Learning to love my library

Below street level at the foot of a windswept 60's tower block lurks our local library. Despite my thrifty nature I have to admit I'd deliberately given it a wide berth until I was pregnant - preferring the guilty pleasure of splurging on 3-for-2 offers at the big chain book stores.

Why the change of heart? Indecision. My natural response to any new challenge in life is to research, research, research. I always start online but ultimately I need reference tomes on my bookshelves. Which ones would see me through this baby-rearing business? Would I be a regimented routine Gina Ford-style mother or a go-with-the-flow Baby Whisperer? Rather than buy up the entire baby section at Borders I finally crossed my library threshold and came home with the full spectrum of options to browse.

As I've said in an earlier post, the winner for us was Baby Secrets, which I now thrust upon any new mum-to-be who shows half an interest. Here are a selection of other great baby-raising books we discovered at the library and have since invested in.

As I swelled into a waddling whale, the once shunned library became an essential pit stop when running (ok, trudging) local errands. And once I'd exhausted the shelves of new clues to what parenthood held in store, I discovered a nice line in parenting magazines to leaf through - full of yet more money saving tips and fairly terrifying labour stories.

Fast forward another few months and my life with tiny baby Ginger involved seemingly endless hours of breastfeeding. None of the guidebooks prepared me for just how much it dominated our days (and nights). In low moments I felt my existence was reduced to that of giant milking machine, but the breakthrough came when I learned to balance a book on the guzzling Ginger and enjoy endless novels through all those hours on the sofa. I've never read so much in all my life!

I'm building my own collection of Thrifty Mum book tips on Listmania - watch this space for new additions.

I'll end this library love-in with a tip from my good friend Legal Mum. She scours the weekend papers for new book reviews to whet her appetite then, rather than fork out she goes online and requests her library order a copy in for her. Not a bad way to keep up with the latest releases without spending a penny...

And - hot off the press - here's the Guardian's list of 1000 novels everyone must read, which should keep me going for a while.

We've been training hard for this

Mass redundancies, crunching credit and a housing market that's grinding to a halt. Tough times for us all - especially if you're trying to raise a family. The free papers I snatch when I occasionally brave the tube (not for the faint hearted, with Ginger plus pushchair), office and playground chat alike tell me all are tightening their belts.

But although we fear a direct hit, we three - let's call us Ginger, Thrifty Mum and Not-naturally-thrifty Dad - seem to have been in training for this era of shoe-string parenting for three hard years already. Ever since the NNT Dad (then a student) and I (on a modest museum salary) watched a little blue line appear on a pregnancy test back in late 2005.

It wasn't fashionable to be frugal back then but we've acquired all sorts of tricks to keep up appearances, enjoy this extraordinary thing called family life and spoil our son without breaking the bank. Sometimes the desire to splash out on shiny new mini-Boden kit, not to mention a sleep- and luxury-filled spa break has been almost unbearable. But we usually resist and overall we've had a ball.

I thought I'd use this blog to collect some of my money-saving thoughts together and hopefully share ideas with other thrifty parents. I know you're out there, and joining in this conversation won't cost you a penny!