How much did you spend on first born?

[KC8LL]

Hi, sorry if this is not posted in the right place I am new to this!
Myself and DP are planning to try for our first child in the next year or so but would like to get some advise on how much money your first child cost you? In terms of purchasing items, maternity items, clothing, appointments etc...
I have a very bad maternity pay in work so we are going to be saving towards covering that cost too.

We are still very young 22 this year so would appreciate advise

Can't help with figures i'm afraid as I'm a step mum and ttc but will be following with interest.

The one (and only) plus side to infertility is that we have had a while to get everything in order. So far, we have saved (my half of) a years worth of bills / mortgage repayments to take the financial pressure off ourselves.

We won't be buying any nursery furniture so we don't have that expense, but we're expecting to spend approx £1000 on a stroller and mattress. Obviously cheaper ones are available but I already know which one I want (Already have a spare wardrobe, not getting a changing table, have my old crib and being gifted a Moses basket from neighbour who knows we're ttc)

God knows about the rest!

I think having g a baby is as cheap or expensive as you make it tbh. We bought a travel system that cost about £200 from online4baby.com. They have a massive range of prams for all budgets. A second hand cot from gumtree and bought a new mattress. We were lucky and were gifted a moses basket from my mum but you can get them for about £30, bottles and sterilliser was about £60 all in, and then just clothes, bibs and muslin squares, blankets etc. If you buy loads of clothes you can spend a fortune but although you will need to take into account several outfit changes a day. babies do t actually need that much. All we spent weekly was on formula (2tubs a week, then down to one once weaning) nappies and wipes, which we get from aldi so cheap as chips. The most costly thing will be childcare if you go back to work

We bought a lot of stuff from Facebook marketplace. Babies grow so fast a lot of their things stay in great condition.
We bought our pram new for £600, rest was second hand from Facebook:
Mamas and Papas Nursery furniture: wardrobe, chest of drawers with changing top and cot bed in pristine condition- £150
Shnuggle bath -£2.20
Shnuggle Dreami Moses basket - £60 (bought new mattress for £15)
Baby Bjorn air carrier sling - £20
Car seat and 2 iso fix bases - £100

These were our main items. We were gifted lots of clothes and blankets etc. We bought a few baby sleeping bags.

You’ve just got to put the time into shopping around xx

Agree with previous posters, go online and research prices. I bought a buggy/car seat system for about £300 which lasted until ds could walk. And a few supermarket basics like clothes, nappies, toiletries and a baby bath. And a sling for £20. I was given everything else - Moses basket, cot, bed linen etc - by people wanting to declutter.

I saved £2000 to help during maternity leave.

The big issue is when you go back to work and childcare costs £1,000 a month.

We have probably spent about £500 getting setup for baby #1 (due soon) have bought mostly second hand (2nd hand cot, new mattress), hired capsule, going to try reusable nappies and been gifted clothes etc and hand me downs including blankets, baby monitor, from people decluttering. I know people who have spent way more, others way less. Just depends on your budget and how fussy you are?

We will probably have spent around £2500 by the time baby arrives.

However, we don't live in UK, and stuff is far more expensive here ie no supermarket own clothes available etc. Also no second hand market or friends to give stuff, so everything has had to be new.

Most things we have bought should last 3+ years though, so no the cost of just the first few months - apart from any clothing. Our parents and family between them have contributed around £1000 of it ie one parent bought car seat, one cot etc. Nothing has been super extravagant

Approx:
cot bed - £150 ikea. Organic Mattress £150
Pram with carrycot - £600
car seat 0-4 years - £300
chest of drawers - £250
reusable nappies newborn -to potty trained - £350
The rest we are still getting but basic sleepsuits, cardigans, blankets, odd toy etc

If we were in the Uk I could have definitely bought some drawers, reusable nappies, sleepsuits, and cot bed secondhand from somewhere like the facebook market place to reduce those costs.

I think that a lot of this will depend on the poster's money situation at that time. As well as different purchase priorities.

For example a moses basket imo is a waste of money. And if money is really tight going straight to a cot is cheapest option. That could be secondhand or fairly cheap to buy. We were given one as a present. I think about £120.

Prams are expensive, but opting for 1 that goes from newborn to toddler reduces costs again. Mine was at that time approximately £500.

Some only have a changing mat which reduces costs significantly.

Breastfeeding saves you a fortune in formula which is £10 a tub and on average would be 1.5-2 a week I believe. Plus it saves the need for all of the associated gadgets.

Highchair can be anything from £30 up. Most typical ones I found were around the £70 mark.

Beyond the above, babies don't need special equipment.

Baby equipment costs are as little or as much as you want to spend. Very little is essential. The major costs are loss of your salary whilst on maternity leave and nursery fees when you return to work.

I totally agree with everyone else that you can spend as little or as much as you want - we've spent quite a lot (because I have a bad habit of Amazon priming when I'm awake with the baby in the night). What I would say is that don't bother getting too much before the baby arrives because you don't really know how you're going to live with it until then - for example, I thought it would be a total waste of time getting a Moses basket but I ordered one when DS was a week old and it's been our most used piece of equipment. Similarly, there are plenty of bits and pieces that I thought would be essential and that we never used.

She’s now 13... I’m still spending on her

Buying the stuff for a baby is relatively cheap, you can get a lot second hand or places like Ikea do really nice, inexpensive baby equipment. The only places I think you need to be prepared to spend more are car seats and shoes!

The real cost is having to live on reduced income for the maternity leave period and then the cost of childcare/losing one salary entirely if one party stays at home.

We saved the difference between normal salary and maternity pay for my maternity leave period. I took the full year for DS1 and am doing so again for DS2. There is then also the ongoing childcare costs if you return to work. Our nursery charges £63 a day. I've estimated that by the time DS1 starts school we'll have spent at least £20k on childcare for him. Our childcare is as much as our mortgage.

The other thing to bear in mind is that childcare costs are taken into account when you apply for a mortgage. If you had plans to buy a house at any point in the future you might want to seek some advice on that front to see how it would impact you.

Just one further point, if you are not married and are considering dropping to part time hours or giving up work when the baby is born it would be worth researching the differences between cohabitating and marriage so that you are aware and can protect yourself as much as possible financially.

Best of luck!

The first year or two: very little. We got a lot of clothes from friends, and everything else I bought second hand except a car seat which should be new to be safe. Nappies were the biggest expense (should have invested in cloth reusables! Electricity bills will go up due to more washing.

A big expenditure was and is childcare, afterschool clubs, holiday clubs etc, if you’ll be working. And toys (even second hand, and there’s a lot of peer pressure amongst kids), computer or iPad and internet provider costs so they can do their homework, school trips etc.
There’s a fair bit of help like child benefit, 30 hour free childcare etc if you know to claim these things.

Baby stuff can be bought cheaply, I bought loads of things second hand. My cot and changing table was £50. Nursing chair that I really wanted £40. Also got some things from aldi pretty cheaply, my Moses basket was £11. The only things that were really new was my pram but my mum got that for us and the mattress for the cot. My mat pay is a little right but if we watch what we're doing we'll be fine, we ended up formula feeding which is a bit of an extra expense but some of the supermarkets do own brand now which is a good bit cheaper. We get supermarket clothes which are really nice and a good price and Lidl's nappies have suited him fine so far. We could have easily spent a lot more if we wanted to/had the money but I feel like what we got is just fine.

There were a few things we spent a lot on by choice
Pram travel system - £900
Cot bed-£350
Baby carrier-£160
Car seat - £150

We could have got cheaper but we're in a position to spend the money. We were gifted a wardrobe and chest of draws which we used for nursery furniture.

We used mum to mum markets for clothes and were gifted lots of clothes so saved £££ there. Only thing you need new is mattress and a car seat unless you know the car seat has not been in an accident

The biggest expense is maternity leave pay reduction but I'm very lucky in mine. Save for the gap between income and maternity pay to get you through and saving for nursery costs will help to. Our nursery will be around £60 per day!

I spent about £400 on maternity clothes but really struggled to find things I liked that were suitable for the heat wave we had and my job.

Definitely worth a bit of on line research to see what second hand things you can find locally.
We got some bargains at 'Mum 2 Mum' nearly new markets and have an excellent Fara kids charity shop near us.
EBay is great for bundles of maternity and baby clothes.

I bought a crib and mattress for about £100 altogether, second hand Close Caboo sling for £15, about £80 on cloth nappies, not a lot on clothes as we got lots of hand me downs and gifts. I was lucky enough to be given a buggy from one set of parents and car seat from the other but they would have been about £150 each. Furniture was also a gift from another family member but was £500 for cot, drawers and wardrobe. But we could have got everything except the car seat and mattress second hand for much less.

We didn't spend much at all. Most things we bought e.g. pram were second hand. However, childcare is the massive expensive and it's horrifying. Once I went back to work I was paying £80 per day for nursery. Plus once my son hit one year old, things like soft play and the farm stopped being free for him so that adds up a bit. Bit basically pretty much everything can be done cheaply (car seat an exception as we bought that, and cot matress, new)... apsrt from childcare unless you have willing family nearby!

Thanks everyone that's really helpful and had given me an insight and different options to think about!

We don't want to spend money unnecessary I've seen some friends spend hundreds on baby items that they are unlikely to ever use again, and got me worried!

We are lucky that my parents will be retiring when (if) we are lucky when TTC so childcare is pretty ok for us

Lucky with the childcare! That will save you a fortune! Yes second hand all the way. One thing I found is that if I sought out the popular / high brand items on eBay and marketplace, I could usually sell them for pretty much what I paid for them. So i sae it kind of as renting for free and therefore wasn't that fussed when my baby didn't like or use something - I just sold it on. The mamaroo wasn't as amazing as I expected but I made a £15 profit on it when I sold it on so I didn't care that it didn't get used that much. And I've bought heaps of lovely Jojos and Baby Boden clothes from car boot sales (often for as little as 20p per item!) not because I have an obsession with labels but because I know that if they end up in reasonable condition when they've been finished with, I'll make my money back and probably extra on top (if I can be bothered to eBay them). So i dont mind if things didn't get worn much as they were so cheap to begin with! I imagine it would soon get very expensive if paying full price per item though! Good luck :)

I could not tell you an exact figure but I can tell you I had standard smp, didn't save a penny, hubby earnt pretty much min wage and our son never went without.