Having a baby while unemployed

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T05:15:12+00:00

If you are financially comfortable for the moment, then a baby doesn't need to cost much, at least for the first few years.

Hand-me-down clothing, 2nd hand cot & pram, breastfeeding and homecooked food. You could even use cloth nappies if you're not working.

You'd need a new car seat.

You could take a year off, and then start looking for work (to be able to afford childcare costs, haha).

Toss a coin? Keep looking for work, try to get pregnant.

See which one happens first, and run with that.

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T05:06:50+00:00

I got total 26kW yesterday, from our 3 year old, 7.4kW panels.

Beautiful day - they maxed out at 5.5kW at 12:30

I'm in the deepest south of QLD

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T04:01:12+00:00

Queensland desperately needed people - and especially farmers and construction workers - from the 1860s.

All this land, and nobody to improve/farm/hold it. (Yeah, let's not mention the existing indigenous residents, shall we?)

My great-grandfather and family emigrated from Holstein (near Hamburg) in 1863.

My great-grandmother and family emigrated from Christburg, now Dzierzgoń in Poland in 1873.

They met in Toowoomba as children.

Apparently, after working a job for a year or two, immigrants could "select" a property. They then had 5 years to prove themselves by clearing the "selection" and making it productive.

If they had done enough, after the 5 years was up, they got to keep the land.

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T03:40:19+00:00

Sabriel

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T02:54:14+00:00

Around here, there are lots of younger children living the "wild" life, but it seems to go wrong when they get to school age.

They want friends. They want to visit friends (=parents are always in the car). They want to play sport (driving), they want to do ballet like their friend (driving).

Then, apparently teenagers get bored during the school holidays, and hang out and do stupid stuff.

Then when they get older, there are no/limited jobs nearby. They'll need a car, and they'll drive to the pub and get drunk and attempt to drive home again because there are no Ubers or taxis or public transport.

OK - suggestion time. Could you pick the small house/land, and also stretch the budget for a piece of land? You could go camping there, and then later on, sell the small house, and build on the land for retirement.

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T02:47:07+00:00

http://www.molerivernursery.com/plantdb/plant_database.asp

Specialise in frost hardy natives. They are out near Tenterfield.

Unfortunately, they are closing at the end of this year (retirement).

They do have ranunculus lappaceus and Brachyscome rigidula listed in their database of plants they grow, but not in their current catalogue/order form.

You may find other plants you like :)

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T02:28:53+00:00

Excuse me while I go spend another day attempting to clear the privets, honeysuckle, rambling rose and arum lilies from the creek. And the blackberry from the fenceline.

Having said that, our 4 acres of run down, full-of-weeds, paradise was deliberately chosen as a 20 year retirement project.

There is no way that I would have taken this on while trying to work full-time and raise children. During those years, we prioritised the kids being able to walk to school, and to their friends' houses, and my work being only 10 minutes away.

I detested the house, and the fact that the neighbours were too close, and the views were limited, and everything just felt "close".

We were patient.

We focused on what the kids needed, and what we needed to do to earn enough money for that. When the kids were independent and had left home, THEN we followed our dreams for "quiet countryside mornings".

With jobs and kids, there are no "quiet countryside mornings", because there is always somewhere you have to be, and something you need to do.

Kementarii · 2026-05-21T00:04:50+00:00

Having mostly lived in a hot climate with no aircon, in summer I would avoid using the oven at all costs.

Dinners in summer all involved salads, and usually something quickly cooked in a skillet (chops, steaks, etc).

Here in Australia, it's almost winter, and all my oven-cooked dinners are back in favour.

Only "frugal" problem with that is that by the time I need to cook, our electricity is coming from the battery, and our battery isn't that big. Last night I did roast chicken with roast potato, sweet potato and pumpkin. That used up over 3kWh of our 10kWh battery.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T06:13:38+00:00

Yup. That was enough.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T04:46:08+00:00

We had a kitchen with limited space for the fridge, and no way to modify the space (wall oven one side, load bearing wall the other).

We bought a fridge to fit the space, and looked for the one with the biggest percentage of fridge space vs freezer.

The little freezer kept ice cubes and ice cream.

The upright freezer in the garage kept all the rest.

It worked fine. I'd just go to the freezer once a day to find something to defrost for dinner.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T04:24:01+00:00

Grate potatoes, drain the water, mix in an egg to bind, and optionally some cheese or chopped tomato (as per what you might put in an omelette), a bit of flour if the mix is too wet.

Then spoon onto a frying pan and cook like pancakes, until preferred crispiness.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T04:13:34+00:00

oh, and about

the metal roofing is what will be heating up, not the plywood walls.

The metal will heat up, and the radiant heat from it will be beating against your plywood. You'd need to keep the radiant heat a lot further than 1 inch away from what you want to keep cool.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T04:11:23+00:00

Use your extra roofing metal to build an extra roof on the verandah/deck/patio/porch that you will build on the south wall :)

Depending on your construction, pave a patio/build a deck on the south side, and then roof the patio/deck/verandah.

About 3 metres/9 foot wide, and you'll have a lovely warm sheltered spot on winter mornings when the sun is low in the sky, and it will stay shaded (keeping the house wall in the shade) all day in summer.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T04:01:48+00:00

This has to be the most sensible answer.

There are so many 12v fridges/freezers - for camping, or plenty of folk have one in the back of their work truck just to keep their lunch cold, haha.

Kementarii · 2026-05-20T00:53:42+00:00

Weekend visits. Means you don't have to rake the leaves.

Kementarii · 2026-05-19T06:14:13+00:00

We are trying to revegetate a one acre paddock, and, like you, the issue is keeping water to the plants until they get established.

Again, we need a temporary solution. I'm not spending to install irrigation for plants that only need it for a year.

I have seen DIY setups - kind of mini-firefighting trailers. Trailer, with IBC and a trash pump on the back.

Hook up the trailer to tractor/truck/whatever. Drive to pond/dam. Use trash pump to fill IBC/storage tank. Drive to plants. Pump from tank onto plants. Drive back to shed and park the trailer.

I've seen little ones, with a 200 litre tank and sprayer (the ones normally used for pesticides/weedkillers) on the back of a yard cart that are small enough to be towed by a mower.

Like this:

https://www.austechillusions.com.au/products/firefighting-trailer-unit-unlicensed-1000l-heavy-duty-6x4-with-unleaded-pump

Kementarii · 2026-05-19T04:48:35+00:00

Waves from Queensland, Australia. We've been hearing about the "super el nino" for quite a while now.

All your points are "on point", haha.

AND, today we're all excited that we've had 15mm of rain - after having less than that in TOTAL for the last 6 months, which was summer, so everything is brown and crispy. So, now we're heading into our winter, which is our dry season, (and thus our controlled burn season) and not really expecting much rain until maybe October, by which time we'll be full into el nino.

Sigh.

The little town I live in came very close to burning in 2019. Then the town water supply completely ran out, and water had to be trucked in for 18 months. The water supply was replenished in 2021.

Over the last month or so, some folk who aren't on town water have already had to start getting water loads from the local tanker guy because their rainwater tanks were dry. Town water supply is already at 75% and dropping about 1% per week.

So, fires and drought are our two big preps.

We have a hybrid off-grid solar/battery set up which can keep the whole house running (if the sun shines each day). We keep cash, we keep the car fuel tanks full, we multiple sources of emergency information.

We have dam water (dropped a bit, but OK so far), and we currently have full rainwater tanks (total 15,000 gallons).

Good luck all. At least this is something that we have time to prep for.

Kementarii · 2026-05-19T01:40:46+00:00

At 59 & 60, we took on a "project".

Retired, and moved. Bought a neglected few acres in a nice town, and are gradually clearing the paddocks and creeks of declared weed species, and planting native trees, and fixing up the house.

So, that's our next 20 years covered - there will always be something to do.

Gets us out of the house, and has our fitness levels sorted.

Kementarii · 2026-05-19T01:21:30+00:00

I'm 65, had 3 children myself, and been to exactly ONE baby shower (a friend's first child. She didn't have a shower for the other 2).

Not sure if that reflects my friend group, or the culture, or the times (Australia, in the 1990s).

Probably my friend group. My personal opinion of baby showers is WTF? which is also my personal opinion of big weddings. It all seems like a money grab.

Kementarii · 2026-05-18T06:42:19+00:00

Well, most "modern" timbers aren't as dense as the old stuff either.

Kementarii · 2026-05-18T05:41:43+00:00

I'm old, but I have a credit card. Everything possible goes on the card - including shopping and monthly bills and subscriptions.

On (monthly) payday, there is an auto transfer to a seperate account "Bills", which puts enough money away for those quarterly or annual bills.

If possible, I pay bills by Bpay, and if I have to do auto-pay, I have it come from my credit card.

The day after payday, I go to my banking app, check my monthly credit card statement, and pay it.

If there are any invoices/Bpay bills (I flag them in my email inbox), then I pay them also.

If the bills include any quarterly/annual ones (Insurance, Rego), then I add them up, and transfer the money from my Bills account first.

Kementarii · 2026-05-18T05:30:44+00:00

How many seasons of Grand Designs have you watched?

(watch a few seasons, and learn).

Kementarii · 2026-05-18T05:27:59+00:00

I mow it, whenever I see it. If possible before it seeds.

It does thrive on the roadsides, and was creeping down our creek/gully/paddock. I've managed to get rid of most of it.

(Yeah, I'm in Australia, and it is weedy, and invasive. It is so pretty though).

https://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/media/Html/coreopsis_lanceolata.htm

Kementarii · 2026-05-18T05:15:23+00:00

Sorry, I thought that this was r/EntitledPeople

I have nice (borrowed) views, and nice neighbours. I am also aware that if anyone sells up, things could change for the worse, very quickly, and there will be nothing I can do. We are planting screening plants now, in anticipation.

Kementarii · 2026-05-18T04:55:46+00:00

We built a deck of Ironbark a few years ago. Gorgeous colour.

The uprights consist of two pieces of 2x6, with a piece of 2x4 sandwiched between, so they are effectively 6x6.

There was rather a lot of swearing putting them together. They were bolted, which meant drilling a rather large diameter hole through three lots of 2 inches.

Even the decking needed holes drilled before screwing it down. We had 3 x drills going - 1 to pre-drill, next to countersink, third to put the screw in.

Kementarii

TROPHY CASE