One of the perks of being a Preggie is that you get to buy new clothes to fit your ever expanding tummy.
In my first trimester, I was still wearing my Hipster Giordanos, much to my Hubb, mum's and MIL's disagreement. "U wear tight jeans, baby no space to grow", my mum grumbled. I guess I was still in denial of my condition. Not that I am not happy about getting pregnant.
In the early second trimester, I can no longer wear my Giordanos. My work pants start to become a lil' too tight and wearing Tees is slightly obscene when it sort of stretches in front of your belly and sort of make the material look thinner, thus my belly button was sort of visible, a lil' like playing peek-a boo.
Now at 5.5 mths, I have to finally "wave the white flag" and surrender to Maternity wear. And only now have I realised that there is very little selection of Maternity wear for mums-to-be in Singapore (for Muslimah with tudong). Affordable ones that is. By affordable, in my terms it means lesser than $30. The cheaper the better.
If you know me, I only go for bargains. I dont believe in spending alot on a piece of clothing when I can get a few pieces for the same amount, tasteful ones of course. My Mango-es are only bought at sales. Maybe you could call me a sale-freak. I love digging under the big pile of clothes to find the "jewel". That is why I thrive at Fleamarkets.
Coming back to Maternity wear. My very first maternity wear is a light yellow ruffled blouse which was $70+ after 20% discount which we bought from a shop in Hougang Mall. Gosh, I thought, that is so expensive! Double the price of my Mango-es. To this day, it is still hanging in my closet, untouched. So since then, Ive been trying to find bargain Maternity wear. And with some help from the IDOBABY forum, I managed to find some incredible buys.
Most maternity pants in boutiques would cost at least $40. Those found in the shops of HDB estates costs above $25. But at Mustaffa Centre there is a small section of maternity wear on level 3 of which maternity working pants are selling at $18, and it is of the same quality as those found at the HDB estates. I have 4pcs of them. But of course these are those "old" fashioned maternity pants which will cover your whole belly.
As for tops, I go for baby doll dresses or kimono tops with cardigans at This Fashion at no more than $25 a piece. As for Tee-shirt material tops, usually they cost between $15-25. I have 5 such tops bought for a mere $5 each!!!!! The secret, those Factory-outlet kinda shops in HDB town centers. Oh and these tops are actually Old Navy or GAP Maternity wear with long sleeves of which the labels had been disfigured but are still visible. In fact, other than maternity wear, there are quite a nice variety of normal short and long sleeves tops and track pants at these shops all for $10 or lesser!.
Oh, and I found a very rare find at the Factory-outlet kinda shop recently in Toa Payoh central. On sale was maternity cargo pants at $10!!!
And of course I cant live without jeans. I am a jeans/tee-shirt kinda person. When I found out that a maternity pair of jeans with the big elastic band cost more than $20, boy was I excited to find out craftster's DIY maternity jeans. I bought some elastic T-shirt material from Spotlight and immediately started to cut out my Giordano jeans. It took me some courage to make that first cut on the jeans though...but since then Ive been wearing my jeans and haha, no more *tsktsk* from my mum...Yipee!
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posted by LiN at 10:31 AM
December 12, 2006 is a big day for some of us, the working adults.
Big Bonus Day.
Well, its not really that big, but if you graduated in 1998 in the midst of the Asia Economic Crisis, you would understand. Started out with 0.5 bonus back when Im with NUH, 8 years in the work force now, its slightly better at 2.2. Mind you, its 2.2 and not 3.2 (unlike a Radio DJ reported earlier on)
If you know me well, you would know that I control my monthly budget very strictly. I have a strict routine of noting down the commitments/expenses/ bills for that month a wk before my pay is credited into my account.
The truth is for 3 years when I first started working, I have no savings at all. My pay and bonus disappears into thin air and I dont recall spending on something big or useful at all. Thank god I dont own a credit card back then!
So one day, I sat down with my bank book and the single digit printed on the very last line and I thought to myself, what should I do to get out of this recurring trap. So I started to write down my montly budget and Im proud to say that I do this without fail every month since 2001.
This December, however, there is a special additional committment: For Lil Baby + Car
Yap, as you all know, Lil Baby is on the way. And the car had been a much discussed matter ever since the Pregnancy Test kit had a "+" sign on it.
After much deliberation and lots of calculation, we decided that it is a practical decision to purchase that car. Sending Lil Baby to the baby sitter everyday, plus the trips to the in-laws every wkend. It would be too much of a hassle to lug Lil Baby and the pram and everything else to the west side of Singapore and back to the Northeast. Plus the total sum of the taxi fares would definately add up to more than the amount we would spend on petrol.
So with Marina and Ramli's help last Sunday, we went shopping for a car. *Special thanks to Marina and Ramli and babies for helping us. We owe u guys one*
We had wanted to get a smaller car, something that would not incur a monthly payment of more than $400 per month. But after much discussion on their experience (they started off with a hatchback car which they found difficulty in trading in 3 yrs later), we decided to get a slightly bigger but still affordable car, a sedan, mainly for the larger boot space.
Kia Rio, Auto, 1.4, in Sunset Orange.
It was quite a bargain, at 42K+, it comes with leather seats and sports rim which Marina told us that it would cost an additional 1-2K. The sales person also gave in to Marina's bugging by adding in free Solar Films and some other car stuff which I dont understand. Oh and a free iPod. With such a bargain, to me it didnt really matter that its in Sunset Orange.
But the big significance is that I have to be even more strict with my budget...
After watching The Amazing Race Asia on Thursday night, my Hubb and I "amazingly" grew fanatic over that show. I have always enjoyed The Amazing Race (much better than watching half-naked men & women on Survivor, I would say.)
It didnt help that on Saturday AXN was showing The Amazing Race (& Asia) re-runs from 11 am to 3pm non-stop. We were stuck infront of the TV. Apparently this craze even made us stay awake to watch the midnight episode on Sunday although it was evident that we were tired and were yawing every five mins. We slept only at 1am.
As a result, we were late for the long awaited appointment at SGH yesterday morning.
After waiting for what seems like the longest time, my number was buzzed and I went in for my detailed scan. This time my Hubb followed me in. It was the longest scan that I had ever had and it didnt help that I couldnt see anything on the screen 95% of the time as the Technician's elbow was almost in my face.
The results were out: Lil' Baby is doing a-okay. The Technician asked if we wanted to know the gender of our Lil' Baby. We said yes. She told us.
Over lunch, I asked my Hubb if he was ok with the gender. He was infact grateful, he said that he would expect it to be easier to bring up Lil' Baby. Ah, well, I on the other hand was hoping it to be the other.
I sms my mum. She was surprised. She had the same hopes as me, where as my mother-in-law had the same hopes as my Hubb. From the many responses that I had from family/ friends, mostly mentioned that the gender would be the one I was expecting. And so my mum and I were surprised at the results.
My Hubb must have sensed some disappointment, he came home that night and told me not to despair. His colleagues told him that it was told that he would be expecting a girl but it really turned out to be a boy.
I guess as long as Lil' Baby is a-okay, Im a-okay. Alhamdulillah! I mean what difference does it make right? 10 years down the road, boy or girl, I am still going to be nagging to Lil' Baby to clean up the room or to do homework?
And so we decided that the Lil' Baby is going to be in White....
Lil' Baby had started to move around. It felt more like little tickles instead of kicks ...
It didnt help that on Saturday AXN was showing The Amazing Race (& Asia) re-runs from 11 am to 3pm non-stop. We were stuck infront of the TV. Apparently this craze even made us stay awake to watch the midnight episode on Sunday although it was evident that we were tired and were yawing every five mins. We slept only at 1am.
As a result, we were late for the long awaited appointment at SGH yesterday morning.
After waiting for what seems like the longest time, my number was buzzed and I went in for my detailed scan. This time my Hubb followed me in. It was the longest scan that I had ever had and it didnt help that I couldnt see anything on the screen 95% of the time as the Technician's elbow was almost in my face.
The results were out: Lil' Baby is doing a-okay. The Technician asked if we wanted to know the gender of our Lil' Baby. We said yes. She told us.
Over lunch, I asked my Hubb if he was ok with the gender. He was infact grateful, he said that he would expect it to be easier to bring up Lil' Baby. Ah, well, I on the other hand was hoping it to be the other.
I sms my mum. She was surprised. She had the same hopes as me, where as my mother-in-law had the same hopes as my Hubb. From the many responses that I had from family/ friends, mostly mentioned that the gender would be the one I was expecting. And so my mum and I were surprised at the results.
My Hubb must have sensed some disappointment, he came home that night and told me not to despair. His colleagues told him that it was told that he would be expecting a girl but it really turned out to be a boy.
I guess as long as Lil' Baby is a-okay, Im a-okay. Alhamdulillah! I mean what difference does it make right? 10 years down the road, boy or girl, I am still going to be nagging to Lil' Baby to clean up the room or to do homework?
And so we decided that the Lil' Baby is going to be in White....
Lil' Baby had started to move around. It felt more like little tickles instead of kicks ...