40+ Yummy (or not-so-yummy) Mummies, Come and Eat Cake

[ladymac]

Have taken the plunge, hope this is acceptable to everybody.

Hello all

Cutie baby pics hedgepig. I keep seeing teeny tiny ones and thinking - gulp, are they really that small? - so it's nice to be reminded that they grow into robust smiley things quite quickly!

lilibet, do you mean your DD will be living at home but not paying rent? But keeping her car and social life going with her McD's job? Hmm, I know I'm going to sound like a mean old bag, and completely believe in supporting DC's educational ambitions, but also v firmly believe in them understanding the cost of living, and the uni years being the ideal time for that to happen. She has made a good sensible decision but she is a grown up, and she'll benefit from that decision, and it's still her responsbility to contribute something to household costs, isn't it? Even if it's a nominal sum to cover food. Most students have to take out vast loans to cover their living costs; she's v lucky to have a supportive mum to provide a home and reduce her expenses massively, and enable her to keep running a car, and I don't think she would mind showing some appreciation of all that by paying you a bit. Harrumph!

If I've completely misunderstood and she is in fact going to move away to uni and support herself, then apologies to your DD!!

Oh for the days of student grants, houses with no heating and rent of £10 p/wk, wearing dead men's coats from Oxfam because Primark didn't exist and nobody wore make up or girly shoes, watching Neighbours 3 times a day incl the welsh language version (I studied English and so had very little work to do) and treating yourself to 2 bottles of Newcastle Brown and a pack of bacon Wheat Crunchies on the nights you didn't go out.

I've never used my degree either, JW - the most useful qualification I ever did was RSA Typing when I was in 6th form! But loved those three years and wouldn't change them for the world.

I did wonder Ermintrude, she contributes a fifth of everything ( even down to the tv licence!)at the moment, and so is very aware of the cost of things.
When she starts uni she will live at home but a car will be a necessity, her insurance is £80 a month and her petrol will be about £30 a week. I make her put aside £50 a month for MOT/servicing so she has to earn £240 a month just for her car. She isn't going to get a lot on top of that but I thought about asking for some of it.

What do the rest of you think?

I see how tricky it is lilibet. The last thing anyone wants is for their DC to be burdened by 10s of 1000s of pounds of debt at the beginning of their working life, but that's what the system encourages these days (one of my sisters is 35 and still hasn't paid hers off or yet earned enough to pay any interest - so at least it's not cost her anything!). On the other hand, if she were studying away from home your DD would have to take out a huge loan and/or work lots of hours to fund her living costs, so being at home is saving her oodles. I think there's a difference between being in full-time education till 18 and choosing higher education thereafter. Maybe she could consider a modest loan which enables her to make a nominal contribution to your costs (or perhaps even tie the loan directly to her car usage so it's not like she's taking out a loan just to pay you) whilst not putting an albatross around her neck?

I'd be interested to hear how others with older DC have to say on the subject too. It may well hit DH and I in 8 year's time and we'll need to have our policies prepared! (though will encourage DC to go away from home so I can only imagine what they're up to...).

Now how did I lose weight while pregnant? ... I think it was the Salt and Vinegar crisps and Marmite on Toast diet. That's about all I ate for 4 months and then ... I just don't know. I was about 4 stone overweight to begin with - hubby said I turned Becky into baby.

Lillibet - depends on where she's getting the money from to pay for herself during the Uni stint. If it's a student loan then I'd feel terrible taking money to add to her debt. But if it is a grant and she does have some money to spare then even a tenner or twenty a week would help and she'd feel better knowing she wasn't putting too much pressure on you.

Floria - wow that butternut sounds DIVINE! I usually just roast mine with olive oil and either chilli flakes or a squeeze of lemon juice - and sometimes whole garlic bulbs in there too (lovely when they caramalise).

Plush Pants have a 10% off sale on single nappies (not the multipacks).

Tricky one with kids at Uni. I gave DS#1 an allowance of £60 month to top up his loan. I'll do the same for DS#2. He's living at home though to prevent building up a huge debt when he graduates.

Each to their own though as everyone's circumstances are different.

Thanks for squash recipes. So many to try!!! Woot!

So they don't pay rent JW? Do they have jobs as well?

mornin' all

Floria I want to know what your friend is doing on the wii! That's brilliant!

Last night did more hula'ing and ski slaloming - which I am now a bit addicted to. So far we have only unlocked a few -super hula, snow boarding and some muscle games which I haven't tried yet. Oh also a funny game involving a penguin sliding over and back on an iceberg trying to catch fish. I know its oexactly backbreaking but the difference with the wii is once you get the hang of a game you don't want to stop - not an affect you can accuse Davina's dvd of having!

lilibet what's your dd going to do about other expenses such as clothes, cosmetics etc? Is it really realistic for her to be able to survive only on a little money from a part time job? If it isn't she may need to avail herself of some additional funding - and if she has to do this then there is nothing unreasonable about her having to pay something towards her living costs. It doesn't have to be all or nothing - a smallish student loan perhaps out of which she could give you some money?

MrsB - I love the penguin game - and it has your face!! (well, not your face obviously )

I don't wnat her to take out a loan to give me keep. It seems wrong that when she is 35 she will still be in debt to some stupid government body for money that she gave me for food.

How as a country can we expect the brightest and best to do well at school/college/ uni and take over the running of the place if we won't even educate them? My friend's daughter pulled out of going to uni when she realised that at the end of the course her debt woud be about £40k. She now works in Boots. It's crazy.

A penguin with my face? Aaargh! Nope, it's not doing it for me; thank goodness I have an excuse to avoid all this strenuous Wii activity, but well done to those of you who are sweating it out with Davina and friends.

One of the problems of financing student life nowadays is that the cost of living is higher than it was 'in our day', obviously, but also expectations are vastly higher. My student life in the 80s wasn't so very different from my parents' experience in the 50s and 60s (only the beer was much cheaper then . But all the students who live round here have cars, mobiles, pcs, i-pods, new clothes, countless takeaways and busy social lives. We used to have the latter but it didn't cost much, and our communication/entertainment technologies were out of the ark so there was less 'stuff' to buy. We'd live in rubbish housing, shop at charity shops, learn how to cook and live on pasta with tomato sauce, learn how to make tiny bits of cash go as far as they could. That bit of my life where I got a tiny taste of living like a poor person (only of course not having the real fear of poverty because parents were there as a safety net, only I'd never in a million years have taken extra help off them) was really character-forming and eye-opening. Hardly anyone gets that nowadays because life without mobiles and pcs is inconceivable and it's so easy to get an interest-free student loan - and the reality of paying it back seems years away when you're 20.

Also, there are so many more uni places - and so many ex-colleges and polys that now have uni status - that the state couldn't possibly afford to support the living costs of every single student as well as the costs of tutelage. But I do strongly believe that the tutoring for first degrees should be free for all UK citizens, and that there should be some means-tested living grant reintroduced for the poorest families.

Not looking forward to dealing with this at all when our turn comes around. It's a real conundrum.

sorry about banging on there, didn't realise how much i was blathering. enough on the state of the nation, let's talk about penguin snowboarding!

Ah means testing - now thats a bugger to get me really wound up.

Ds1 is 16 in may and my mate has a child and step child in the same boat, both of whom live with her and her husband. Because of sheer luck they have no mortgage, and quite a bit in savings, she doesn't work and having recently been made redundant he was looking for a job that had "no hassle, no weeeknds, a fortnight off over Christmas and not too far away". He got exactly what he wanted.

Come next year when all three children start at college, both their children will get £30 a week EMA, my ds1 will get sod all. Because he is on a low salary by choice and my dh and I are over the limit because we have a bloody great mortgage, car loan ( he bought her a car for her birthday last year, this year she has got a £400 kitten!!!)and no soddign savings and we both work full time, we don't qualify for it.

Sorry! It's a pet rant.

I, obviously have never had a child at Uni, seeing as my first hasn't been born yet! But, I think I would require them to either pay something towards the house, or at least do some very specific chores to help out.

Of course, by the time I need to actually consider this, Uni will probably cost £10000000000000000 a year!

It is difficult - 40k is a horrendous amount of money to owe in your early 20s especially since you have no guarantee of getting any sort of decent job at the end of it unless your degree is of a certain type.

I think that education should be free on principle - at least for first degrees but I also think there are a lot of university places these days and many of them are for degrees that will get the student no further along in terms of employment prospects. Like I say education is a good thing in itself but its not not necessarily ideal to get a degree with the vague idea that it will get you a good job only to end up doing the same job you would have had without the degree but with 40k of debt.

Not referring to your DD here lilibet as she sounds like a girl who knows what she's about!

lilibet - you're right, the way means are tested should be changed to take the full picture into account. But twas ever thus - because my Dad was on a vg salary (hospital doctor) not one of his 6 children got a grant, despite the fact all of that salary went on bringing up that size family - caravan holidays in the UK, mum made lots of our clothes, hand me downs, kids taking on saturday jobs at 15, usual stuff. He didn't moan - it was their choice to breed so prodigiously, and nobody starved. Whereas my richest friend - her own car at 17, John Lewis limitless credit card at 15, 2 foreign holidays per year - whose dad was self-employed and could therefore claim v little income as his salary - got a FULL GRANT which was basically her pin money.

We're still friends, even though she found my outrage v amusing at the time

you've just reminded me of a woman I work with - husband has v well paid job and she doesn't need to work and didn't until her kids were quite grown. She then went back to work in order to pay for their university costs. All her salary went to paying their fees, rents etc and paying them an allowance. One dropped out and is now working and the mother still gives her money while she keeps all of her own salary and pays no keep at all. And both still get taken on all expenses paid holidays with the parents every time the parents take one.

Afternoon all - nursery run - then to the shops - get back and now none of the little darlings want a sleep...Gggrrrr!

Oooerr - Universtity/grant/fees dilema. Well, we were quite poor but because Dad was working I got very little grant. I worked all the way through uni - even in the 80s - I had to.

Not sure what I think now. I think first degrees should be free but I also think some degree courses are merely there to pump up the amount of students and they don't really carry any real weight to them. I think there are going to be an awful lot of disillusioned students graduating with no prospect of a job and huge debts.

Also many who do get a job are going to be stunned at the low wages the 'prestigious' career they'd picked carries. My old job at a certain magazine was in the Guardian jobs section last year. It was being offered for £9,000 LESS than I was paid in 1993 So many people want to work in media they can get low salary staff. The deputy editor of our local newspaper left to drive a taxi cos it paid more!!!

Today most students have/need a car. I didn't know anyone with a car - it was a bus or rail pass. Standards of life - that are considered minimum - are higher than when I was a student. I didn't have a car until I was 34!!!

Best ask me what I think in 15 years time - lordy I bet I'll be gobby about it all then.

Any of you whose DC are going to uni - well, YOU deserve a pat on the back for getting them there in the first place. Then take the smelling salts once you've realised the cost

Forgot to say - hedgepig your boy is so handsome and wow - he does look older!

jw I like a butternut risotto or roast it moroccan style. Can i just say my Kashmir rice was lovely!

tee how do I see your blog??

Oh sorry JJ, I posted it before, you must have missed it! Tee's Blog There ya go!

My perspective on Uni in general is different from y'all anyway, since I grew up in and went to Uni in the US. My state college education cost somewhere around $150,000 for 4 years. That was tuition, room, board books. Not anything above that. A private Uni probably costs about 3x that. And this was gulp almost 20 years ago.

I was very lucky in that my parents are very well off (I keep hoping for a huge inheritance, but mother keeps pointing out that it will be split 6 ways!!) and could pay for my Uni through my bachelors degree. Anything beyond that I was on my own.

My husband teaches that Uni level and what kills me is how many times he comes home ranting because the students just don't seem to care about studying. You should see some of the papers he marks. The scores are appalling. So maybe they are paying the fees, but they really don't seem to care if they get anything out of it.

The facts are that university isn't free and student loans and digs all add up to a whopping great debt for a young person to pay off.

DS#1 lived at home for 1st year and now in his 2nd year is living in a flat with his g/f. He works all weekends as well.

DS#1 lives with his father and will live there (highly likely) until his degree finishes. We're lucky we live in a city where there are excellent higher education institutions. He doesn't pay rent to his father nor have a job. His father has told him not to get a job until he's in uni and to concentrate on getting good A level results.

I would glady help them both out (and K when it's her turn although that's slightly different.....come to that in a mo). I don't want either of them paying off loads of money with interest especially with the price of houses being so out many young people's reach.

My take on this (and I must stress this is MY take on it and I'm not foisting my view on anyone) is that I had these children out of choice. I want the best possible start in their adult life as I did when they were babies. Once they're off and running with a good job then I can sit back in the knowledge I've done my best to set them up. Then it's up to them.

Lord only knows what it'll be like when K is going off to uni in 18 years time. It'll probably go full circle and only the elite will be able to afford it. For K we'll have a uni fund for her fees already in place so it's not a huge strain when the time comes. I do expect her to work part time though and it won't all be handed to her on a plate. Probably wouldn't take rent off her though.

Haven't found the penguin game yet mrsb but I sure will have a look now.

Sorry I look as though I have two DS#1's. Obviously the 3rd para is DS#2

Awwww tee so cute with your preggie belly Sweeeeeeet!!!

jw SNAP! We've decided on a uni fund for the girls - just in case. DP was the most academic out of his siblings yet (much to his father's ongoing heartache) he decided not to go to Bangor to study Marine Biology.

As a builder/carpenter he earns the least out of his bro and sis BUT he's the happiest in himself. He loves what he does. We're being very practical about it all. Our £££s are not going into the child trust fund (for them to run riot with on their 18th!!) but split between bank accounts for the girls and a uni fund.

Mind you - like you say - it'll probably only be affordable to the likes of the Ponsonby-Smythes....or Heat magazine celebs

Penguins? I want Penguins....

Anyone see on the news about the 6 yr old boy in the States who drove himself to school six miles across town because he'd missed his school bus and didn't want to miss his PE class? Went home and nicked the parents car keys and drove off - only halted his travels when he crashed into a telegraph pole. Told police he knew what to do from playing computer driving games (inc Grand Theft Auto )

He managed to stop at a red light and cross intersections and all sorts!

Yeah, I did see that mrsb. And now he and his brother have been removed from his parents, and rightly so. Apparently mum was sleeping, rather than taking care of him and his 4 year old brother. No idea where dad is.

Thanks JJ I think I look huge! But everyone else says I look great!

Gosh aren't you right ermintrude about students now expecting a much higher stander of living. There was no way on earth I could have afforded a car when I was a student (on £2500 a year!). I remember queuing at the phone box for an hour at a time just to phone home and catching the bus as a luxury when I didn't want to cycle to college. I think it's made me into a reasonable thrifty person who will make do and mend rather than spend spend spend. I do worry about the current generation and their high impact desires.

jj when your OH gets home form work; "can I have a wii? can I? can I pleaaaaeese? can I? can I huh? can I? all the other girls have one oh pleeeeasee"

that should do it