I used to live in a two bedroom house, in Romsey (a middle class dream!) with my husband, our dog and our cat. Now I do not. But that's ok.
With the impending doom of statutory maternity pay coming my way we were facing a bit of a financial crisis. Or at least that's what it feels like.
My husband's income is steady but can fluctuate and we were worried we wouldn't have enough money to pay for everything with just his wage and my measly £140 a week SMP.
Now, I know so many people make things work and manage and lalala but I was so conscious of the fact that I have been blessed with this wonderful salary that very soon I won't have any more and I have loans to repay, credit cards to repay and a car on finance. I KNOW I AM A DEBT MONSTER.
When I'm earning my full salary all of these things are manageable, when I'm not, they wont be. Not when my husband has all his own bills as well. How could I expect him to pay all my bills, all his bills, rent, petrol, food... everything. On top of this my dreams of owning my own property were slipping further and further away. Classic panic my end.
Many people work it out, and I know that hubbard would find away to pay for it all if he needed to but I know me and I know what would inevitably happen- we will fall out about money. We always fall out about money, I'm sure many couples are the same and I know no one ever has any money but I just felt I needed to have an element of control and I needed to do some problem solving. I have had a job since I was 13 and I like to have control of my own money.
Enter the in-laws.
So god bless my mother and father in law who offered for us to stay with them. Initially it was a candid offer in a passing conversation, then after growing the seed I realised this lets off a little pressure and allows us to really save save save ready for when a large chunk of our income as a couple will disappear, partly due to less income, partly due to more outgoings. I hear babies are expensive!?
So we moved. We re-homed Minaj with our lovely friends Jason and Steph (where actually she seems to be behaving like less of a demon!) and trundled off to the in laws. Over half our belongings are in storage and we all now live together in a 3 bedroom house with Brambles and their two dogs Teddy and Logan.
 |
| This is Minaj, she is an angry little critter and has left me with a nasty scar across my nose from an unfortunate accident about 5 years ago. Don't ask. |
I wont lie and say its easy to move house into someone else's home, we all have to find our feet with it and transactional relationships have to change. The parent-child relationship my husband once had with his parents needs to become adult-adult and I still never really know where I fit; but we make it work. We help each other out, Brambles has friends to play with (even if there are some serious behaviours we need to train- every time someone walks in they are deafened by barking and that 6am daily wake up call from Teddy is killing me) and it's nice to have people to talk to when hubbard is at work. There were teething problems with having a new bed (when is transitioning to a new bed NOT difficult?!) and a couple of drunken taxi's to our old address (hubbard not me, sadly) but we're doing this. Its happening.
And it has been fun (for me, husband hates it) to tweak around with our bedroom making it ours, and soon I will get to re-tweak it all over again to try and work out how I can fit a baby in there...! I think they call that nesting...?
No comments