Babies

throughtherain

Hi

My wife and I are hoping to start a family once debt-free. I was just wondering (having no experience of babies!) how much I will realistically have to budget for this.

Does anyone have a rough idea of how much we'd have to spend to get everything we'd need for the baby to start with, and then how much we'd have to spend on it on a monthly basis?

I honestly have no concept of how much having a baby would be and I'd love to know to get it clear in my head whether or not we can actually afford it.

Many thanks - I do realise this is one of those "how long is a piece of sting" questions but any rough ideas would be appreciated!

pigpen

As much or as little as you want. car boots. freecycle, ebay are great for bargains on clothes, toys, pushchairs, cots anything.... or you can Mariah Carey and spend thousands and thousands of quids.

4nnabella

This thread is discussing the same topic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3180522

zippybungle

You actually don't need that much for a baby. The essentials are a place to sleep, nappies, clothes, car seat, pushchair and feeding items (either breast feeding items or bottle feeding items).

Ikea is great for cheap baby items such as cots, bedding etc, supermarkets are good for cheap sleepsuits/vests.

What is expensive is Childcare.

Personally I have avoided places like Mothercare and babies r us, as I think they are expensive.

Zippy x

whitewing

I found that the baby herself was not too bad. It was more the extras that DH bought if he popped to the shops for nappies etc, or the treats. I was very tired so much less on the ball with moneysaving so it was difficult to keep on track of finances. And once the moneysaving started to go out the window it was very easy to let it slide.

mum2twinsx2

pigpen wrote: »

As much or as little as you want. car boots. freecycle, ebay are great for bargains on clothes, toys, pushchairs, cots anything.... or you can Mariah Carey and spend thousands and thousands of quids.

I concur ebay is fab, as well as carboots..
Or beckhams just spent ten k on a nursery furniture apparently :eek:

fannyanna

We're trying for a bambino at the moment so I don't have any actual experience of costs from from what I've reasearched I would say your main considerations need to be drop in salary (whilst on maternity leave) and childcare once back at work.

As others have said everything else is as cheap or as expensive as you make it.

Things like nappies and formula milk (if not breastfeeding) are pretty much covered by child benefit (around £20 per week).

onlyroz

Biggest costs are the drop in salary while on maternity leave, and childcare when mum goes back to work. Everything else is peanuts.

Mme.Hibou

mum2twinsx2 wrote: »

I concur ebay is fab, as well as carboots..
Or beckhams just spent ten k on a nursery furniture apparently :eek:

£10,000 is only small change to them, and isn't that much, well it is on some levels. Ours was £3,500 ...

throughtherain

Thanks for taking the time to reply

You've made me feel more positive about it! I've done a budget and once we are debt-free we will be able to survive (the 2 of us) on my salary alone and so as long as the mat pay and benefit will cover 'baby' expenses I think we'd be ok.

Thanks again!

property.advert

A few hundred to get bits and pieces such as a microwave sterilizer (the best thing we ever bought). Buy decent stuff for bedding. We ummed and arhhed about a cot bed and if you can make the move at the right time then great but you can get stuff for a single bed much cheaper and it will last longer. You can get sides on it as well.

The big costs come from loss of salary, then childcare and then the real biggie, education either private school for the well off or university for the hopeful majority. 5% inflation gives you 2.5 times as a multiple of today's costs in 18 year's time. Today students need around £20,000 per year to get by as a bare minimum and more would be good. Pick an average 4 year course and you have around £100,000 easy. That is the amount you would have to put away today. In 18 years that figure will probably be around £250,000. At 5% return, you'd have to save about £8500 every year to get to that !