Sorry for any offence caused

[mixedup]

I apologise to fellow mumsnetters if my post have offended anyone, That was not my intention

Lucy123

I'm far from a workaholic but I got laid off last October and have had to go from 37.5 hours a week to 60-72 hours a week just to try to earn the same wage and stay in the same area.

DW and I have seriously thought about moving but where too?

We are also looking at getting a lodger in but that just replaces one set of problems with possibly another set.

Spain? we moved from Brighton for house-price reasons. Or there are other places with cheaper houses - it takes a bit of research though. Anywhere more than 50 miles from london is good, but also prices tend to be cheaper in ex-council estates, even when the estates are nice.

I may have been a bit harsh - I know it can be hard and I remember you saying you had been laid off. We also had to take a lodger after losing some major clients (knock on effects of the World trade Centre attacks) so i do know how you feel -
but equally I think that in general people can manage on a lot less than they think they can. I can halve my shopping budget by doing more cooking (still work, but dd can "help" ), but then I have always been frugal. Dp isn't really a workaholic, but he seems to think that we can't do without several things that we could in fact do without.

BTW having a lodger can have surprise bonuses too though - our ex-lodger is now a very good friend and used to babysit / help out all the time. Also he gave us some chickens. Best to get a friend of a friend rather than advertise if you can, but you can always get references etc, or insist on a female mature student. I really think you should do something though - 60 hours is too much even if you didn't have a daughter.

PS you're IT aren't you? do the agencies in London not still pay silly money for IT trainers?

Lucy123

We have tried getting a female lodger in 3 times in the last 6 months and as soon as they discover it is not a shared house full of other single people they run a mile, but we are still trying.

We did have lodgers prior to DD arriving and growing into a whirling dervish so we know that they are out there but it is just finding them.

I did work in IT, the trouble is the IT job market has crashed badly. Local companies are now asking for degrees and/or MCSE and then stating that they will pay upto £16,500 and this is for frontline Helpdesk work. I've now applied for over 120 roles and had one interview so unfortunately unless we do move or I get very lucky the 60+ hours a week are here to stay.

Chinchilla, where are you from? If you were from the north you would know that that comment is anything but unfriendly

sh - you have my sympathy. And bang goes my plan to make dp get a proper job in the UK (he's also a degree-less IT bod). Still Spain is nice.

good luck with finding a lodger. Is there a university near you? I remember when I was at university the female students were falling over themselves for an ad that offered cheap rent in return for babysitting.

chiccadum - what does it mean then?

What comment are we talking about? Get your bums off your head? Never heard of it before.

tinker, i think it is a "shock and awe" style escalation after the diplomatic failure of "get a personality transplant".

sigh<

Been away all weekend, just caught up with this. SH I had a laugh, Breeze and Mixedup I know you did too.... and I am flattered that the thread impressed some people.

...incidentally.... I am finding all this quite erotic.

KIDDING FOLKS B4 YOU ALL GO MENTAL!!!!

SimonHoward, just a thought on the lodger front. I wondered (if you are in London or near an FE/HE college) whether you could maybe get a student in need of digs. Overseas students new to the UK in particular often like the security of a family (rather than a houseful of singletons) and you might also find it is someone who becomes a family friend for you all. I work in HE and all the interest in DS comes from the European lads and lasses, not the Brits. I've even had some beg to babysit...sorry you are working so many hours, agree with Lucy123 that this must be hell for you all.

simonhoward, I hope the lodger/language student thing works out.

I know what it's like to work 7 days a week for financial survival. For over a year I had a full time job, mon to fri and ran a stall at weekends. It's not fun. We got out of this rut by moving to a cheaper area - bigger house, too. The best thing we ever did.

I have to say that if mumsnet had been around when I was working these hours I would still have felt 'qualified' to contribute. And I think some of the other mumsnet contrubuters put in very long hours, too. It is not just a working dad thing.

Luckily, I arranged my working life so I could see my toddler son for at least three hours a day (he had a late-ish bedtime) and usually spent a day with him at weekends. Not always possible for everyone working these sort of hours. I could also look back to times with him when I was working less, or not at all, so I had that knowledge and closeness to draw on. You presumably have similar memories stored up. I'm sure you treasured the time you had with your dd inbetween your two jobs, and when you were working fewer hours. And of course you have holidays to catch up on time together.

I am sorry that you feel you are missing out on your daughter's development, but I simply cannot believe that you have no knowledge of her routines, personality and preferences. I hope that you feel 'brave enough' to enter a variety of other mumsnet discussions. I see you and startC have been making inroads into some of them recently.

Tigermoth

Oh for some time off between jobs. I finished the old one on the Thursday and started the new one the next day.

I do have some knowledge of her routines, but no where near as much as I'd hoped for (I have no idea what goes on in the day during the week nowadays as she is always of out to one play group or another with DW or out round a friends/relatives, or they are round the house).

As it was I had a day off recently after working almost nonstop for 4 weeks to find my daughter could crawl and walk with help or if she held onto a wall. When I asked DW about it she told me she had forgotten to tell me about it and that it had been going on for a week or more.

I am seriously looking at the selling up and moving option but currently that may not be the best thing to do (a few family/personal probs that need sorting out first). The question is where? I don't want to end up in a position where I can't then afford to move back to this area again because it is so expensive.

Sorry about this, but I can see this happening again recently in other threads, so I have to bring this up again! My main concern about Mumsnet is that some threads have titles which sound innocent enough, but then when you go in them the conversation has turned completely around! For instance, the circumcision thread originally asked for opinions on a baby who medically might need an op, but she didn't know whether to wait and see or do it then. From that it has turned into a moral war with lots of members being very offended and upset by things that have been said. The same with the 'Almost made a huge mistake' thread, it finished as something entirely different. So members going in to view for the first time, would have quite a shock when they read the last posts! Maybe it would be a good idea to start a new thread once it begins to turn, otherwise I fear we will start scaring off new members.

Chiccadum - not that it makes any difference, but I am from the South. Perhaps where you are from it doesn't mean anything bad, but it sounds like 'Get your head out of your ase' to me! Enid was pssed off too, so perhaps you should use a less ambiguous phrase in future? Anyway, I'm not out to make enemies here, so let's just agree to forget it all. I don't like confrontations at the best of times, but especially not when suffering from depression.

All the best.