The ups and downs of attempting to go a whole year without buying any new clothes...

...without becoming a naturist, as the title suggests

Tuesday 10 May 2011

May - Beaten by the Bump?

Important to note first of all, is that I have survived the wedding! Although things did get quite stressful in the last week, we had a fantastic day and everything went totally to plan - if not better.


All in all we managed to only go £80 over our total budget; spending £1,500 on drink, food, crockery, clothes, flowers, invites, rings etc. on top of the venue hire. 


I am massively impressed and have no idea why anyone would need to spend any more than that on a wedding - it was *perfect*.


And here we are, after the ceremony, tying the first ribbon to our apple tree...




I am now 22 and a half weeks pregnant and, as everyone keeps pointing out, huge! Loads of clothes have already had to go away in the attic as there is just no way I can squeeze into them any more. I have even outgrown R's pyjama trousers, which I had resorted to wearing once mine became too tight!


I have failed miserably to find any decent maternity leggings in my size, so I am still wearing my old ones (luckily the elastic has seen better days!) and turning them down to minimise the tourniquet effect!


However, and this is where I feel I may have let everyone down, I have had to buy some new clothes this week. SHOCK HORROR. I can honestly say that I feel dirty and ashamed. I only have about 6 weeks left to go and I would have completed the year, but I think by then someone at work may have had 'polite' words with me about my attire.


I am managing fine on the bottom half with a couple of old wraparound skirts and the wonderful maternity linen trousers I was given last month... but up top was a different matter! I was having to stretch all of my tops ridiculously around the bump, and they were getting shorter and shorter and giving me sore red patches under my arms where the fabric was stretched so tightly over my (quite excitingly) bigger boobs!


So... justification over, I headed for H&M to buy a few simple tops so that I could appear decent at work. I would love to say that I am now the proud owner of a glamorous maternity wardrobe... but I am in no way proud and it is in no way glamorous. 


I did, however, find two minor positives in my shopping experience and they are that all H&M basic maternity tops seem to be a blend of organic cotton - which is heading in the right direction. Also that I managed to find nursing tops, rather than just maternity tops. This means they have an exciting 'easy access' cross over of material at the front, to enable you to whip out a boob, whenever and wherever you need. Although I haven't sampled this function yet, it does at least mean that the tops will last a lot longer, as I will be able to wear them after the baby is born, rather than having to invest in more unwanted clobber.


So I bought two vest tops, two t-shirts and one long sleeve t-shirt which, in total, cost me £44. Stupidly over-priced, but unfortunately very necessary.


I am now just willing the hot weather to return, so that I can take off my leggings and breathe easily! 


Now that I have more time, I am going to spend an evening hunting out second hand clothes on the internet, as I am still finding absolutely nothing in charity shops and I am guessing that the bump is just going to keep on growing... and I won't let it catch me out again!


Even though the year will be up in a few weeks, there is no way that I am going on a spending spree. I could quite happily go another year without wanting to go into another 'real' shop again. And hopefully, on maternity leave, with baby in tow, I will have far more time to trawl the charity shops and dig out the best deals for when I need something.


I've been looking at other people recently and thinking how interesting it would be to just find out what they have spent on clothes/shoes in the last month, and what they think their average is.


Anyone want to share...?