Making money from clutter...

Hi everyone!

Well yesterday didn't quite going according to plan because Daisy wasn't sleeping very much. She had two twenty minute naps which didn't leave me much time to get on with her room. I sit her on the floor while I'm pottering, but now she can crawl, she turfs out everything! All her neatly stacked blankets and clothes on the changing table shelves, nappies out of their stacker and clothes out of the box I have just sorted! She's having a great time while I follow her around picking things up. What I did manage to do, was to sort some more of her little baby clothes. I organised the vests and babygros by age and made carboot sale signs for them. Today I will put her outfits onto spare hangers and price those up too. That way, I will be ready in September to do a carboot sale without any other preparation - organisation is the key to making as much money I can for our home improvements. I know we won't make a huge amount of money, but I have to try as every penny does count when you're saving up for things. We really want to move, but the house isn't ready and it isn't just a case of painting. We need to save up for a new boiler before it gets too cold because we don't have much life left in the old one. If it was just us, we would go without, which we have done in previous houses, but I have Daisy to think about so the heating will be on low.

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Jane - Hi, nice to hear from you. Decluttering is a slow process as I have years of collecting stuff to sort out and old habits to break.

Any home improvements cause disruption to the daily running of a home, but bathrooms and kitchens are the worst. My OH is a builder, so I have lived in many a building site in the past! He put an extension on our current house, but then we ran out of funds and so the rest of the house has been neglected. Your bathroom will be worth the wait in the end!

I have had my own home since I was 18 and my first washing machine was a second hand twin tub and a little spin dryer that moved around the kitchen floor! When my first baby, Ashley was born, I bought my first proper washing machine and that lasted me ten years. Since then (he's 23 now) I have got through a few until we went a bit dearer and bought our current Zanussi one. This is on at least once a day, so it has to be good!

I haven't looked at AF in a while because I have been doing Frugal Queen's challenge to use up what we have. The chicken marinades sound like good value, it's nice to have something different for a change.

Daisy is getting faster at crawling every day and is into everything!

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Sara - Hi, lovely to hear from you too! We bought a travel cot/playpen a while back and we keep it in the living room. Daisy will sit in there and play for about twenty minutes. Now she wants to get down and crawl everywhere and explore! She also has a walker, but that's not safe when I'm ironing or when the oven is on. I have to iron when she's asleep now.

Hubby has been back at work a week now and getting much better, thanks. His medication is making him feel sick all the time and made his mouth really sore, so he's trying to reduce them as of today.

We bought all Daisy's clothes for a 6lb early/tiny baby before she was born because she didn't grow properly in the womb. At her 20 week scan, they said hopefuly she could make it to 23 weeks and still be growing, if not she would be born and stand a better chance in special care. Every week after that was a bonus because the detailed growth scans were showing that she was still slowly growing. The hospital took over her care from the GP and midwife and she was well monitored. They initially predicted that we would be lucky to get a 3lb birthweight, which ended up as 5lb in the later stages of pregnancy. She was exactly 6lb in the end and just escaped special care. The staff said she was the smallest baby they had on the ward for a long time. All of the 6lb clothing was way too big when she was born though. I bought handmade premature cardies off ebay which actually fit her. She was very small. She continues to grow slowly on the 2nd centile, weighing 17lb a few weeks ago, but it's fine because she is growing at a steady rate for her.

I am keeping all of her first premature size clothes to show her just how small she was. Apart from a few special things, the rest is going...we need to think of the future now.

I tried so hard to sort out her nursery yesterday, but as I've already said, it's a slow process.

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markdebby - Hi and welcome to my blog! I hope you had a nice day with your grandson.

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Thanks for reading and commenting,

Mandy x