Low earners planning for a baby - the maths

Loz01

Don't buy tons and tons of tiny newborn/0-3 months sized clothing, just get some basic babygro's and a few easy to change outfits. People will buy or give you clothes and generally they are newborn or small sizes so you end up with loads and loads and the baby grows out of them! Check Primark and Matalan and cheaper priced places, they do lovely baby clothes/hats/blankets etc!

DrivingMissDaisy

Get rid of the cat

DrivingMissDaisy

Get rid of the cat

heartbreak_star

DrivingMissDaisy wrote: »

Get rid of the cat

Why?

HBS x

Mrs_Soup

DrivingMissDaisy wrote: »

Get rid of the cat

No need to get rid of the cat. One tip I heard was when you get cot.,pram etc put tinfoil in it then if the cat jumps in it hates the feel, sound etc and will never get in again. Ours does like a car seat though but only when it doesn't have another occupant. Sure fire way to keep cat away is to put cat bed or blanket where you don't want the cat to go as no self respecting cat would deign to use an actual cat bed!

earthgirl

I spent £385 in 18 months for everything for 1 child, then I had another and couldn't track it so well. This included food and nappies, and a few maternity items for me.

Didn't get a pram just a buggy - £80 off ebay new.
Asked for cot matress new as a present. Everything else was from free sites. Asked for vouchers for presents and got high chair when I needed it - in hindsight would have just got the ikea £12 one.

sabrina2468

Being a stay at home mum isn't necessarily a great idea especially as you live in a rural area. Have you considered the isolation and loneliness of being at home with the baby? I did 12 years as a stay at home mum but had family and friends close by and lived in a city.

I work for a Family Information Service - you can find the details of your local one at the Family and Childcare Trust website (as I don't post very often I can't put links in) and you can find out how much childcare costs in your area. I find that many parents work for as long as possible whilst pregnant and then take up to a year off as maternity leave and negotiate to go back to work three days a week.

Details on help with childcare costs is available at the Government's Childcare Choices website and I'd like to draw your attention to the Tax Free Childcare scheme which contributes 20% to your childcare costs.

If staying at home looking after a child is the way you want to go, then maybe you could become a childminder - you don't have to look after hoards of children, maybe looking after one in addition to your child would bring in enough supplementary income. Your local authority will be able to tell you more about this.

rawr_

Interesting thread with some good ideas - I'm in the same boat except we earn less than you and I'm the higher earner so will have to go back to work pretty sharpish. I'm currently saving just to get me through a 6 month maternity leave, and then I'm sharing it so the other half will take the rest of the statutory maternity leave when I go back to work full time. After that I haven't worked out what I'm going to do yet ha. Trust me, you are in a really good position!

User6565

You’ve planned really well so I’m sure you’ll be in a position to make it work. When we were planning before a baby, we had a mega spreadsheet of everything we might need to get (ranging from maternity pads to ante natal classes and from
clothes to car seats). We also started saving a ‘baby’ pot before we starting trying so we had money already saved to pay for the upfront things rather than trying to do it out of our normal budget. That really helped spread the cost.

There are lots of things you can save on by getting second hand (other than car seats and mattresses) but don’t underestimate the additional costs of children. I’d say our food bills definitely went up as I wasn’t able to breastfeed so needed formula and my little one eats a lot of fresh fruit and veg which isn’t cheap. Our other main expense has been activities. As a sahm in a rural area, it’ll be important for your sanity to get out and about. You can do cheap playgroups for £1-2 but classes will be more like £6-10.