What NOT to buy... save money by not buying useless stuff!

[KingRolo]

Inspired by the fantastic "great big list of products that are cheaper but just as fab versions of their expensive counterparts", here's another money saving thread.

What have you bought that turned out to be absolute bobbins? Come and tell all and help others avoid making the same mistake!

For me:

No7 Protect and Perfect serum - made no discernable difference to my skin.

New Look Hula jeans - just made my muffin top rise several inches.

Birds Eye Seaside Specials frozen fish - boak.

Chocolate fountains anyone?

or funky drinks fountains that splash everywhere and make me need the loo all evening?!

Bumbo, nappy wrapper, vibrating baby chair/swing, travel bottle sterilizing kit, manual breast pump, one of those things with earphones you use to listen to your baby's heartbeat in utero ( have to admit this was lent to me not bought), TENS machine, Laura Mercier foundation...and bloody Protect and Perfect bought me out in teenage style acne but because it was £40 with the serum I made myself use it all up...

Any anti-cellulite cream

Anything out of betterware catalogue

Anything DH buys off ebay (computer which switches itself off, toaster which toasts on one side, DVD which doesn't play copy discs, toys for DS which break the first time he plays with them, 'designer' hoodies made out of polyester .... I think his user name means 'gullible'!)

Anything from JML

I must defend the slow cooker and bumbo (although mine was only £5 at a NCT sale and has been loaned to lots of friends babies)

Waste of time so far are

Steam generator Iron....I dont Iron hardly anything however my new boyfriend has taken to ironing his shirts with it so all is not lost.

Food processor...no time to bake at mo but will get some use in future,

Britax Travel System..big, cumersome and heavy. Should have got a Maclaren travel system.

Car seat adaptors to attach car seat to pram. Cost 30 quid and used twice. When DS was really small I didn't want him in the car seat too long and when he was bigger it was far easier to lift him out of the car seat and into the pram. I couldn't lift him and the car seat onto the pram without waking him and putting my back out anyway.

Oh, and panini maker.

I have to say I think the Bumbo is great. Am weaning DS and sit him on top of the table in it instead of faffing with high chair. Also, when we visit family he sits on the dinner table in it when we are eating, everyone can see him and he loves being centre (literally) of attention .

Nappy bin - thought it would be a waste but it's FAB, stick runny pooey nappy in, turn handle & stinky nappy gone. In a flash.

Vibrating baby chair/swing - LOVE it as does DS. Have added extra toys on the arch and he kicks the heck out of all of them with great glee.

Travel bottle sterilizing kit - use it every day!! What's the point of sterilising 4 or 6 bottles in one go when you are making bottles up fresh. Also good for taking to GrandPs etc.

Waste of money - coats for babies under 6mo.

Outfits that do up the back.

Outfits such as jeans and hoodies and shoes for little babies - they look so stiff and uncomfortable

Tshirt type tops (short, without poppers) ride up on babies under 6mo.

Sleeping bags for young babies as blankets are safer and you can swaddle them.

Fancy change bags - an ordinary biggish bag with a couple of nappies, pack of wet wipes and carton of milk with a bottle don't take up that much room if you are going to the shops/visiting, where there is plenty of tissue around to act as muslin/bib etc.

What else... soft toys for babies. They prefer the small square blankies to cuddle IME.

Note all this is baby stuff. I have completely forgotten about products that aren't baby related!!

Princesstoadstool, hooray for your post! Have just spent a huge amount of money I don't have on a Renault I'd like to last me for a loong time. It arrives tomorrow. I was about to burst into tears before I read your post.

Sheets and blankets for baby's cot - what a waste of money! I found out about grobags after spending a fortune in Mothercare.

Britax water filter. Takes up so much space in fridge and water straight from the tap is fine.

Fancy puffy hard-to-clean highchairs.

Baby books - patronising, preachy, unrealistic... and all you need to know is on mumsnet anyway!

Must defend chocolate fountain, although not sure I will be getting it out until DS is significantly older... Very happy memory of very drunk friend of DH's being the only adult not waiting to use the fountain until after the littlies had finished. Think he got more choc on him than even the under 3s did!

Also, is pretty much guilt free chocolate, as you really have no idea how much you have eaten.

pispirispis: yes, agree on high-chair front. got a chicco Polly highchair, and okay, so we use it everyday (because we paid so damn much for it), it's cumbersome and ungainly and it takes up way too much space (even when folded). If i could do it over again, I'd get the chicco hippo table seat instead (my parents have it and my daughter LOVES it) or the stokke tripp trapp, as my friends have it and it looks great and they think it's brill.

love my breadmaker, but bought lots of other idiotic things:

• grobags for under 6 mo as DD HAD to be tightly swaddled
• re-usable nappies (sold on e-bay for half cost)
• way too many toys incl. horrible dancing iggle piggle that is so uncuddly
• swinging cradle
• respisense (£99!) that was supposed to check our newborn baby was still breathing but in fact woke her up with a "tickle" every 2 minutes.
• mamas and papas pliko travel system. fell apart after 1 year of not intense use
• baby backpack - she feels even heavier in it than just carrying her in my arms

but expensive things that are worth the money: hotel chocolat goodies; wine > £8 but < £20; family portrait photo

Baby bucket as a substitute to baby bath. The concept sounded interesting, but dipping a newborn in one of these a lot less so... Managed to reuse it for big bouquets, but a bit pricey as a spare plastic bucket ;-)

I saw the baby bucket on a shopping channel and the saleswoman was very keen to point out that you couldn't use a normal bucket because it wouldn't be safe enough blah, blah. A useless baby product par excellence!

I don't get people saying their normal baby bath was a waste of money though. Ours cost £5 from Mothercare and we still use it for quick sit up baths now DD is 9 months old. £5 well spent imo.

Another vote for the top and tail bowl - it was a present so at least I didn't fork out money for it.

Any kind of baby toiletries - I still have the baby bath that I was given when DD1 was born - she is almost three and DD2 will be one soon. Both of them have dry skin.

Baby coats that you can't actually put on a baby unless you dislocate their arms.

Any baby clothes that don't have poppers underneath for easy nappy changing. The beautiful dungarees that we were given - I convinced myself that it didn't matter that I had to strip her off for every change - but only for the first day!

Maternity and breastfeeding bras from Mothercare or M&S - no support at all and dig under the arms.

Play food that consists of hundreds of little cardboard boxes that disintegrate on the first use.

I did like the Bumbo, it was the only way that I could shower when DD1 was little, but it is really overpriced for a bit of plastic that is outgrown in a couple of months.

MrsTittleMouse... you've probably already tried it but I swear by Oilatum Junior bath oil for dry skin. It was/is the only thing that worked on DS dry skin especially his shins and arms. Even a while after the bath ie the next day, I will be changing him and think how soft and well moisturised his skin feels, it's like porcelain-doll smooth. I really recommend it and it's suitable from babies upwards so pretty safe to use. My friend with psorisis says its the best stuff ever too.

Totally agree with you re the BF bras from MC and M&S. No support at all. TBH the £7 double pack of feeding bras from Tesco(!) had more support than those from M&S and the shape was better too.

In the M&S ones I got what I call a "monoboob" or "pensioners bust" ie low slung and squashed together - talk about the opposite of lift and separate!!! In the end I got some lightly underwired Anita nursing bras from Blooming Marvellous, they were £32 each but WORTH EVERY PENNY

I love my top and tail bowl. It's had 22 months of every day use so far.

Anyway, useless products include a foot spa. The relaxation that you get from soaking your feet is totally negated by the faff of filling the thing up, emptying it and mopping up the spilt water. And it's really noisy so you can't watch TV/listen to music while you soak. Bah.

Mothercare 4 way baby carrier. Tooo many buckles and straps made it impossible to get DS into it easily. Should have bought a proper sling...or two!

OOOOOH I'm terrible! I also have a huge Fisher Price cradle swing AND a vibrating chair but the DS absolutely loved both of them!

I've asked for a slow cooker (Crock pot digital thingy) for my birthday at the end of the month

Car seat adapters for the Bugaboo, £30 used....Never! I hated the idea of the DS being stuck in the car seat.

Also I didn't care for my Baby Bjorn... DS was 9.7 lb at birth so I always found it a massive pain to carry him anywhere

We didn't buy either of them, but we were bought an espresso machine and a chocolate fountain machine, neither of which we have used.

worst buy -
sudocreme. vaseline and bepanthem best for nappy creams.

v-tech first step baby walker. hê's played with it twice. when he pushed it, it went to fast across our tiled and wood floors.

johnsons and huggies baby wipes. johnsons too hars. huggies too dry.

defend -

i may be the only person here, but i actually found the bumbo and tray useful.
without the tray i would have to keep picking things up that he had dropped.

baby bath, ours was about £3 in asda and we used it for ages.

bath mat with attached seat. made bath time less stressful for everyone- especially ds.

cotbed sheets and blankets and pj's.
easier to pull him into our bed if and when necessary. he wont grow out of sheets blankets! can wonder around in his pj's until he gets into 'bed'.

dyson - best vacuum cleaner if you have pets. no cat hair on my carpets furniture or beds.

carseat adapters.

I mostly buy toys from charity shops. My children's main christmas present (a wooden shop thing) cost £3.74 from ebay. People who spend hundreds of pounds on their pre schoolers' presents are barking.

We bought 2 Tripp Trapp highchairs from ebay. When we are ready to sell them, they will sell for pretty much the same price we bought them for.

A new baby can go straight into a cot, you don't need a crib/moses basket/cradle.

Scattykatty...you will not regret slow cooker...just look online for receipes and check out money saving expert.com for tips.

I didn't buy it but I do have a meat/bread slicing machine sitting on top of the cupboard.

My PILS are great Tchibo shoppers (v sad now as they're all closing down) and found it in there, bought one for themselves and one for us. It's gathering dust nicely next to the World's Sharpest Knife they bought us (it isn't) and a Magic Onion Chopper which just squashes the onion into a sullen mess.

WesternBelle - I agree, Oilatum Junior bath oil is tops. I can feel the moisture in their skin when they come out of the bath. When they were teenies I just used plain water and olive oil. I hate the Johnsons over-scented over-priced bath products.

Unlike a lot on here I really liked our baby bath. Because we were using expensive bath oil it was nice not to waste filling a whole grown-up bath with it. Although the fact that we didn't actually have a grown-up bath for a while factored in too.

Breast-feeding pillow. What a waste of 25 quid.

I've found my magimix food processor an expensive waste of space- I love to cook but it doesn't seem to do anything that something lighter and easier to dig out of the cupboard and set up doesn't do as well or better (e.g. a hand blender or an egg beater).

Top and tail bucket thing has also been useless so far.

I am deeply afraid that the baby's Amby Nest will also come into this category as so far she has insisted on sleeping with us. Oh dear- really hoping she learns to like it.

I'd like to defend the Tummy Tub though. I have a plain clear one and the baby loves it- it seems to keep her feeling warmer and safer as it is smaller than a baby bath and with higher sides so keeps her out of drafts, and I didn't have enough space to buy something that would be useless after she finished with it, so I'll be able to use this as a bucket.