Tell us when you’ve forked out for your DCs - £100 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

As you well know, having children isn’t exactly cheap… Just when you thought there wasn’t anything else your DC could possibly need, something else crops up and rinses your account.

Since your DC entered the world, at what points have you found yourself shelling out for things? Maybe when your DC got older, you had to splash out on a new buggy, or your second DC arrived and you found yourself looking for a new home?

What have been the major purchasing decisions in your child’s life so far? Have you had to cut back in some places in order to afford what your child needs? And how have your buying habits changed over time? Maybe you used to spend money on holidays and now you spend more on childcare? Finally, what have been the products you’ve spent the most money on as a result of having children?

Here are a few topics to think about:

• Health
• Childcare
• Education
• Home & Garden
• Cars
• Insurance
• Technology
• Travel
• Baby Products

All MNers who post on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £100 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks, and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Shoes and decent bikes too.

Bigger car deffo, when DD (baby number 4) came along we had to get a 7 seater and they're not cheap!

Been forking out literally non stop over the past 17 years!!! We have 3 kids who are constantly needing new trainers, school shoes, clothes, uniforms, then there are school trips, dinner money, clubs, hungry mouths to feed... it's never ending! We often "joke" about what a nice lifestyle we would have if it weren't for them.... we'd be able to afford holidays whenever we wanted and dine out weekly! Good job we love them hey? ;)

Most of the money spent on our kids is for child-care - between £500-900 pm for nursery for each of them over the 3.5 years they each attended nursery, plus up to £150 for after-school club! I shudder to think how much we'll have spent by the time my daughter starts school in 2019!

Shoes! We're really good at buying a new pair and then losing them after wearing them once

Without doubt the single most biggest expense for us so far would be nursery fee's.

Even though I am mostly a stay at home mum (I was made redundant a few days after our first child was born whilst on maternity leave) when both our children turned about 15 months and became much more active we decided to put them into nursery a couple of mornings a week to give them more socialising time with other children and also to give me a bit of free time to do jobs around the house that were becoming difficult with a toddler in tow.

My husband and I sat down and were looking at our finances just yesterday and when we looked at how much nursery fees have cost us it was quite an astronomical amount.

In most other areas I am quite savvy. I buy clothes in the sales but in larger sizes and then put them aside ready for when DS & DS grow into them. I buy toys second hand wherever possible. I sell clothes that have been outgrown and sell toys that are no longer suitable and put the money towards new ones.

We look for offers on days out and treats and make the most of free events wherever possible. When it came to buying equipment such as pushchair/car seats/ cot etc we researched a lot before making a decision and looked out for offers on the shortlisted products and when something came up on a good deal we bought it.

I'm sure that as our children get older (they are only 2.5 years and 5 years old at the moment) the expenses will increase once they want to do after school clubs, hobbies etc but we also want to make sure they have the opportunity to try out new things (learning an instrument or doing dance classes) if they want to. I'm thinking of starting up a kitty now so that when they do want to pursue their own individual interests there are funds available for us to put towards it.

As well as the obvious - childcare, clothes, toys - here's the unexpected:

• Medical: private lactation consultant visit, private tongue tie snip, private physio for DD who has mild cerebral palsy. DDs now added to my workplace medical insurance - I pay the extra, that's not cheap.

• Clothes for me: my clothes seem to get destroyed so much quicker these days

• Baby kit: pre DC I always thought most of it was a con. Turns out I will buy anything if it promises to make my baby sleep .

• Parties. DD has been to about 20 parties this year and each one requires a present and card. And that's on top of her own party. She is 3 FFS!

I recently paid over £700 for a school ski trip - only for DS1 to play silly buggers at school and be kicked off the trip. No refund !!!!! He changed school three weeks before the summer holiday and needed a whole new uniform incl PE kit. At 6ft he's not at the cheaper end of the sizing. DS2 is reasonably cheap at the moment. Although he's asked how long before his brother grows out of the jeans I just bought because he's dying to wear them. 🤔 Maybe I should treat him to a pair as it might be a while 😀

Where do I start!

A new car, a bigger house with a garden, days out (farms costing £20 a person phew!)
The biggest expense was the extended rear facing car seat at £400 but safety first and they are always worth it of course!

When we had our first baby we consoled ourselves when we were forking out on loads of paraphranelia that at least if we had a second baby we wouldn't need to buy anything else. How wromg were we! With a relatively small age gap we have had to buy seconds of some thjngs, and benefit of hindsight there are things we have bought this time that would have been helpful first time, like a co sleeper. And don't get me started on oushchairs-we have 5!And then of course there are the things that we have bought in an attempt to get our boys to sleep such as Ewan, so we now have two dream sheeps and two boys who still wont sleep.
But second time around i am much better at finding second hand bargains thank goodness ☺

Life insurance. We wouldn't bother with it if we didn't have DC.

It's not cheap, but I sleep better knowing we have it.

Another one who has found the older they get, the more expensive they get. I thought it would be cheaper once we were past all the 'baby' equipment such as pram, high chair, cot etc. However, now dd has hit teenage years there are fewer expenses but they are bigger ones. School trips and food at school cost such a lot!
Dd's feet are much larger than my teeny tiny feet, so while I can buy VAT free children shoes dd's cost a fortune

When don't we spend money?

The things I fail to take into account the most are:

School shoes not fitting a few weeks before the end of term
Constantly buying birthday presents
Buying stuff because I think my kids will find it awesome, then remembering I'm on a budget afterwards...

There are of course many other costs but most of the rest were anticipated.

As the boys grow my food bill grows exponentially. I find just before a growth spurt they eat masses of food and I can hardly keep up with the amount. I long for when I can but a normal food shop that actually lasts a week! The other one is shoes and trainers. There is always an argument about what's sensible and reasonable and what they actually want and is exortionate. Some of the trainers they have suggested I would frame considering the price!

I found having older DC really expensive such as shelling out for school trips, uniform and driving lessons (and putting them on my car insurance).

A car. When it was just me and my DS we managed just fine in my little Fiesta but when we became a blended family with my DP and his 2 teenage sons we needed a much bigger car. It is not easy fitting a high backed car seat and 2 large boys into the back of most cars and finding one that would comfortably fit us all was difficult and costly.

We had to buy a bigger car recently as I refused to go out anywhere in our small 3 door car, it was impossible to get car seats and baby's in and out! We opted for a 7 seater purely for the room! We had to use the money we started saving for a family holiday! Oh well, i can leave the house happily now!!

I have a one year old and a 2.7 year old, I haven't ever tried to tot up what we've spent but it would be eye watering! The main cost has been me giving up work, then nursery furniture, toddler bedroom furniture, buggy, double buggy, clothes, travel cots, shoes, shoes, shoes. We moved to a bigger house when I was 7 months pregnant with dd so that's an extra £3000 rent....trips, days out, higher energy bills due to the 11 loads of washing a week......

I don't know what we did with all of our money before we had them?!!

The amount we've spent on childcare was breathtaking. The endless sports club and music fees were a bit unexpected. Travelling on cheap but slow busses gave way to plane and train trips.

We have a lego collection worth insuring by now.

I paid quite a couple of hundred out each month on swimming lessons, gymnastics, piano lessons, athletics club. I find it a huge drain!

My one purchase that I wanted for my DS is a high-chair that he can sit with us at the table. I bought the Stokke Tripp Trapp and all the associated bits, it cost around £300 or so.

My DP works long hours and it is just lovely for all of us to sit around the table as a family and share our days. Those moments are priceless.

I am not in the Waltons

Biggest purchases and spends for us are all disability related. My ds has cerebral palsy and cannot walk well, so £2,400 for a wheelchair ( as the nhs one not suitable for our needs and would have meant we needed a new car!) £2,200 for current bike, £750 for previous one, and all of that pales into insignificance on the care costs, £8,000 per year for nanny as after school club not suitable, £8,000 on private physio per year because nhs cannot provide what they recommend as optimum and think parents can do it ( which when you work full time is difficult), a few hundred on occupational therapy, and then a few surprising things, like computing aids, and food (calory requirement is 1.5-2 times the average. At 6 ds eats far more than me. £120 for shoes that go over orthotics well.

In many ways we are lucky as I can afford this, over and above the dla we get. But dh and I took the decision to try and earn more so we could just do this. But for those who cannot cut backs on everything are inevitable.

School uniform is a huge expense when you can't buy it from Supermarkets because the dress code is too specific. I also can't quite believe how much my toiletries and cosmetic spend has gone up lately (teens).

As they grow older, childcare costs decrease but everything else increases exponentially.
Days out - young kids are satisfied with a happy meal. Big kids choose the most expensive items on the menu and drink.
Travel and Holidays - a lot of places do family entrance tickets for children under 15 or so. Big Kids cost full adult price but still expect mum or dad to pay for them.
Clothes - little kids are happy with Primark clothes as long as they're comfy and a school bag from George. Big kids are much bigger and can only possibly wear clothes from X, Y or Z that look the same and cost fifty times more.

Then there's the technology (ipads are compulsory at my dss' school - no joke), the driving lessons, the train tickets to uni open days, the gym membership, the phone contracts, the sports club subscriptions, the essential 'enrichment' activities for their A level subjects (field trips, visits etc) , the Duke of Edinburgh that never gets finished fees and expenses, the music lessons....

I could go on.