Budget per week for first baby - £100?

[Bucketwee]

Hello,

DH and I are expecting our first baby together in the spring and working out a budget for my maternity leave.

We currently pay all bills from the joint account and take a personal allowance each month for clothes, entertainment etc. which will continue.

I suggested £100 a week, thinking this would more than cover baby groups, coffees, nappies, clothes as they grow and days out as a family. DH thinks this might be tight and we should cut back elsewhere to allow more maternity spending from his experience 10 years ago with DSC.

I hope to breastfeed so hopefully no formula (but if so it would come from the joint account food shop), we will buy a travel system and nursery furniture before hand. Car is electric so not expecting a huge uptick in cost for the extra miles.

Is £100 a week reasonable? Too little / more than enough? I originally thought it was ample and we would be able to save a portion of that for bigger spends like season tickets to the zoo but perhaps I’m being optimistic. Views very much appreciated.

We currently pay all bills from the joint account and take a personal allowance each month for clothes, entertainment etc. which will continue.

So, is that separate from this new pot you are suggesting ?

I suggested £100 a week, thinking this would more than cover baby groups, coffees, nappies, clothes as they grow and days out as a family. DH thinks this might be tight and we should cut back elsewhere to allow more maternity spending from his experience 10 years ago with DSC

Whereas this is just so you are aware of everything you might spend that you don't currently spend ?

As things like nappies would come under 'groceries' in my division of costs, but 'coffees' would come under 'personal allowance / entertainment'.

Obviously, it doesn't matter what any of us call them, but if you are asking amounts, I cannot envisage how you are going to even spend £100 a week on baby groups or even if you count meeting for coffee or lunch with other new Mums in that, let alone needing more than that.

I mean, anyone could spend more if you were rolling in it, but you are talking about 'cutting back elsewhere', and 'setting a budget', so I presume you are - like most of us - needing to keep an eye on spending.

Most people don't spend anything at all the first few weeks when you are just getting your head round surviving.

edited because I didn’t need to be so blunt. But yes of course £400 a month just on nappies and socialising is plenty.
your baby will need new clothes, but you can buy these cheaply and you’ll likely be inundated from with gifts the first few months. Nappies are pretty cheap if you buy from a supermarket brand. You won’t need to buy toiletries weekly so that isn’t much across the month. Classes are approx £10 a session but you can usually find much cheaper ones, cheaper again depending where you live. You’ll be overdoing it if you do more than 2 of those a week.
Add in a coffee and you’re doing plenty but still not spending over £100. Obviously you must be aware many people do mat leave on far less and are still able to spend lots of quality time with their baby

I think you should split it to be more representative of the spend.

So weekly costs eg nappies / creams / medicine / wipes etc - £20/30 max

Weekly activities eg coffees / baby groups and family days out - please don’t waste loads of money doing kid things until they’re much older - just do what you used to like doing (within reason!) - could be £10 could be £200 depending on what you enjoy doing really

Then clothes - that’s more of an every 3 months kind of thing and can often be covered by gifts for a while. I’d say £50-60 every size change as I got
loads from Facebook / hand me downs and big stuff eg coats / pram suits for presents but again this could be £300 if you want brand new beautiful
outfits in every size.

Sounds like plenty. I'm assuming you'll get child benefit too which can pay for the clothes.

We didn't do a budget as such and I just had use of the joint credit card whilst on maternity and we'd split the cost at the end of the month. Baby classes are pretty cheap though like £8-10 a time, the odd coffee, nappies and things would be added to the grocery shopping and clothes are a mixture of vinted, preloved from family and friends, and new. I wouldn't bother with family days out for the babies sake, they won't be bothered until way after maternity leave is over. There's plenty of free/cheap things to do like coffee at a friend's house or visiting the grandparents too.

@Bucketwee 30 years put of date, but:
We went for walks
We went to the park
We met for coffee at each others' houses
The supermarket was an outing
There were playgroups at churches for 20p
Storytime at the library was 20p

You won't need family days out or zoo tickets or anything like that during maternity leave because the baby will be too young. You'll not really need many baby classes either because again the baby will be too young for most of your maternity leave (I'm assuming you're only taking a year off).

Things like mother and baby groups can be a lifesaver, but these are usually fairly cheap, church hall affairs. I'd say absolute max of £25 a week. You might want to do baby swim classes in the second six months of maternity leave, these can be a bit pricey but are really not compulsory so easily avoided if the budget is tight.

I'd say £100 a week should be more than enough for nappies, clothes and activities. Although as a pp said it is a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' question...it depends on what brand of nappies you use/how many clothes you want/what brand of clothes you want to buy etc. it's definitely doable on £100 a week though.

I mean at least your DH isn’t suggesting it should be reduced like most do, so that’s a plus!

Extremely helpful to the OP in 2026... 🙄

Thank you all! I feel relieved I’ve not been naive on how much the first year will cost. I am perfectly happy walking / church groups / vinted shopping so I think we will be fine with the £100 as a maximum as we would need to cut back elsewhere to top this up. As you say lots have less and still make lots of happy memories with their babies ❤️ just needed a sense check I hadn’t missed anything massive.

Just a thought @Bucketwee ...have you checked that you have the church run baby groups and free library rhyme time sessions available in your area?

I had a quick look yesterday and we have a mix of community centre / library offerings and really expensive privately run classes £18–22 😵 but nothing in between! I just need to make sure I’m organised signing up for the cheaper ones as they do fill up by the looks of it.

I’d suggest you spend a month spending as you need, tot it up and transfer that across each month after having repaid you for month 1.

I think I spent £100 a week on coffee alone during the early years 😂

I think it’s far too tight especially as you are cutting back elsewhere to afford it .

Baby classes were a life saver for me. All my friends were working 9-5 and I had no family in the country and friends only wanted to meet evenings which is impossible with a baby - they are very unsettled in the evenings, you can't leave them, especially if you breastfeed. I breastfed and wasn't able to have a proper evening out until about 9 months. So I needed the baby classes for ME, for the socials. They were amazing and worth every penny, yes, even the pricey ones so don't dismiss them entirely.

£100 a week is fine though. You might have some weeks more expensive than others which evens out. Things like the zoo etc are only worth when they're 12 months+ really.

Babies aren’t expensive. Children are.

If you need to formula feed, formula is about £15-18 a tub. You’ll use possibly 2-3 a week, plus probably some ready made cartons at various points. So £54 plus maybe an extra £10 on readymade. That’s £64 a week.

Maybe £10 ish a week on nappies depending on the age of your baby and how many you use, plus what brand you buy. So £74.

You have roughly £25 for a coffee here and there, a class (usually £8/9 each), parking, fuel to attend.

Then there are clothes and medicine and toiletries. I think £100 a week is tight if you end up formula feeding.

But the first year is probably the cheapest. At 9 months, I went back to work at it was £1100 a month in nursery fees. I only earned £1200. So me working left us with an extra £100 a month. It was still worth it because I doubled my salary in a couple years time. But the costs only go up from there. I would think more long range. It’s easy when they’re babies as they don’t need much.

I'd buy nappies and bits of baby clothes out of general food shop plus formula if you have to use it. After you've had your baby you might be tired and quite happy to take a nap when your baby does, depending on how well your baby sleeps at night. I'd take the £100 if it's offered and only spend what I needed but keep the leftover bits so you could all have a little weekend break later in the year once baby is in a routine. As others have said there are cheaper mother and baby groups but they do book up fast.

£100 is generous. Agree with pp that £30 will cover essentials like nappies etc with ease if you are BFing.

How much you want to spend on groups, clothes etc is very personal. Where I live you could easily spend £25 on a single very chi-chi music class for babies or you could go to local groups in the library for free. You could have multiple coffees out or take a flask from home etc. Likewise clothes- some people put their babies in hand-me-downs and supermarket basics but you could spend hundreds if you want. Depends what you want and can afford.

Maybe start with £100 and adjust up or down depending on what you end up doing. They definitely get more expensive as they get older!

Pretty clear the principle is still the same though.

People regularly ask on local Facebook Groups here where there are Baby or Toddler Groups locally, and there are loads. Some will say £2 a family or £1.50 for first child and 50p for additional children. There are a couple that say 'no charge' or one that says 'no charge, but donations welcome'.

Like ILoveKits, my eldest was born 30 odd years ago, so I now know lots of young adults having their first babies. None of them spend the £££ that people sometimes mention on here. I was having a lovely cwtch with a newish baby only 2 weeks ago, when Mum brought her along to watch the football team she played for until she was pregnant. There's loads of ways to get out and about without spending £££ which is what the point of the post was.

Hi OP! Congratulations!

I think £100pw is PLENTY. I spent around £20-30 per week in the initial weeks (COFFEE), and then that went up to about £40 after the baby could do classes/play groups. You will get loads of clothes and bits from others in the beginning so won't need to buy much.

One other thing to consider is having a cushion for any bigger payments - my DD ended up needing to see an osteopath as she was having issues with feeding and lifting her head, and that cost £80 per session (we had 3).

If you're eligible, apply for Child Benefit straight away, that's around £110 extra per month. We found this really useful and use it for her clothes/snacks/nappies.

I also put together a huge list of things to do on my phone notes, and often looked at it for ideas of free/low cost stuff. I also signed up to M&S parents club (free cake every Tuesday with a coffee), and Boots (lots of discounts).

I think you’ll be totally fine on that, but I found it easy to forget about normal life things (dentist, haircuts for me, presents for others), not sure if that comes from that amount you’re setting aside.

I chose to do one paid class a week, and then library and church group on other days and that felt like a great amount.

£100 a week is already very high to me - I don't think we spent that a month!

You might want to do a trial of one of these groups to see if there is a nice gang of people there.

All of my friends who made solid mum friendship groups got them either out of NCT or those paid mother and baby classes. As you would do a ‘course’, you’d see the same people each week and everyone is there for the same reason!

The community groups are great, but as they are low commitment- the same people might not come every week, can be a lot of nannies/CMs too depending on area.

I thought it was all a bit excessive- but in hindsight it could have been worth the £100 p/m investment. Despite it being a completely nice normal person with a ton of normal non-mum friends, I never made a little group. Just my opinion- but think this limited my little one as they got older. Felt really bad this weekend at Halloween when I saw all the little parties happening, and we don’t really get to socialise like that as we have no other family children and none of our friends have kids. Nursery doesn’t really give you the same chance to befriend the parents as people are back to work and a bit less open.

You won’t really be doing expensive ‘family days out’ with such a small baby. If you can get a year multipass through your aquarium or zoo, that’s a cost effective thing to do on your mat leave to fill the days- but on a weekend with such a small baby, you’ll be able to take them to the swings and for a walk, and generally the same things you’d do anyway like lunch/garden centre/museum/shopping.

Thank you! I would really like to be part of a mums group as we don’t know many people with young children and all family are older so I think the more expensive structured classes might be worth the investment along side the community classes (I feel like I’ll need to get out for my own mental wellbeing). I feel like I’m not wildly off the mark and i definitely don’t spend for the sake of spending so will hopefully be able to save for a short break or weekend away! Downloaded the M&S app and will DEFINITELY be taking advantage of the free cake 🤩

Have to say, the church hall/ community groups/ rhyme time was enough for me to meet other mum’s and make friends. Possible more so, because I went to ones in my community whereas the pricier ones were a car journey away.

Another personal view is that we didn’t spent money on nursery furniture/ breast feeding rockers etc. We bought a second hand wooden cot (new mattress and bedding) and ikea or things we already had for storage. Bouncy chair, buggy, and loads of other things were bought second hand . We bought the sling, mattresses and the car seat new - didn’t bother with clipping car seat into a buggy frame anyway . Spent a fraction of what our friends did. Oh and bf in bed or on the sofa, but did buy new bf cushion.

Such an exciting and magical time - enjoy!