Buying secondhand.

[JennyBlueWren]

Beginning to get serious now. I'm going to my first baby fair at the weekend but I haven't a clue.

How much should things cost secondhand? Don't want to just buy everything and I've been trying to research what sort of things I'd like.

Any other tips?

Ebay. You really can get fantastic stuff at a fraction of the new cost. I think I got everything I needed for my first for about £800 and I didn't scrimp. My neighbor bought everything new and spent over £3000. Nursery furniture is so expensive new and all mine was spotless. Same with prams. Only things I got new where car seats and bottle sterilizers. Clothes and soft toys can be given a machine wash and treatment with a good softener and I poured sterilizing solution over everything else. I bought lots of bundles of tiny designer baby clothes and most had never even been worn (still had tags). They grow out of things so fast they don't get time to get old or tired looking. The thing I would 100% suggest is a baby swing. The Gordy plastic jobs. They look horrid and ruined the pretty coordinated nursery design I had planned but boy are they useful. Baby went to sleep within minutes every time he was put in one. Amazing! Baby beorn amazing too! Much easier than lugging a huge pram around if your popping to the shops or for a walk and baby loved it. Hope this helps.

I've bought quite a few things from my local varagesale.com, also found a few local facebook groups for my area which have been very good. I've got some lovely bits for a fraction of the price they would be new. I've bought a few bundles of clothes as well, I got 40+ newborn clothes, mostly vests and sleepsuits from John Lewis, Next etc. all hardly worn for £10, and the same for 0-3 months, also got sheets for the moses basket and cotbed for £1 each. Ebay is good if the seller is local (you can filter by distance), but you can end up paying quite a lot for postage on smaller things. We got a cotbed for £40 on ebay locally (currently £180 in M&Ps), moses basket and stand for £10 (have bought new mattresses for both) and other bits and pieces.

For baby number 1 we brought a new bedside crib, push chair and car seat but everything else was second hand, from baby sales and gumtree. In retrospect, I probably would have got a second-hand push chair.

Discovered Ebay about a year ago and now everything my son wears is a hand-me-down from my nephew or from Ebay. Anything new I need for this baby will be second hand too - babies grow out of things so very quickly that second hand clothing has had very little wear, just look over items very carefully for staining.

As for price, my general rule is that I'm not paying more than half than the original price for anything second hand, even if it's a high end brand and hardly worn. I also only really tend to go for the higher end brand stuff as it's better quality so even second hand it has a ton of wear left, and I figure that if I wanted to buy Asda bodysuits new, I could afford to. It's the Boden ones that I want but can't afford new :-)

I don't know if you've considered cloth nappies before but I've got the most amazing deals on those at second hand sales. You'd def want to do some research on those before you buy though.

I'd certainly write a list before you go to keep you focused.

Happy shopping!

As twiglet2 said, bundles are generally the best deals.