Appod Shape Production. Welcome back to another episode of am I Bad Mum Podcasts? The question we constantly ask three times a week as we are on the downhill slide to Christmas, school, holidays.
And Christmas, I just brought up I mean it would have changed within seconds, but I did just bring up this countdown and it says forty three days, eleven hours, twenty nine minutes in well now fifty eight seconds.
Not going to mean anything to the people that listen when the episode actually comes out.
Yeah, well, at this point in time whilst we're doing it, that's how far off we are. We're going to be even closer when this goes crazy.
Well, we've only just got past birthday. So on the weekend we had the girl's birthday party. When I say birthday party, it was a dinner. Yeah, it was dinner at a restaurants sweet sixteen though. Yeah, eight kids, and I was paying. Obviously that's the right thing to do. Yeah, white kids to a birthday dinner and you pay apart
from rach. So I booked one table for them, so they were all sat at their table, and then I booked a table for Jay and I across the other side of the restaurant, and I said to the waitress, I want to be in control of what they're ordering, Like I will order for the table go and ask them like what drinks they want, but I will order for the table. Yeah, and please run that past me, because I am not having eight teenagers in charge of what the bill's gonna look like, rach. So they all
chose a mocktail. Yeah, yep, that was my sixteen dollars each for first drink. And then Amelia comes over to me into a mum. The girls are asking if they're gonna order oysters. I went, absolutely not. They are not ordering oyster. Why, I said, look at where we are. We're not buying oysters. Oysters are not going to fill you up. We're ordering bread, we're ordering potatoes, we're ordering chips.
I was like, I also love that they're all probably like what fifteen sixteen, and they're all sitting in there just trying to like run up the bill. Yeah, we'll just get a tray of oysters. What do you want a glass of champagne to go with that?
No?
No, I know.
Also, my daughter is only eleven, and she would have ordered a mocktaul one hundred percent she loves mocktails.
It was one of those kind of bittersweet moments where I saw how much fun they had and what a lovely time, and you know what, their friends are lovely. Yeah, every single one of those girls came over to my table before they left and thanked me for dinner, which is beautiful. However, I am still a little sad about how much it cost me. Am I a bad mum? Or not letting them help?
I fight this battle a lot actually, because we talk about this, like just the topic of not letting them help. And even my brother looked after them for a couple of days. He goes, I get it now, why you don't always let them help? And I was like, yeah, well, give me your take on it. He goes, well's the time. It's time consuming to let them do everything, especially in.
A situation like even when they were small, small and you needed to get ready for school or whatever, and it was like, come put your shoes on, and they're like sat there. It's like they got the shoelaces one loop and you're just like hope, eventually, like I'll just do it. I'll do it.
Doing in the car when we're getting out of the car because we're gonna be there and you're like going, oh my gosh. And I think also the time consumption in the battle, Like sometimes it is time consuming to battle with them about particularly certain things of just doing the thing. So you've got a battle for them to just say, let's use, for instance, brush your teeth. It's like, yeah, it's time consuming, but I really want you to brush your teeth. Well, I'm not clearly doing it for you,
but I want your brush teeth. How many times you have to ask to brush your teeth?
Yeah?
Do you want them to fall out of your head? I'm not paying for them again, just FYI like I'm not. You know, it's that battle and you go.
Oh, just do it myself. Yeah, but your girls are now there are the end of it.
Yes, but it's the same thing. I've still got the same thing in that I might ask them to put their washing away. Yeah, it would be so much easier for me to go in eat room yep and put their washing away than me constantly going you haven't put your washing away yet. I've actually put your wash away. I actually do one thing, put your washing away. I've just walked past here and it's still there. Oh, and now you've moved the washing from there to that chair,
but it's still not put away. Like that's the next thing, like exactly the same thing. It doesn't matter whether they're toddlers or teenagers. It's exactly the same battle. But this particular occasion, normally this is a w weekly thing. And I will put our recycling, take it out to the recycling bink. I put our recycling under the sink, and then each week I'll take it out to the bin.
And then I do the same with our bottles. And so whether it be cans, plastic bottles, you know, Kumbucha, Sodally's, whatever they might be, and wine bottles.
Yep, that's the great reflection piece.
Yeah, they all go into a container in the garage.
Yeah.
And then at some point, and this is not normally a weekly thing. This is maybe every couple of weeks or once a month, I take the boxes of bottles, I put them in the boot of my car, and I take them down to the bottle bank.
Oh yeah, yeah, the containers for change.
Or yeah yeah yeah yeah, which is really good, like you're recycling them so you feel good. You also get ten cents back per bottle. So depending on how big your month has been, you actually get some money off your woolworthsholf at the end of it. This particular occasion, I was taking some bottles out and Amelia said to me, oh, you know, you see Anna, their friend. I said yeah.
She said, oh, her mom lets her help with the bottles and takes them and puts them in the machine and the rest of it, and then she gets to keep the money. I was like, that's nice, Like that's good.
She went, Can we do that? And I thought about it for a second and I was like no, And she went why And I was like, just because no, Just because I've decided no, and I'm an adult and I've got every ride to say no. I don't have to explain myself just because no. In my head, I'm going I cannot bear for you to see how many bottles go in that bottle bank, because you'll go to school and Siena will have two dollars fifty and you'll be there well thirty five dollars.
This particular incentive did not work within the third Ay household.
You're just gattering the recycling bin at home recycling bin.
And the reason behind this was exactly for that reason, I'm going, well, there's not one that's super close by to us where we live.
See ours is really convenience.
Yeah, see, I would probably be more inclined. But the other thing was it was an incentive for the kids of like here, it makes money. It just took so long to do, and then it would just bang up. See you were saying, like you can handle like three weeks, four weeks. I have like that tendency where I'm like, no, I don't want to see them. I have to go to bin every two days. I don't want to see them.
Yep.
And then six weeks later you're still.
Banging on about the same thing about taking these you know things, because it was like Dad said we could do this. Okay, good, so Dad wants to do it, then like I'm not taking that responsibility on it. And I remember getting to the end of it, and they'd also like taken on one of the little businesses. The lovely lady was like, you can come and take all of my bottles, and you can have my bottles, and there bit more money for you.
And then I would absolutely if I was taking the money, I would be okay, no worries.
It's on my back, but I was like, no, this is your thing, you need to do it.
I actually quite like it, Grace, because you know what I'm like with I love to save a bit of money here. That don't get me wrong, Like I'll spend on the things I want to spend on. But I also love I love it when I get like some sort of bargain or.
But what are you getting for getting?
Like literally it spits out cash back at you or is it like, yeah, you get let me explain to you.
Yeah, it's like I think this is a great incentive.
I also grew up in South Australia, where it was it's been a thing from the moment I was born. So this is just new obviously to Queensland. Yeah is that right? Well yeah, South Australia has always had it, and it was it was a big thing. My dad was also a pretty big drinker, so he was always cashing in those checks because there was so many cans.
Well, because it feels you're getting something for nothing pretty much if you're drinking that drink. Any anyway, I know, I find it quite fun. I find it quite therapeutic, like standing there and put it in the machine and it takes you the old one it spits out. Doesn't like that one, but yeah, no, it's pretty fun.
So it just counts it and then.
And then at the end, once you finished, you just press receipt yeap and it prints out like a little piece of paper with a barcode. And then you go into woolies and you just scan the barcode at the end and it takes that money off your shopping.
Ah. Well, it's a great little incentive.
Yeah, so you might go and get your dinner for the evening and go cool, Now I've got like seven dollars off?
Is my seven barcodes? Did?
Yeah? No, if you've put them all in it one time, it only gives you one receipt, so it counts them all ust.
Yeah, but you can't save up all your receipts, like okay, just save for instance, like I don't shop very often, so I would have been to like the containers for change that week and then the next.
Week and then the next week. Could I take all three barcodes with me to the wooly shops?
Yeah?
Yeah, okay, well.
What would even be funnier? Can you do this? Actually? At some point is save them up save them up, save them up. So you've got like twenty seven of these, and then I'll want to watch you at the self served check out at the end going beep and that's thirty cents off, beep another dollar fifty because I am that person, because I'm like, no, I'm using these. Yeah, yeah, I am absolutely using these.
That was me in my head picturing you.
Standing out the self checkout with like twenty seven barcodes and like each of them is like three dollars, five dollars.
Like for me, I'm like, bro, I chapped out the guy.
At Wlworth recently. He even said to me. He came up to me, you can't use those here? Oh I can? He said, now you can't. You're on a card only machine. I went, look, they're working absolutely. Look it's taking money off my show.
He's here.
Yeah, but it counts that as cash. It's counting that as a cash. You need to be on one of the checkelts. I went, no, mate, don't try and interrupt me. I know how this works. Look watch me. And he kept that you need to move to a different one. I want no, I don't need to move to a different one. It's working. What he was worried about is if I was going to put too many in and it was going to more than pay for the shopping. Oh, and then I can't give you cash? Yes, And I
was like, I'm not going to have that problem. I know how much I've got and I know how much I've spent. He stood there over me, all high mighty, like really not happy with what was happening here. I was just ignoring him. And then at the end of it, I went, oh, well, there we go. Seems to have worked out okay, doesn't it.
He's like, Okay, calm down, do you want a job here? Hey? Can we just like before we quickly wrap up?
I know we speak about this a lot, and we've been talking about Woolies, but Aldi, I attempted going back there again yesterday and I love like I love talking about it, and so I pulled it into Audi and I was like, oh, look at me go. I took my own bag in because like, I'm so excited, like I'm not an idiot.
I now know what I'm doing.
I know that they've got like these free range split chicken, you know, like so easy to cook, like you know, an hour and the oven kind of thing anyway, went through and got those. At one stage, I was like, Rachel, you've got chicken in your bag and you have been standing looking at this It looked like a junk path through the middle. How can you have chicken right next to like lawn mowers. It just some it doesn't make
sense to me. But then it was sort of almost like blows my own mind because then I get distracted by the special buys, the special byes through the middle, forgetting that I've now got chicken in my bag, to the point that I was almost going to turn around and go and change the chickens over because I've been in my bag too long. Honestly, that place blows me. You get anything wrong, No, no, no, no, I just like to look.
Yeah, because you get caught up there and next thing you know, you've bought a bath matt and you play some ski gear.
I just genuinely always have a bit of a giggle to myself because I'm liked, Katie loves this place. And then I just keep walking pace. No, but you're good at it, I'm not good at it. And then I got to the self checkout right picked up two lemons.
Thought I was so good and grab that.
And now I'm in my self service checkout so they can't slam my things down here.
And I'm so glad they've introduced those.
Yeah. But I also then realized that I had like a fair hit of meat, and this poor guy's almost like standing on my shoulder, like, bro, I'm not going to steal anything.
Calm down.
So I turned to him and I was like, oh, this lemon is rotten.
I'm gonna give it back to you. I don't want it. It was like I felt so entitled because he was just standing there. I was like, here's your rotten lemon.
You needed to prove to him that you weren't about to steal shit. And actually, you're somebody that really cares about the quality of their lemons. Therefore, you are never going to be stealing stuff in Audi. You're either the person that's stealing shit in Audi or you're the person that's very careful about which lemon they're choosing.
You can't be Then I turned to him, and then do you know what he did?
He was so kind and he goes, can I go and get you another one? I was like, oh, and it shocked me how kind he was, and I was.
Like, because you're the one that was stereotyping. He's stereotyping you thinking you're a Audi definitely going to be stealing it.
Shit, you've got a bag full of me like.
Stereo typed him. He's working with Audi. He's not going to be helpful. He's not going to help me.
But then I thought about it. I went, oh, yes, please, Yeah, that would be great. I'd love another lemon.
And then he walks off, and then my head I go to the point of like, oh does he think now I'm distracting him?
What steal shit? Oh?
Okaie. I needed to get out of the quick smile.
I was like thanks for the lemon, okay, yeah, and then paid for it all. I was like, see, I have a good day and just got out of there. It was just one of the most messed up situations.
But then I got home. My brother was like, oh, this is really nice chicken, like yuh, And.
I was like, I stole it from Autie, stole it from Audi.
You'd be impressed.