Baby Fund Challenge

PrincessLou

mustnotspend wrote: »

Hi please may I join.

I found out a couple of days ago that I'm pregnant with No 2. About 5 weeks.

I'm currently trying to sort out the debt incurred (in part) while off work for about 18 months with no. 1!!! This pregnancy has arrived rather sooner than expected (tho I'm delighted!)

So I need to sort out debt AND save a pot of money to cover my maternity leave AND do up a nursery (moved house since DD1) Haven't figured how much yet but will post back.

PS. DON'T spend 1000s on a pushchair! Myself and everyone I know who had babies round the same time swapped to cheap and cheerful MacLarens as soon as babies were old enough. Light, compact and gets you around everywhere. Best £200 that I've spent on baby stuff

Hi Mustnotspend!

Glad to have another member on board! My pregnancy was a surprise as well, about 6 months earlier than we had really planned for! However, we're also very happy - i honestly believe that everything happens for a reason

Let me know what figure you are aiming for and i will add you to the list :j

By the way, will your work be covering you for maternity leave or will you be covering it yourself? I'm self employed so don't get maternity leave, so i will have to put some money aside so i can at least have a few months off.

PrincessLou

jimjames wrote: »

Something else to consider - if all the other things are not enough! - is long term savings for the baby. It might seem hard but in our experience putting £30-£50 per month aside has really paid off and is building a nice pot for them to have money either for uni, car/insurance or house deposit at some point. We used investment trust savings schemes which have grown a lot more than just putting it in the bank and are very flexible for starting/stopping payments or changing amounts.

Thanks, yes that is a great idea. I had been thinking of doing this but wasn't sure which type of account to use. Where can i find information on investment trust savings schemes?

SliAbhaile

Congratulations. :j

Please don't spend £1,000s on over-priced pointless 'travel system' buggies. They are enormous, won't fit in your car's boot nor on a bus.

Our Buggaboo Bee was perfect. Works from birth to whenever and packs almost as small as a stroller type. When it was stolen (don't ask) our daughter was two and we replaced it with a £15 stroller from Argos which was perfectly fine for the job.

Peonie

SliAbhaile wrote: »

Congratulations. :j

Please don't spend £1,000s on over-priced pointless 'travel system' buggies. They are enormous, won't fit in your car's boot nor on a bus.

Our Buggaboo Bee was perfect. Works from birth to whenever and packs almost as small as a stroller type. When it was stolen (don't ask) our daughter was two and we replaced it with a £15 stroller from Argos which was perfectly fine for the job.

It was the Bugaboo chameleon that I was looking at. 'Which' has a good guide to different prams/strollers.

I also looked at cot beds but my sister said not to bother. They look cute but you spend more money than you need to. She recommended buying a cot and then a normal sized bed and a bed rail.

PrincessLou

Thanks so much for all the advice everyone. It's so helpful to know what to spend money on and what i can save on.

My husband was talking to his best friend who has a five year old son and he told him that the most expensive thing is all the clothes. I can imagine this would be the case since they effectively need a whole new wardrobe every three months for the first year. So my question is how many items of each type would you recommend buying in each size? e.g. how many vests, how many sleepsuits, how many outfits, etc?

SliAbhaile

Peonie wrote: »

It was the Bugaboo chameleon that I was looking at. 'Which' has a good guide to different prams/strollers.

I also looked at cot beds but my sister said not to bother. They look cute but you spend more money than you need to. She recommended buying a cot and then a normal sized bed and a bed rail.

You'll have to do your research. Visit the shops and play with the different models. We found the Chameleon too big and expensive for us. The Bee was much cheaper and folds smaller.

See if you can borrow the first car seat, you will only need the first group (rear-facing one) for a short while and buying is expensive. Don't be lulled into paying top dollar for everything by the marketing, we bought a perfectly good Group 1 car seat in a French supermarket for EUR €30 - it was cheaper than renting one from the rental company for a week. Later we saw one on special offer for EUR €10. These all had EU approval.

Each child is different. Friends loaned us a Moses basket but our newborn hated it; screamed and screamed. Until we bought her a proper cot she slept in a Muji clear plastic box. We think it reminded her of the plastic cots they used in the maternity ward. We were glad we hadn't forked out for a Moses basket.

Don't be fooled by the concerted marketing push. Even the hospital will hand you advertisements for baby products. They know you are at your most vulnerable when you have a precious new life to look after and will open your wallet for any old tat. For example, you do NOT need a £100 'changing bag'. You can put a couple of nappies and a bag of wipes in any handbag, rucksack, shoulder bag you already own. When ours was a baby I simply carried a spare nappy in my jacket pocket.

SliAbhaile

PrincessLou wrote: »

My husband was talking to his best friend who has a five year old son and he told him that the most expensive thing is all the clothes. I can imagine this would be the case since they effectively need a whole new wardrobe every three months for the first year. So my question is how many items of each type would you recommend buying in each size? e.g. how many vests, how many sleepsuits, how many outfits, etc?

This is probably right. My other half is forever online buying clothes for our four-year-old so I hate to think what our clothing bill is.

You will get loads of presents, often more than you can possibly put on the baby, even with several changes a day, so I would recommend you ask some of your friends to buy six-months, nine-months or one-year-old clothes as presents. Otherwise you'll have hundreds of newborn stuff you'll never use.

One word of advice for your partners. Show them the clothes you have bought for the delivery. The nurses took a sadistic pleasure, and I could tell it wasn't the first time they had done so, when our daughter had just been delivered and measured they turned to me and said "okay daddy, you may dress your new baby". I hadn't a clue. Everything was still in its impregnable wrapping, and even when I managed to unwrap it I hadn't a clue what was what and how you dress a baby. It gave them a good giggle.

mustnotspend

SliAbhaile wrote: »

"okay daddy, you may dress your new baby". I hadn't a clue. Everything was still in its impregnable wrapping, and even when I managed to unwrap it I hadn't a clue what was what and how you dress a baby. It gave them a good giggle.

Made me giggle. Yes very true. And also explain to them what's a vest, bodysuit, or onesie. And where in the maternity bag you're gonna packet them! But this is way ahead!

For vests and onesies - it really depends on things like how often you're gonna wash, whether you're gonna dry in a dryer or on the line, whether you're gonna mix whites/non-whites, etc!

I'd suggest you buy 80% of your stuff in plain white so you can just bung them in the same wash. Asda, primary, tesco all have cheap and reasonable good quality stuff. TU are a bit more expensive but a bit nicer. You need to assume you will go through at least 3 complete changes per day in the early days...

mustnotspend

PrincessLou wrote: »

By the way, will your work be covering you for maternity leave or will you be covering it yourself? I'm self employed so don't get maternity leave, so i will have to put some money aside so i can at least have a few months off.

Thanks. I should qualify for SMP so that suite good. Was self employed for Dd1 for qualified for Maternity Alowance of about 500 per month for 10 monts or so (not taxable). Have you checked if you qualify? Google HMRC and MA and you should get the info

mustnotspend

Right. I have crunched the numbers and the answer is



£15,300:eek::eek::eek:

Erm, that's a stretch target of course. It's made up 3 bits

- £4,800, I have a flat which I rent out. This is the difference between the mortgage (repayment basis) and the income from that flat

- £6,750, a fund for part time nursery for DD1. She loves going so I'd like to keep it up but of course this will be one of the things we slash if we don't get there

- £3,750, my monthly expenses incl my contribution to bills and buying baby stuff (we won't need much apart from some clothes)

I've assumed 15 months off, which again might need to change.

And I should get SMP to contribute to some of this...