanted to do some more... since these are times we needed to save the Uncle Scrooge way. So here I am sharing a few tips that I am planning to follow and sound quite effective and doable to me:::::::::::
1. Beat credit with cash
This is the time I need to maximise my saving and not use my card as I had been doing while on my job. I have made a plan to make most of our purchases on cash and beat the credit card. We (I and my husband) will average out an amount we usually spend on groceries and provision and also eating out and keep it aside in the beginning of every month. We will estimate it a little generously so we don’t run short of money for groceries. Then what ever amount of cash we would be left with at the end will go in my piggy bank.
2. Plan all expenses
We are looking to plan as many of our expenses as we could. From an emergency fund to a needful appliance or a furniture. Whatever it is!!! Like for now we are looking to buy an automatic washing machine since house maids are charging a lot these days and we would like to save on that by doing it ourselves with the help of a machine. We are keeping aside all the extra earnings (like reimbursements) for a few months and putting in our fund for washing machine, even though we have enough credit to buy it from. But this way we would be more at ease.
3. Want vs. need
Since a few months every time we wanted to buy something we would ask ourselves – Do we need it or do we want it? This is a quick and effective test for a “buy or not” decision. We are running a used car, even though it takes up a lot of maintenance, because till now we have not got the answer that ’we need a new one’. So until that day we are salting away a little bit of cash at every opportunity so when the time comes, we won’t be taxing our wallets and will be able to put down a hefty down payment for it.
4. List it out
Making a list always helps, especially when we go provision shoppingI I have made a rule – anything that is not on the list, won’t be bought even if we have run out of it and need to buy it. That item goes on the next week’s shopping list. Though, everytime it’s me who victimises and looks to break this rule, so I hand over this responsibility to my husband and send him off shopping. He has the kind of discipline that one needs to stick to the list. This rule works quite well with items that aren’t critical like spices, sauces, and even dals but not so well with necessities like milk and bread but then those are the first to go on the list and you hardly get to forget it.
5. Don’t forget yourself
Do save, but don’t let it become an obsession. It should not make you deny yourself little pleasures like a new dress or a meal out or books. Keep it a point to shop only during the sale season which comes twice an year in August and then in February. Buy 3-6 months advance clothes for your lil one and don’t go over board with it and they wear out of it very soon. To please ourselves, I and my husband take out a small amount as ‘allowance’ for ourselves every month. That money is ours and for us to decide how we would like to spend it without feeling guilty – be it on a new dress or save it for something big that we would not like to buy from our household expense.
6. Pinching pennies (1s, 2s, 5s and even 10s coins) can be fun
I have found a fun way to save. When I go out shopping for groceries or provision or even indulge in the street side snack or juice, whatever change I get back from it, I put it all in my piggy bank. (Yes, I do have one). 4-6 months down the line, I look forward to save around Rs 2-3k and use that amount to buy something for the house that normally wouldn’t pass the “want vs. need” test like a toaster, fancy bedsheets, rug etc. It sounds fun. Try it!
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