Advice on how much a baby costs please

[snailien]

Right we're trying to plan ahead and work out a budget for when I'm on maternity leave.

We have the rent and bills covered but how much money will I spend? What is there to spend on other than food? What will it need? Obviously nappies... What else?

Thanks!

 

[MrsRH]

Hi there!

When your baby is here they don't need much per week.
I use my child benefit £20 per week on nappies, wipes and formula and other bits and bobs. That seems to cover it.
There will be quite a lot to buy initially, pram, cot, moses basket, steriliser, bottles, clothes etc, etc

But you could get them from the fab NCT nearly new sales or other second hand places, ads in the paper etc.

You can make it as expensive or as reasonable as you wish.

Don't be too proud and accept second hand stuff... they grow out of stuff so quickly.

Also you won't go out much so you will save in other ways. I don't buy clothes or make up or magazines for myself as I have no time to go out and don't want to get new stuff till I lose weight.

We are on a budget too as I only get MA so it can be done.


Have you done a total budget of EVERYTHING you spend and see what you wont be doing when ababy comes along??


Good luck hun!!
xxx

xxx

 

[// arcadia]

Once you've bought all the initial stuff (pram, cot etc) per week babies seem to be quite inexpensive, all you need to buy is nappies milk and formula. which i find the child benefit of £20 a week covers.

Obv you have to factor in clothes in the next size up, weaning things spoons food etc .. but generally per week its just those three things.

 

[snailien]

Thanks for your answers. We looking at buying the nursery stuff this weekend in mamas and papas as they have 20% off. You can put a deposit down and pay before delivery.

My mum is buying the buggie and my partners mum is buying the car seat.

I'll be breast feeding hopefully and we're going to use reusable nappies.

My maternity pay is actuallt not that bad:
8 weeks x full pay
16 weeks x half pay PLUS SMP
15 weeks x SMP
13 weeks unpaid leave

Maybe I'm worrying about nothing but all of my money will go into the joint and go towards bills etc and then I'll get an allowance of my other half... trying to work out how much he'll need to give me.

 

[aimee-lou]

I agree with the other girls.

CB does cover the general stuff very well and as I get mine 4 weekly I buy enough to last those 4 weeks and buy everything else he might need at the same time.

5 tins of formula = 5 x 7.50 = £37.50 (only really need 4 but always good to have extras and once I have a cupbard full of extras I can afford to spend this money on something else that month)
2/3 Packs of nappies (always on offer somewhere) = £20
Wipes, Sudocrem, nappy bags, toiletries = £10
Clothes, bibs, cloths, anything else = £10
TOTAL = £77.50

You will need to factor in costs as the get older - more clothes, proper shoes, car seat, highchair, toys, etc etc but I have put these into things like Christmas for the first year as Earl wont know that he got a highchair for Christmas! lol Also, when weaning they will need special food (baby rice, pasta etc) but this can be factored into your own shopping eventually.

Babies are only as expensive as you make them. Supermarket own is fine for most things and are half the price! Always say yes if people offer to buy (parents etc will love going to buy nappies if asked!!) and accept any donations. Ebay is a godsend!! and charity shops are good too! Pus it's a challenge working to a budget...or am I just a bit weird!!?

 

[MrsRH]

mothercare also has a big sale on at the mo and there's always post xmas sales.
It's good to think about finances but I think you'll be ok.
xxx

 

[RainbowMum]

I think my partner is totally scared of the cost and keeps saying we should wait as we can't afford a baby yet.
I do want to save some money before we start trying but then I'm definitely happy to have everything second hand!

 

[Tegans Mama]

It is expensive but it doesn't HAVE to be expensive as people make out. We spend about £50 a week on our one year old - thats including any clothes and toys we decide to buy her (I.e luxuries) - but it was closer to £70 when she was very small, and bear in mind she is disabled, so she 'costs' more.

 

[Vici]

The only thing we buy for Imi is formula (had i have had my way i'd be BF but that didn't work out.) We spend 0 on nappies (we had an initial outlay for reuseables but £190 HIP grant covered more than enough!!) and very little on clothes (I got nearly her whole 3-6 month wardrobe off ebay for £20 (most BNWT!!). Doesn't have to cost alot

 

[OmiOmen]

I may not be the best person to answer this since I am pregnant and don't have a baby here yet but like you I intend to breast feed and use reusable nappies and wipes. So I don't think we will have much weekly cost's for the first 6 months and at the weening stage we plan on making baby food rather than buying jars.

We bought all the nursery things except small bits like cot bedding and such yesterday at Ikea which cost just under £500 which included a single bed and mattress for me to use for the first 6 months and decoration things as well as the normal nursery furniture. I should add that we are lucky because my Mum paid for the cot and we got £180 in Ikea vouchers for Christmas and enough in Argos vouchers to buy a mosses basket and stand. Plus, my farther in-law is buying us a travel system, my grandma in-law is buying a tummy tub and my Dad is giving us a baby monitor. We decided to buy clothes from e-bay in bulk since babies grow so fast and if you have a big baby (like my husband was) then all the newborn clothes will go unused anyway and we already have more newborn and 0-3 month clothes than we can actually use which cost us £90 and are all really nice brands like Disney. So all we really need now is a cheap breast pump and sterilizer ("just in case"), a baby sling, a few toys and re-usable nappies which we will get with the HIP grant.

Good luck.

 

[OmiOmen]

Also, if you are using re-usable nappies check to see if your council gives you money back with receipts. Our council will give you £25 back when you have receipts for £50 or more for re-usable nappies!

 

[kit603]

Bearing in mind that I don't have any children yet... My OH and I tried to make a spreadsheet of estimated baby costs so that we could budget. We spoke to my parents, his parents and friends with kids and we found it really hard to actually do the spreadsheet because things could vary wildly. In the end we found that we could cover everything for about £90 a month and that included things you'd definitely need every month like nappies, formula, wipes etc and some things that might even last longer than a month like new bottle teats, bubble bath/shampoo, nappy balm/cream, talcum powder etc. Also... we used the prices of branded items like huggies/pampers nappies and wipes, johnson's baby shampoo etc instead of supermarket own products. So, the price could be cut drastically if necessary.

Good luck x

 

[Vici]

£110 a month? Wow, thats an expensive baby

 

[Louisandcoco]

The only main costs are (for us) formula (4x 7.90 per month) and nappies which we bulk buy when the boxes are on offer at £18 for two boxes. We got a lot of bibs, vests etc bought for us when I was pregnant but these can be picked up cheaply from places like Primark or Matalan.

Aside from that you can make buying things as cheap or as expensive as you like. We use Johnsons products for bathing etc, but you can buy Tesco's own baby baths etc for about a pound. Same with clothes, you can buy lots or just the basics. Like other ladies have said there's always eBay or often people on here sell clothing bundles.

I've actually been surprised that having a baby has cost a lot less than I thought when I was pregnant. X

 

[Lucy&Pard]

I noticed that once Leo was weaned with all the extra food and organix snacks our food bill went sky high! And when I stopped b/feeding the formula too! But I used to use my child benefit too for just the essentials at the beginning of the week and then id usually need some more maybe another £20 for extras

 

[Lucy&Pard]

When we used reusable nappies and Leo was breastfed we virtually had no costs at all!