MadMums

Student finances – advice you can give your kids

admin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps you’ve always dreamed of your son or daughter going to University. You may already be aware that tuition fees will be higher than ever from September 2012 onwards, so if you’re serious about sending your children to University, it may be worth setting up a current account for them while they’re still young to get them into the habit of saving money.

Going to University is certainly a landmark in a young person’s life. For many it’s their first experience of living away from home and an opportunity to forge their own way in the ‘big bad world’. This is an important step along the way to adulthood.

While it’s important that your children assert their independence, as parents you feel a responsibility to prepare them for what lies ahead.

Student finances and debt

If your child is going to university, they may get into debt for the first time with a student loan. These loans are low interest and paid back directly from their salary when they earn above a certain threshold. Student loans are generally considered essential for supporting yourself at university.

Another common way people get into debt at university is with interest-free overdrafts – which are offered with all kinds of student bank accounts. These overdrafts aren’t interest free forever, and will need to be paid back with interest if they’re not cleared fast enough.

You may want to support your child financially while they’re at university, but they can boost their own student finances as well with a part-time job, with savings – and by being prepared to live within their means.

Student finances and budgeting

While living away from home the first time, budgeting for your own bills is more important than ever before. Food expenses, transport costs, the cost of books and equipment and an active social life are all important expenses for the average student. You might like to prepare your children for the responsibility of managing their own money by showing them how you budget for your own household expenses every month.

If you want peace of mind that they will set aside enough of their money for the bills, there is a bank account which could manage their budget for them, doesn’t have an overdraft and helps them make sure they set aside money for bills every month. The thinkbanking current account can be a helpful budgeting tool for students – or anyone else who wants some help with their finances.

If your child isn’t going to university, it’s still important to help them understand budgeting and managing their current account well – they all fly the nest eventually.

You might still help out financially into their adulthood if they really need it, but if they can rely on their own financial planning, that’s even better.

Pros and Cons of Part Time Work for Mums

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There comes a time for many mums when going back to work part time seems like it could be a good plan but do the benefits outweigh the costs?

The main advantage of working part time as a mum or dad is that you don’t have to sacrifice spending time with your family. However, a part time job also means that you don’t have to give up your career and can still strive for those big promotions and advancements.

If you’re planning on going back to work full time at some point, it can be a much easier transition if you have worked part time in between. Many employers will let you work part time while you ease yourself back into working life. Franchise opportunities at Working Mums also offer mothers the opportunity to run a flexible business.

However, it is a big concern for part time workers that they have to put in the effort of a full time job, and often more hours than they should, but for a lesser salary. With modern technology connecting us to the outside world all the time, you could find yourself picking up the phone when you should be spending time with your family. It’s important to establish boundaries but at the same time make it clear that you want to be involved in important decisions and kept up to date.

Many working mums find that they spend a lot of their off time doing work of a different kind – chores and housework, so if you are thinking of going back to work part time make sure that you establish boundaries with your partner and make sure the home load is even too.

Part time mums also have to worry about the cost of childcare while they work, so this is something that you will need to consider. If you have a supportive partner who can support you then this is less of a problem but you need to make sure that your pay benefits are adequate to cover the costs of childcare as well as leaving you extra.

Holiday Preparations for Mothers

admin — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

For moms, one of the most hectic and stressful times of the year is coming up. Of course, it’s also one of the most enjoyable and pleasant times of the year, when handled efficiently and calmly. The time of year being referenced is, of course, the holiday season, and it brings with it a number of complicated tasks for parents. Every mom worries over what to get for her children for Christmas, as well as how to establish lasting Christmas traditions that will stay in the family for years to come.

Many parents these days are turning to items such as M&S’s Christmas Hampers, which offer both convenience and pleasing selections. These hampers, for those who may be unfamiliar with them, essentially consist of a number of different items within whatever theme applies to the particular hamper. For example, there are a number of different alcohol-related hampers, or hampers that include cheeses and crackers, which are meant more for adults. However, for children a lot of mothers enjoy looking into the more treat-oriented hampers, which can consist of appealing selections of cookies and treats that are perfect for kids during the holidays.

Another thing that many mothers worry about along these lines is what sort of food to serve during the holidays. While treats such as the ones mentioned above are almost a necessity during the holiday seasons, you probably also want to consider the health of your children and family. However, you also want to cook unique and delicious recipes that your family will look forward to in holiday seasons to come. Fortunately, the question of how to create a healthy and tasty meal is not a new or unexplored one. Because of this, there are a number of different discussions and selections that deal with this topic online and in magazines. This means that, if you are seeking a healthy way to provide a good meal for your family come Christmas time, you will certainly be able to find one.

Looking into some of the options listed above can go a long way toward alleviating some of the tension that comes with the holiday season. Particularly for mothers, this tension can result in stress that detracts a bit from the enjoyment of the holidays. However, preparing in advance, and having exciting things to share with your family and children, can do exactly the opposite. A well-prepared holiday is a more enjoyable one for everybody involved.

Maternity Wardrobe Tips

admin — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Expectant mums have plenty to be excited about with a new baby on the way, but with so many changes to their bodies, it can be a daunting experience to know how to prepare for the months ahead.

One of the biggest challenges is to fill your wardrobe with clothes that are going to fit and be comfortable, as well as being able to expand with your growing bump. These days there are some ingenious ways of expanding your current wardrobe, but there’s no doubt that you’ll need to invest in some maternity wear to help get you through your pregnancy.

Your maternity wardrobe should be much like your normal one; you want a variety of clothes that you can mix and match, and feel good in. Invest in a good pair of maternity trousers in a dark colour and a good pair of maternity jeans for casual days.

Maternity dresses are great for making you look and feel good, plus they are nice and roomy and light. The great thing about maternity dresses is that they can be dressed up or down. Chances are you’re still going to have a fancy meal out, birthday party or wedding to go to while you’re pregnant so you want to make sure that you have at least one dress that can be dressed up.

Tunics and short summer dresses are also another great option that can be worn with leggings. This is much lighter and summery than wearing jeans or trousers. Plus leggings are already stretchy and comfortable, so they are great for pregnant women looking for a practical, everyday wardrobe solution.

Shoes can also be problematic during pregnancy too, especially for those suffering from swollen feet and ankles. Luckily, more shops now offer wide fit shoes, although sadly ladies, skyscraper heels might be out.

Learn more about maternity clothes at Very.co.uk where they stock some gorgeous items for pregnant ladies.

Choosing your new summer wardrobe

admin — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

With the weather heating up, it is now time to start thinking about your new summer wardrobe, this could include shorts, dresses, tanks, tunics and cutesy tops.

Balancing Brood and Business

admin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Balancing Brood and Business

Gone are the days when women gave up work when they got married and stayed at home to bring up the family. Today’s mothers juggle childcare, domestic chores, career and being an attentive wife or partner. The pressure to be a super-mum, to keep all the balls in the air and keep everyone happy is immense.

Many women opt to start up their own business in an attempt to have more flexibility for childcare duties and to have more time at home. However, running a business is never an easy option and requires several child-free hours each day to concentrate on it.

With our 24 hour society, lots of busy families contend with the irregular hours of shift work and the complexities this adds to childcare routines. Day-care child facilities are usually not an option as they will require you to stick to specified days and hours.

Of the childcare options available, a live-in au pair will offer you by far the most flexibility. Often dismissed as being too expensive, in actual fact it can be much cheaper than paying childcare centre or nursery fees, particularly if you have more than one child. An au pair can be an ideal choice for a mum with a home business.

What is an Au Pair?

An au pair is generally a young girl, although sometimes they can be boys. Usually they are aged 18-25 and are taking some time out from studies. They don’t normally have much childcare experience, apart from baby-sitting or caring for younger brothers or sisters. Au pairs are usually looking for an experience overseas to practise English and to immerse themselves in another culture for 6 months to a year. In return for a “pocket money” wage, food and board, they will help out for around 30 hours per week.

For the host family, it is a unique experience to have a young adult from another country living with them and to have an extra pair of hands to take the pressure off mum. Au pairs will do a range of duties including light housework, meal preparation, minding the children, school drop offs etc. However, they can’t be expected to do heavy household chores or have sole care of children under the age of 2. It has to be remembered that au pairs are not childcare professionals and many will not speak English as their first language, so there are some limitations. Nevertheless, most families who welcome an au pair into their lives find the advantages far outweigh any drawbacks.

When running a business and a home with children, it’s difficult to find time for everything you want to do. Here are some of the benefits of having an au pair around:

Regain your sanity: pamper yourself with a long soak in the bath and have time to do your hair and make-up while the children are being looked after in another part of the house.

Have an evening out with your partner or girlfriends: always have a babysitter on hand and someone who knows your children’s routines.

Get some work done: Working from home becomes a real challenge with children, particularly toddlers who seem to want to get into everything. You can’t take your eyes off them for a moment. With an au pair to keep them entertained, or take them out for a few hours, it enables you to concentrate on your business, make some phone calls and generally have some peace and quiet to get on with work.

Grocery shopping without tantrums: leave the children at home with an au pair and nip out to the shops without the children in tow. You can get round the aisles quickly and there’s no risk of being embarrassed by a screaming child.

Quality time at home: with an au pair you can get help with hanging out the washing, putting the groceries away, sweeping the floors and all that time consuming stuff. While you can’t expect her to be a full time cleaner, it allows you to have some quality time with your children and partner and takes the pressure off having to do everything at home.

Adult company when your partner is away: if your partner needs to travel frequently for work, it can leave you feeling isolated. With an au pair at home you’ll have some adult interaction as well as an extra pair of hands.

Fill the gaps between shifts: if shift work overlaps by a few hours, an au pair can be a great option for childcare.

Time out on holiday: au pairs will be delighted to travel with you on holiday as it will give them a chance to see somewhere new. It also provides you with a baby sitter on site so you can have some valuable time alone with your partner.

If you decide that an au pair is for you, it’s highly recommended that you engage a specialist au pair agency to find a suitable candidate. A good agency will fully vet your au pair and conduct a number of background checks including references, medical and police checks. They also will help you prepare and let you know what to expect. It’s a good idea to choose an agency that will give au pairs access to an orientation program when they arrive in the country.

Baby Showers – Trends and Ideas

admin — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Baby Showers are traditionally a celebration of pending birth or in some cases, the recent birth of a child. There are no fixed set of rules, as this celebration has evolved over the decades and the tradition has been carried along across the globe.

What was the tradition?
From a very logical point of view, the whole ceremony of baby showers was a way of bringing women together, so that they could advise the expecting mother about the do’s and don’ts of pregnancy as she nears the time of child birth. It is a time, when gifts are brought to the expect mother by her near and dear ones, along with words of wisdom. With the advent of technology, there is a lot of expertise available and awareness of precautions that need to be taken. But, the ceremony of baby showers continues to be organised in order to celebrate the child who is about to be delivered.

The common practices
Although there are no fixed set of rules as far as baby showers are concerned, over the years there are a few common practices which are shared in most of the ceremonies. It is not uncommon to find baby showers being organised multiple times for family, friends or office colleagues. In fact, there are some people who celebrate the occasion of baby showers not only for birth through pregnancy, but also in case a child has been adopted.
It is common practice for the best friend of the expecting mother, also commonly the bridesmaid, to throw the party for baby showers. The whole function is to ensure that ahead of her impending motherhood, a woman gets all the supplies that she wants along with plenty of advice, tips and checklist of precautions too.

Events at Baby Showers
Baby showers mark an event when women folk share some laughter and excitement. There are various games played like guessing the birth date of the baby or trying to cut ribbons or toilet paper to find out the girth of the expecting mother. There are other interesting games like testing the flavours of baby food, throw games and in general some partying. There is cake cutting along with opening of gifts too, discussing their merits and usage.
This is the time when the expecting mother receives lot of items from her friends who try to pass on the baby articles they don’t need any more once their child has grown up. These could include dresses, sweaters, sleeping bags, trolleys, accessories, baby carrying bags etc. Not only will this save a lot of money for the expecting parents, it also builds a great sense of camaraderie. They feel more confident and secure knowing that there are lot of friends and people who have been there, done it, to see them through thick and thin. In short, baby showers turn out to be the big event, where it finally sinks in that the baby is going to arrive soon, thus allowing expecting parents to gear up in preparation for the child’s arrival.

Baby shower themes
Baby showers are also organised sometimes with lot of pomp and celebration in the same way that weddings or engagement parties are celebrated. If you want to make it a memorable day, you can go for various themes. The importance of having themes is that everything that happens at the event is focused around the theme and so the planning needs to be more intensive. If you are looking at cute animals or cartoon characters for your baby shower theme, your invitation card should reflect it and so should the decoration at home. The cake and the toppings should also bear resemblance with the theme, filling the ambience with cute cartoon characters, soft toys like teddy bears and lot of adorable posters all around.

Some parents use a lot of green plants and flowers as a symbol of hope and beauty. Sometimes the colours of the flowers are chosen to reflect the cartoon characters like Winnie, if that is the theme of the shower. There are also loads of pictures of friends and family as it is a common belief that happy and smiling faces always have a positive effect on the soon-to-be-delivered baby. Festoons, ribbons, colour paper and balloons, cribs with lots of toys and cosy and adorable paintings are all part of the celebration.

Supplies needed for baby showers
You will need a lot of supplies handy to prepare for the baby showers party. You will need a lot of candies, preferably in many different colours, to suit the festive spirit. You will also need lot of decorative tags, for tagging the personalised favours, labelling the gifts and used items that have come from various friends and the tips you received too.

Other common items seen at such functions include picture frames, personalised favour bags, frosted plastic cups, decorative paper lanterns, block candles, favour wraps, personalised cake bags and cookie cutters, to name a few. You need to start planning at least a month in advance if you have a strict budget to stick too. You will need this time to decide on the party favours which you would hand over to the guests, the kind of cake you will order, the decorations you will have at your place and most importantly preparing the guest list.

Ideas for baby shower gifts and favours
If you are organizing the baby showers you can conjure lot of ideas for favours. This could include cute card holders, glass photo vases, personalised cameras, shower candles, LED tea lights, table decorations, candles, scratcher games, candy pearls, flavoured jelly beans, save the date magnets, sticky notes, cookie cutters, party napkins, trivia games etc.

Similarly if you are planning on gifting items, remember the best gifts with a personal touch are those you needed for your own baby. It is like a bond that you share with the expecting parents. You can also buy gift sets with baby games, glass ornaments and photo frames to decorate the nursery, photo books, animal blanks, keepsake boxes, diaper stackers or fortune shakes. The celebration is all about loading the parents with stuff they can use when the baby finally arrives.

Baby Sleep Shop Competition

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This month we have teamed up with Baby Sleep Shop to offer 5 lucky madmums the chance to take home a "..so to sleep" Lullaby CD worth £11.95 each!

Baby Sleep Shop’s own Lullaby CD is a lovely sleepytime collection of classical and contemporary baby lullabies to help your baby get to sleep.

Working with independent composers from around the world, Baby Sleep Shop present 14 lullaby tracks which are sure to help your baby fall asleep.

It also includes Baby Sleep Shop’s own unique lullaby "..so to sleep"

A taster of the CD is avaliable here.

Baby Sleep Shop is a family run business in every sense of the word, the idea born with the owners two sons. It was built on their experiences as parents, and the knowledge that there are times when loving mums, dads and carers though we all are, we would do almost anything to experience the luxury of a good night’s sleep once again!

They began trading a year after the birth of their second son, and Baby Sleep Shop became an ambition to bring together as many products in one place as they could that would help contribute to the dream of a good night’s sleep for everyone!

This competition is now closed, congratulations to the winners who are;

snibbug – Evesham, Worcestershire
Theladyofseoul – Market Drayton, Shropshire
Lynie – Wishaw, North Lanarkshire
faywheeler - Norwich, Norfolk
dawnwhite – lowestoft, suffolk

SPD/PGP – Advice and Information for Friends and Family

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

SPD/PGP – Advice and Information for Friends and Family

I have written this article to try and give some information to the family and friends of those who have been diagnosed with, or who are suffering from SPD. It is particularly written for the partner of the SPD sufferer, however much of the advice is applicable to anyone who knows someone with SPD.

I have found through my own experiences that there is information and support available for those who are directly affected by the condition and friends and family will often call up to ask how they are and what they can do. However often the loved ones of the person with SPD are struggling to come to terms with it themselves, to understand what it means and to find out how they can help. This guide is designed to offer help, information and support for those people who know someone with SPD and want to be able to help.

What is SPD/PGP?

SPD is now often referred to as PGP which stands for Pelvic Girdle Pain. This term was changed to fit with European Guidelines but many sufferers feel the term is too generic and doesn’t adequately describe the condition or its implications. For this reason I will continue to refer to this condition as SPD throughout this article.

SPD stands for Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction. SPD is a very painful condition, causing pain in the groin area, hips, coccyx, thighs, lower back and surrounding areas. It is caused during pregnancy by the production of the hormone Relaxin within the body which softens the ligaments in the pelvis in order to make the baby’s passage through your pelvis as easy as possible, it is not know why some women produce too much of this hormone but it causes the ligaments to soften too much, which allows for increased movement in the pelvis. This can lead to a great deal of pain and discomfort, resulting in some cases in limited mobility.

There is no way of knowing who will develop SPD during pregnancy and it can happen to anyone, however some factors do mean certain people have a greater risk of developing SPD. These are;

Win Peppa Pig’s fantastic new DVD ‘Stars’

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Calling all Peppa Pig fans! ‘Stars’ is the fantastic new DVD to be added to the Peppa Pig collection. You can pick yourself up a copy from March 2nd.

Peppa is a loveable cheeky little piggy who lives with her younger brother George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig. Peppa loves playing games, dressing up, visiting exciting places and making new friends, but her absolutely favourite thing is jumping up and down in muddly puddles! Her frolics always end happily with loud snorts of laughter.

This lovely DVD includes ten brand new episodes from the hit Milkshake show and comes complete with the ingenious Peppa Shuffle which plays episodes in a random order.

Congratulations to kayleighsmum from Leicester who is the winner of this competition and a big thank you to everyone that took the time to enter.