Realistically, how much do you spend per month on a new baby?

Aimless

If you scope out local charity shops, you hopefully will find one with reasonable prices for small baby stuff. My favourite sells at 4 for a pound, while another wants 4 quid an item! Car boots are also good for baby clothes. It is probably the area I've spent least on, and I have some really nice bits.

On Ebay there are some reusable nappies not from well known brands, at a fraction of the price (branded stuff maybe £15 each, Ebay cheapies £3-4ish). Makes a big difference to the start up cost. I've not bought any yet, but I will do when I have some spare cash!

The only things I insisted on new were a car seat and crib mattress, for safety reasons. I've got a new pram, but it was a gift.

I can see my main 'running cost' so to speak being the heating bill, as we generally just put up with the cold, but a tiny baby can't!

neverdespairgirl

Set-up cpsts can be a fortune or not much, as you choose.

My mother had kept quite a lot of baby clothes, a baby bath, a door jumper thing, and a bouncy chair. She also still had a cot, Moses basket, sheets etc for it, and a changing bag she's made herself.

We bought a pushchair, car seat, swinger thing wich played music and shone lights, play mat, changing mat, sling, new mattresses for the basket and cot, sleeping bags and blankets (the bags are great) steraliser, bottles, breast pump, other smaller bits and bobs which escape me now. When he got to about 6 months, some plastic cups, spoons and bowls. I think we spent about £450 (but it wasn't all in one go).

Running costs were very low indeed - nothing on milk, and we used a local cloth nappy service, whereby you pay £6.50 a week, and they provide you with a bin, nappies, collect them twice a week, wash them, bring them back. Allowing for extra washing powder and utilities, I reckon it was about £10 a week until he was 6 months old or so, and not much more once he started eating (babies don't eat much).

The real costs were loss of income, and then childcare costs once I went back to work.

Bufger

Initial investment was 300-600 GBP (Cot, buggy, car seat, lots of nappies, monitor and all the equip)
Had a further 100-300 in gifts and clothes from family
Day to day running costs are actually very low. We got bulk loads of nappies when ASDA have offers, same for baby wipes. Clothes are still mostly bought by both grandmothers! if breastfeeding then its obv nothing, if formula its £7ish per every 1.5 weeks.

You may see a difference in heating etc as you wont be able to just chuck jumpers on and brave through winter, you'll have to keep the babies room at the right temperature. We also spent a fair bit of money doing up the house up and babyproofing it.

MrsManda

Thanks for this thread I'm 12 weeks pregnant today and have been trying to find out not just how much the baby's likely to cost on a day to day basis in the first 6-12 months but also what the initial outlay is likely to be. I guess like most parents to be I've been given so much information it's hard to sift through it all and some of the estimates of how much the 'start up costs' are really scary - I've seen £2000 quoted!

The £600 quoted by Bufger sounds much more reasonable. We don't want to go mad buying stuff considering how quick babies grow but can anyone list the items they couldn't have done without/wished they'd never bought?

Got my 12 week scan on Monday and it's almost equally exciting and terrifying

Student_Mrs

RichGold wrote: »

I like how you ask what the cost of a new baby is.

Its almost as if the underlying question is "Could I reduce the cost by getting a second hand baby?"

RichGold, I'm not that funny unfortunately but this response made me :rotfl:

Congratulations MrsManda! Fingers x'ed we'll get to that stage at some point.

skintchick, i think i'm meaning the day to day as we are budgeting for the 'start up' costs or the business like "initial investment" that Bufger says. Who knows what I was expecting but this thread has made it all seem very reasonable which is excellent! I just find it hard to virtually budget in my mind for the unknown, especially as I know that it could be soo far away!

Thanks again everyone, you are all so :money: and :cool:.

dataprotector

Male input here - Costs a fortune (i blame the wife) but worth every penny. Our little one is 4 months..... Did the usual cot, pram, car seat, changing table, changing mat, etc however we went mad when our boy was born, like mentioned here we just keep spending and thankfully are managing to get by.... clothes...dont be fooled by all the labels of newborn, 0-3 months etc, we were buying clothes from asda mothercare etc etc and he was growing out of them in a matter of a few weeks. The list of what we found we needed is endless
Baby rocker
Moses basket, then given a crib by a friend, new matresses and sheets for both
We found we needed lots of sheets and clothes in the early days as he was a wee boy lol
Nappies, baby wipes, changing bag/mat
Toys
Nappy rash barrier cream
bin for his room for disposing of nappies
as wife was feeding him we needed new clothes for wife for easy feeding, also cream for early days and cabbage leafs, not to forget breast pads.....
bought a few wee dummies for him at night.
Baby bathing equipment, we got a changing table combo but the bath lasted him about 6 weeks before he was too big for it and had to buy a plastic thing that goes in the bath.
also found he slept better in the baby sleeping bags so had to get a few of them
we have now moving onto botlles so had to buy all that stuff although a friend gave us a botlle warmer and steriliser.
I think the one thing we bought that he loves and was the best thing was a cot mobile which he loves.....

Day to day - buy bulk nappies(big box from asda of huggies lasts us about 1-2 weeks @ £9) and wipes(pack of 4 for about £4 lasts 3-4 weeks) as you will use them, also about £10 per week. Nappy cream, we use camillosan, about £4 a week..... take advantage of the supermarket offers! You may also needs bath oilatum for dry skin, johnstons baby top to toe, basically all the usual wee bits and pieces you would buy for yourself but will need for baby, its hard to put a cost on these things and how long they last....


The wife goes to baby sensory/massage etc so that also costs but try to find pay as you go ones as we found she wasnt going every week despite booking a block session... usually about £6 per session.

I know we could have done it all a lot cheaper and we were lucky enough to get a lot of gift vouchers from friends family etc but things now seem to be slowing down with regards to the spending. Would i change anything.... no way....

Lastly i would say we are by no means rich and could easily have got by on less equipment but found that we were spending far less money on everything else.....
my advice, get debts cleared if you can before baby arrives as you will spend a fortune on tea bags for visitors and yourself!

skintchick

Ah, yes, I forgot all the things I used to take her to!

We used to go to a music group but it was free under 3 months and then £3 a week. We still go to it now, she loves it.

At 3 months we started proper baby swimming classes which are about £60 a term, we still do those as it's a valuable life skill.

At 6 months we started baby signing, not sure of the cost but it's not especially cheap.

She also now does toddler yoga and is going to start dance classes in the New Year, but of course you don;t have to go to these things.

I would definitely recommend finding a small music group locally, as they love that, and I think swimming and signing are definite must-dos as well, for the skills they teach. So you might need to budget for those things as well.

jenefer

we should save for next generation so always be ready to covering all aspects so we get our goals in life so never forget growth in any situation then we will be maintain a standard so be aware all aspects in life.

dawn_rose

my last baby cost me virually nothing until starting to wean at 6 months and then not that much. I already had all baby equipment from the other children, including washable nappies and breastfed. My passed over tons of clothes coz her lil one is a year older than mine. It was a very cheap year. lol

jimbo_the_jetset

NCT Nearly New Sales - literally you can get everything you need to if you are on a budget. Local paper usually has some good deals. Other than that share with friends/family is the cheapest way.