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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think having a baby doesn't have to be expensive

337 replies

annabanana84 · 31/10/2013 11:12

I have just had my coil out as I thought dp and I would like to start ttc. As soon as I got home from having it out, dp started saying we should use condoms until this time next year as babies are very expensive and we don't have money for one. We both work and have a nice lifestyle but do have to watch the pennies. I am 30 and really, really x1000000 broody. I am pissed off at dp, because although babies do cost some money, we will have 9 months to buy all the baby things, even longer if we struggle to Conceive straight away. We will be getting most of the baby things second hand or off freecycle anyway to keep it cheap as possible. I hate the way dp let me get excited and now wants wait - a year! I don't want to get old and not have children :o( I think babies need love more than money and material things anyway!

OP posts:
FrauMoose · 31/10/2013 16:19

I don't think I ever costed it up in advance. It didn't occur to me to do so -perhaps rather naive of a woman in her mid-thirties! We were very skint for the first few years of my daughter's life, especially as my husband's income through his business, fell over this period. But I remember this time as essentially a very happy one. The positive was that being underemployed gave him more time to spend looking after his daughter. I had a bit of freelance work that I could do from home. (Obviously if we'd fallen behind on the mortgage etc that would have been very stressful.) But I think if you have the knack of being happy while not spending much on inessential it helps. It's also good if you've got the frame of mind, which questions whether so-called essentials really are essentials. For instance I only ever used disposable nappies when we were going out for any length of time. Otherwise it was terry ones that just got soaked and then washed.)

cantspel · 31/10/2013 16:24

I would love to know where some of you live if your charity shops are over flowing with good quality cheap clothing. Ours are full of tatty tesco t shirts for at least £3.99 each and the toys are either mccd happy meal freebies or have half the bits missing.

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:26

You need somewhere to put kids. For most of us, that means a bigger flat/house than if we were living on our own. Then you have to heat it, and repair it when bits fall off it.

Teenagers eat their own bodyweight, several times a day.

A decent pair of shoes for a 10 year old isn't cheap - and they'll need new shoes again soon.

State schools are free, but at primary anything like music lessons cost money (not much, but I've shelled out over £200 for a term's instruments, lessons and band practice. Very good value £200, given it's two instruments, but still £200). At secondary, the lessons and clubs are free but the trips - which aren't essential but do build on the core learning for eg languages - cost.

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:27

WEll, yes, it is a lot more than money. The wear and tear on one's soul is beyond financial cost. But that is another issue.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:29

You dont have to have a bigger place either mother millions of kids worldwide live in flats/share rooms. We havent moved since before dc1 and doubt we will before dc3.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:31

cantspel - You need to join fb group. I bought 15 next dresses for 10 pounds off there for my older dd. They have absolutely everything pine cots for a tenner, all branded clothes dirt cheap etc

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:33

I couldn't have put two children, their father, and my work into my former one-bedroomed flat! Where would I have worked, quite apart from anything else?

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:34

I just don't subscribe to this 'oh you can live on cheese rinds and charity shop rejects'. And I speak as someone who haunts charity shops. And libraries. And uses state education.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:35

I have friends with kids in 1 bed with sofa bed in lounge for night. We have 2 will be 3 in a 2 bed flat

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:36

Yes, millions of people live in v squashed accommodation. My aunt and uncle in Mumbai lived in a tiny flat with my cousin. But it wasn't exactly ideal.

mizu · 31/10/2013 16:36

Ah meglet the joys of the NCT nearly new sales (wistful face) where I could get a whole season of clothes for both DDs and they would wear it all and love it.

Used to cost me about £25 for a bag of clothes that were all from Gap, Boden, M&S, H&M.......now they are older it certainly costs a whole lot more.

cantspel · 31/10/2013 16:36

oliveoctagon my local fb selling page is full of requests for stuff for free and the odd sale of a coffee table for a tenner.

wordfactory · 31/10/2013 16:37

Me neither mother.

I've been poor. It's shit.

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:37

Why on earth are you making it some kind of self-denying virtue?

I repeat, if I was to work - and I needed to work to, you know, pay the bills - I couldn't do it with everyone crammed into that flat.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:37

A large proportion of southern families live like it though its far from essential to move.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:39

Have you got specific baby/child/teen pages in you area cantspel? I find those much better than just the selling pages.

OneLittleToddleTerror · 31/10/2013 16:44

mother I agree with you that most of us wouldn't consider cramming 4 in a one bed flat. I don't know why we are competing about spending less on children? And I don't buy this charity shop thing either. I have never find anything good from them. I have to admit I do work full time so don't have the time to hunt on facebook groups and charity shop most of the time. (I pop into charity shops when I pass through them). I don't find NCT sales especially good either. I end up buying more crap because I was trying to predict how large DD will be in the next 6 months. And more of those useless party dresses. I actually spend less buying from the local asda and sainsbury, and buying just what she needs when I need them. (DD is only 2 so she grew very quickly in the last 2 years. I have tried to anticipate her size before winter/summer when the NCT sale was on and failed miserably).

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:47

I can assure you it was essential to move. I couldn't work.

Yes, you can live squashed in like that. Yes, you can spend your life in other people's cast-offs and never buy a new book. You can buy your kids the cheapest shoes and refuse to put the heating on. You can eat nothing but the cheapest food (including inhumanely produced meat and unsustainable fish) and never dye your hair and very occasionally splurge on a new nail varnish. Of course you can, and very regrettably many people - an increasing number - in the UK are having to live like that.

But it is so far from the ideal way to live. And actively advocating it is just...silly.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:49

The op is 30 thats pretty old to be putting off kids because they havent got this that and the other. She could only have a few years left in which to have kids she doesnt know that. I wouldnt want to wait a minute longer either op. You need to talk to him.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:51

Oh I spent a lot on things like going overseas and the flat etc. Its just kids in general dont need much as you can get quality for cheap. Dd does swimming, fitness and dance and I pay a fiver a week the lot. She wears entirely brands etc. We have fresh fruit and veg etc and there is no food the dc refuse except lemon and excessive spice. You can easily live very well for less.

motherinferior · 31/10/2013 16:51

Ah, that's a different argument. (And I had my first baby, not madly deliberately, at 37 - it's not as if she's exactly in the last chance saloon!)

CreamyCooler · 31/10/2013 16:58

It would be good to hear from the OP.

oliveoctagon · 31/10/2013 16:58

You can also do things like surveys op and collect the cash and get love to shop vouchers. Its how I get dcs shoes I wont let them wear no brand trainers Im not that cruel!

Preciousbane · 31/10/2013 16:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FrauMoose · 31/10/2013 17:06

I wanted to have a child. So did my partner. That was important for us and having a baby made us happy.

We were not unhappy about buying second-hand clothes and books from charity shops, and using the library - and hunting round for food bargains in the supermarkets. It might sound really, really sentimental. But we had each other and we had our baby.

I think there are people who really hate having second hand stuff and economising and going without things they used to have. And I'd agree that where you live has an impact on the sorts of choices that can reasonably be made. (E.g. much harder to cope without a car/economise on transport costs in rural areas etc)

Perhaps the painful truth is that if people are made really really unhappy by having to live more cheaply, maybe the right choice is to stick with two full-time incomes and a better standard of living. And not have kids.