How to Prepare for a Baby (Without Going Broke)

Excellent post.

I would say as well – a lot of baby “stuff” just isn’t necessary right away. Things like a crib are nice to have but we didn’t use ours until our baby was several months old.

If you can get a deal on something before the baby is born then go for it – but don’t rush around the last couple of weeks to try to get everything.

Also – I recommend not using a diaper change table – kids have a habit of rolling out of them.

Mike

It must be so much easier to practice frugality when it means saying “no” to something for yourself.

I’m sure it is hard to know what to do when every product says, “if you don’t buy this, you are ruining your baby.”

You parents have my sympathy.

Our good friends just announced to us last night that they are pregnant. And they said the main idea they have gathered from their reading so far is if they do ANYthing, they are going to hurt the baby

I should say that as I have watched my brother & his wife raise three girls, I have met some items I would not have thought existed, but are actually quite useful. So not all the new-fangled baby stuff is junk you don’t need. In other words, “my mom didn’t have one of these,” may not always be the best filter.

My biggest fear with having kids isn’t when they are infants. It’s once they learn to talk and ask for things. I have no problem telling myself “no” when I want something I don’t need. But when my little girl or boy asks for something, there is no way I will be able to say no to them.

So many people say “We are waiting to get out of debt to have a baby.” I agree with that advice when it comes to buying a house, but not when it comes to starting a family. Your article correctly points out that it isn’t that expensive to have kids, if you approach the event with the same frugal approach you should take towards other life events. Great article!

We have three boys, each about a year apart, and the one thing I’ve learned about planning for babies, is you really can’t plan. Of course, I mean that a little tongue in cheek. Yes, buy gently used, especially clothes (we had things that even with three boys got sold at a yardsale with tags still on them) and get as many hand-me-downs as you can, but go with new when it’s a car seat and make sure your crib is meeting current safety guidelines. Those hand-me downs may have slats just the right size for your little one to put their right head through…you may have to alter as you go along too. I ended up on pretty strong medication due to pregnancy/baby stuff and couldn’t breastfeed because we decided (doctor too) that it wasn’t the best for the babies to be ingesting it. Also, it’s just not a midwife vs. doctor issue, make sure your provider is in network whoever it is and figure out what insurance is going to cover and not. Some plans will say an epidural is not mandatory (for a normal delivery) and therefore you’re paying out of pocket for that plus the anethesiologist fees. You can find out if that’s the case and put that in your budget if that becomes necessary during labor. But by the time our third was born, the only thing we bought for him aside from his carseat was a three-seat jogging stroller because my husband is a runner. Our biggest financial challenge overall was that I quit my job to stay home and my husband was just starting a post-doc so we were strapped that way, but that’s probably another planning issue.

@ Joy – There are definitely times when breastfeeding isn’t an option. Thanks for pointing that out.

@ Dennis – You’d be surprised at how quickly you learn to say no to your kids! LOL

@ Frugal Dad – I totally agree that you shouldn’t base the decision to have kids solely on your financial situation. There will always be a good reason to wait.

@ Sharon – That’s very good advice. Insurance companies can be dicey as to what they will and won’t cover, and it’s best to know ahead of time, so you can plan accordingly. And I’m a stay at home mom, too, and it’s been financially tight while we raise our kids, but it’s been worth it.

One other thing I thought of – as far as the finances go I found that having a kid meant I couldn’t go out and do expensive stuff very often so I saved a LOT of money for that reason.

Mike

Having six children, two of them still in diapers, I can easily say that the changing table we’ve had for 10 years is one of the least-used pieces of furniture we’ve ever owned…but somehow a necessity in every nursery setup.

We have 3-4 diaper-changing pads from the various diaper bags we’ve accumulated in different frequented rooms around the house each next to wipes & diapers. Messy pants don’t ever come at a convenient time or location, and sometimes running all the way to the nursery will make for an entire day of cleaning carpets.

Great article, new parents always feel guilty if they don’t buy the latest and greatest saftey device, gadgets, also…

When estimating your budget:
1 Know your health insurance benefits – study your health insurance policies to know exactly what your possible out-of-pocket costs are going to be for prenatal and postnatal care, and birth.

2 Know your maternity-leave benefits – study your employment manual to know your company’s policies for maternal and paternal time off.

3 Update life and long -term disability insurance because when you have children your need for life and long-term disability insurance will increase.

Lastly, get or update wills and beneficiary arrangements on life insurance, retirement plan, IRAs and transfer on death accounts.

I wholeheartedly agree that not every baby gadget is necessary. I was the lucky recipient of many pieces of baby equipment, thanks to generous friends and relatives. However, there were lots of things my kids never used. You really need to make decisions based upon your child.

Though I heard from many moms that it was a lifesaver for them, I never used my pack ‘n play. My kids hated it. However I got every penny’s worth out of the baby backpacks. And I found that even things that one of my offspring loved, the other one had no interest in.

As for influencing wish lists when your children are older, I find that not having cable is a lifesaver. 99% of the tv my kids watch are on PBS (no commercials.) If they don’t see it, they don’t know they should need it.

Thanks for the great information! We are considering having a baby in the next year or two, but are totally unprepared for daycare costs! I get a federal discount, and even with that, costs would run around $511 bi-monthly! That’s like taking on another mortgage! How do people swing that?!

Great tips! I especially second the changing table. I never regretted not having one; I just put a changing pad on the floor and changed my baby that way… and there were no worries about her falling off the table.

Dennis, I understand your desire to say “yes” to your kids. One way to say “yes” and still watch your pocketbook is to give your children an allowance and let them say yes to themselves until the money is gone. Except for Christmas and her birthday, I rarely buy my child gifts (and I try to really limit gifts at those two occasions — it helps that my kid is an only grandchild, so she gets more than enough presents from her grandparents). If she wants something, she can save up for it and buy it herself. I started her allowance around age 4, and there are times I wondered if that was smart, but after almost five years of shopping with her own money, she really knows the value of a dollar.

Wanted to comment to Susan– yes it is hard to find used maternity clothes you like which fit well– since maternity clothes are sometimes more expensive found that buy hitting regular sales and buying larger sizes I could easily compensate for my baby belly. For example, I found tons of stuff at Old Navy (regular shirts, sweaters, etc) for super-cheap and I just bought larger sizes. Drawstring and yoga pants are perfect for pregnancy, as well as some of the low-rider jeans where the waistband sits very low under the belly. At the end of my pregnancy I did invest in a couple pairs of maternity jeans but basically I didn’t buy expensive maternity clothes for most of my pregnancy.

Thanks for an awesome post– I always look at people crossed-eyed when they protest that they can’t afford to have kids and quote the $250,000 price tag they’ve heard about the total cost of having a child. I am from a family of nine children and we certainly didn’t have all the luxuries babies are expected to have nowadays. I never even had a changing table with my first son and don’t plan on having one with my second. I think the only thing I ever bought for my son were onesies– other than that, people gave us excellent used items: crib, basinett, bouncy seat, playpen, swing, walker…and its so easy to find quality used items on craigslist or ebay. Babies don’t need much of anything except love and attention. And they don’t read the labels of thier clothes– only adults do that!

Excellent post, thanks so much!

My wife and I are approaching the time for us to have a baby (3 years and counting). The cost is intimidating so I appreciate all of the advice in this post.

Just chiming in to second a couple of other posts. As someone who tortured my poor mother by refusing to breastfeed, I have to agree with Joy et al that it’s a good idea to be finanically prepared to have to supplement or replace breast milk with formula. For many women it is very hard emotionally when a child can’t/won’t breastfeed, you don’t want to make it worse by feeling unexpected expenses on top of it. And, until you actually have the kid, you just don’t know.

I’m a little surprised only one commenter mentioned life insurance. I know so many couples without kids that have no or minimal life insurance, because they figure if one partner dies, the other will basically go back to single life just fine. When children enter the picture, that doesn’t work so well.

Especially because a single-parent family pretty much requires paying for day care. I’m surprised this wasn’t addressed at all – it’s not just for the duration of maternity leave that one has to be prepared to live on one income; either the mother doesn’t go back to work (and maternity “leave” thus becomes somewhat permanent), or you’re paying very high prices for infant day care. When I say I don’t have children for financial reasons, the cost of childcare is by FAR the biggest of those reasons.

Good post — we learned all this as we went along. I was lucky to work with some people who were happy to clear out the baby stuff just as we needed it! We have tried to pass along our stuff to others when we’re done with it.

It’s pretty easy to say no to your kids if you’re comfortable with what you ARE providing them, and what you’re trying to teach them. I agree with pps about allowance. Our 4 & 6 yo both get allowances, so if they want junky things we don’t want to buy them, they can buy it for themselves.

Also, a lot of overspending on kids is about what other people think. “Competitive parenting” and “keeping up with the Jones’ kids” can be very expensive. If you want to spend modestly on your kids, avoid the trendy/affluent neighborhoods or suburbs, where the “average” toddler wears designer clothes and the “average” teenager gets a car at 16 and goes to Europe every year. Either that, or prepare yourselves and your kids to “drop out” of the competition and be comfortable with your lifestyles. We’re doing a bit of both.

The other reasons parents tend to overspend are guilt and “wanting to give their kids more they I had”. It’s not good for parents to spend a lot of money on the kids just to make themselves feel like better parents.

We have our cloth diapers delivered here in Portland for $61/month. Of course, they pick up the dirty ones, too. I wouldn’t know how much disposables cost, but I would think they’d be more expensive than using cloth.

There’s a zillion-and-one reasons for breastfeeding -OTHER- than the price. So that’s a complete slam-dunk. It’s incomprehencible to me that anyone would ever plan anything else. Sure, there’s the cases where breastfeeding for various reasons don’t work, but that’s the small minority, 5-10% perhaps.

Google “health benefits breastfeeding” — and that’s benefits for BOTH mother and child.

Working as a social worker with moms and babies… with some exceptions, yes, breastfeeding is best for babies and moms. The health benefits for both are great, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out. While (hopefully) not an issue for this audience, I also deal a lot with substance abusing moms–they definitely are not the best candidates to breastfeed their babies until they get and stay clean.

Please oh Please do NOT circumcize your child just to save them some embarrassment. What a horrid reason. Other horrid reasons include “I want him to look like his daddy” and “I don’t want his future girlfriends to think he looks weird.” Seriously – if your religion dictates circumcision that’s one thing, but for other couples, please research the procedure and come to an EDUCATED reason to do it or not do it – leave juvenile things like “He’ll get teased in the locker room” out of it.

Rich Money Million, you said “I’ve read that unless you make more than $30/year, it’s actually a financial loss to go back to work and put kids in daycare.”

I’d love any more information or articles or direction towards where you go this figure. I agree with it and have looked at the “second income calculators” which suggest it, but any other ‘proof’ you know of would be wonderful.

Please oh Please do NOT circumcise your child just to save them some embarrassment. What a horrid reason! Other horrid reasons include “I want him to look like his dad” and “I don’t want his future girlfriends to think he looks funny.” Seriously – if your religion dictates you circumcise, it’s one thing, but other couples should research the procedure and come to an EDUCATED decision on whether or not to do it. “So he won’t get teased in the locker room” is the most juvenile reason I can think of, for circumcision. *headdesk*

Rich Money Million, I’d be interested on any links or info on what you said about it being a loss for people making 30k or less a year to go back to work.

Life Insurance and other estate planning: I agree that contemplation of these issues should occur even without kids, but they take particular importance with kids. In fact, it probably should be its own post someday. And yes, life insurance can expensive especially for us “older parents.” And there’s not much you can do about it.

On the topic of circumcision — there are reasons other than cosmetic and religious for why parents would not want to forgo this expense. Circumcision dramatically reduces the rate of penis cancer (1 in 600 for uncircumcised vs. 1 in 100,000 for circumcised). Rates of almost all STD/STIs and HIV are higher in uncircumicised males.
The few hundred dollars it costs for this procedure is worth the health benefit.

Great article. One suggestion for those who are disinclined to go the cloth diaper route. My aunt and uncle just had a kid and have 3 types of diapers for her (yes, three!): the cheapest is for everyday in-the-house use, middle price is for going out on excursions, and most expensive is for nighttime. It makes for more management, but it works for them!