My husband and I didn’t financially plan for having a child. Rather, we psychologically prepared to assume more debt once I went on maternity leave. This is the norm for a lot of people. Pregnant women get lots of advice and one thing I had repeated to me several times was: get your line of credit increased before the baby arrives.
As I posted before, we were quite surprised to find ourselves not in the hole when Henry was a few months old. So surprised we were motivated to get real with our finances.
In searching around I found this statistic from the Canadian Council on Social Development.
Raising a child can be an expensive undertaking, with the first year being the most expensive. In 2004, over $10,000 was needed to raise a child to age 1. Parents spent the least amount of money – close to $7,000 – when their children reached age 12. Expenses for both boys and girls then began to rise again as they entered their teenaged years.
I’d have to agree with this, the first year has been expensive. I cringe at my former addiction to the Babysteals website (which I will not hyperlink to out of principle) and what it did to our credit card bills. Cloth diapering will save you money in the long run but in the short term I became obsessed with finding the perfect diapering system. And just kept buying and buying different kinds.
Does it have to be this way? I don’t think so. I’m now much more open to buying used items on Craigslist and also having a lot less. Does a nine month old really need seven pairs of shoes? At the moment Henry has two pairs, one for indoors and one for outside. I say this and he isn’t walking yet. He could probably just have one pair for surface walking at the park. We’re also out of the crazy spit up on everything phase and into the less messy drop peanut butter toast on self phase. Henry no longer goes through 4-6 outfit changes a day.
Children don’t need as much stuff as we think they do. Babies R Us would have you believe a motorized infant swing, jolly jumper, exersaucer, indoor push cart thing and much much more are necessities. Not true. These things weren’t around for babies just a few generations ago and grandma and grandpa learned to walk, talk and tie their shoes just fine.
How to save and not spend on unneeded baby items is a big topic for me. I’m working on an e-book for new and expecting parents on how to have less stuff. It’s one part inspiration on how to get out of the more stuff mindset, one part product review on the necessities vs. the clutter and one part manual on how to buy and sell used baby items.
For more on this topic here check out my top posts on taming the toy box here. And one of my most popular posts: A Minimalist Guide to Baby Essentials.
Have you spent too much on baby items? What were your best and worst purchases? Leave the info in the comments and help all of us save space and money.
Coming late to the party!
I’m surprised to see the $10,00 figure as I think we’ve spent a lot less. However, as soon as I think about the fact that we chose to rent a 4 bedroom house in order to give the new baby his own room, and that we sold our two fuel efficient cars and bought one very inefficient seven seater in order to be able to drive the family around in one car, I can see how the costs I don’t usually think of add up.
I agree with the poster who said concealing the gender of the child slows down the gifting pre-birth. My mother in particular lamented that she couldn’t buy her grandchild things because she didn’t know what gender to buy for.
Love your blog.
When I was pregnant with my first, I had no idea how we were going to afford cribs, strollers, formula, bottles, diapers and of course: the hospital bills. After doing a lot of research I got hooked on the idea of a homebirth, which led me to things like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing and such. Long story short: we never bought that stuff. Turns out you don’t need them! I made my baby slings, my sister and I share baby clothes, we EC-ed, and now that my LO is over a year, I can honestly say she’s cost us a grand total of $2,000 (the Midwife’s fee) and just under $700 for toys, clothes, birthday and Christmas presents. I learned not to listen when people say babies are expensive. They’re only expensive if you want them to be.
Thanks for the comment. I agree: babies can be so much cheaper than magazines and friends lead you to believe.
Thanks for your comment, Cheryl. It is true: the most important thing for a baby to have is loving parents. I wish I had wrapped my head around this while I was pregnant and in my son’s first months. At least I have realized it now =)
I think one of the best things that moms of today don’t have that moms of kids 20 years ago had were… grandmothers that lived through the depression. 🙂 Since my mom died when my oldest was a year old, my grandmother taught me how to raise a baby with next to nothing, home made “cures” for things like diaper rash, thrush, cradle cap… you name it. I’ve been to baby showers recently and have been shocked at what gets bought (and the prices) as my experience was so different. I don’t even know what I’d do with a change table, I’ve only ever changed a baby’s diaper with them balanced on my lap.
I don’t know that Christmas and birthdays get harder necessarily. But I can’t really say since for Christmas this year my oldest (22) asked for a $20 book and my youngest (10) asked for a $30 game. I don’t really know how they ended up that way, but am glad that they did. Unfortunately, it makes me feel like spoiling them. 😛
We have a “Cadillac Escalade” of a stroller BUT we do all of our grocery shopping on foot and don’t use our car much. The stroller has great storage and I can buy a week’s worth of grocery with it. We also walk a lot. On Sunday I walked to the swap meet, back downtown to meet friends and walk them to the aquarium and then home – 16 kilometers with the stroller. While the stroller was expensive, we’ve already had great use out of it and it is one of my few non-regrets for baby stuff.
I will admit my two diaper bags were a complete waste of money. I have a large purse I use most days and it easily fits the baby necessities. Diaper bags are a scam!!
I found that waiting to find out the sex of the baby really kept down the spending spree before the baby arrived. We had a lot of hand me downs from other friends too. I have also found an excellent listserve for our neighborhood that has everything on it second hand. It’s a great way to get things back into rotation for other kids. The trick too is to only allow enough toys that fit in the toy box.
Our PEPS group has been doing toy exchanges. When they get bored with toys and books you bring them to the group and exchange for a couple of weeks. Then you get new stuff that doesn’t cost anything. You also don’t add more than you had before.
We have actually saved a lot from not going out to eat and going to the movies over the last year. I’m embarrassed to say that we have not seen a movie in the theater since Avatar, but we use Netflix like crazy.
I think the hard part is coming. Xmas and Birthday. We are thinking of putting the money we would spend on stuff toward his education fund.
Love all your recommendations and the links you are posting!
Love the toy exchange idea. Will be bringing it up with the moms I know here.
We’re still seeing movies regularly thanks to our babysitters (mom, Katy) but we use Air Miles to buy gift certificates to go. So we’re either getting 2 for 1 admission or free admission plus snacks. Otherwise the eating out has also been drastically reduced by the addition of child. There are some savings =)
Christmas and birthdays are hard and will get harder. Luckily right now he is too young to understand the concept or care. Easy enough for us not to get him presents and also just put money in his education fund.
Miss you! Can’t wait to see you guys. Might be down end of this month – Chris has a show.
Thanks, R.S.
We are officially without any plastic baby containment centres for Henry. No exersaucer, no Bumbo. We have a pack ‘n’ play (hand me down) in the living room but it is mostly used as a refuge for him when I am in another room (we have hardwood floors). At this rate I may be using a drawer for a bassinet for the next one =)
Weird that link from the Canadian Council on Social Development has married, common law, and lone parent. What of mixed families? All divorsed parents are alone.
As well, 10k declining to 9k for year two, and then declining by 200 per year until 12 and 7k then increasing by 500 per year til 20 years of age is a reasonable model. The is roughly 175k in total. This is as much as I expected to spend exclusive of housing upgrades, expensive hobbies, and travel expenses for kids. Two kids and one house will cost me and my girlfriend a million. I’ll pay for that. Except that is just a daunting sum of money. I’ll just have to be a good worker and hope my and her skills are in demand. As well, we will need to stretch our money. Can’t do anything about housing bubble. And I am not sure I will have the energy and creativity to make my home run efficently and cheaply. However, I am going to try.
Miles: it is a daunting sum of money. It hasn’t been until having a child that I have had some understanding for the choice not to have children. This is just the financial cost – the toll on lifestyle and relationships can be just as harsh. Or rewarding. To be honest it is a mix of both for us. The rewarding part is winning out so we have decided to keep him instead of selling him to gypsies =)
We live in a high cost of living city. The bubble has yet to burst on the housing market. Chris and I have lightly discussed moving somewhere cheaper. It is an option for us because Chris can work from anywhere. But the pull of family and the beauty of Vancouver keep us here.
Probably yes, but my spending was limited by the wonderful hand me downs received. Hand me downs or Craigslisting are a great way to limit cost for sure (people are all too happy to not be storing such items so it seems to be a win-win) but what about clutter? My issue is that I can’t really get rid of the hand me down items since they are on indefinite loan to me (i.e. until I am sure I am done having kids). So until then they are being stored at my Mum and Dad’s in every available closet. Neatly organized and put away, yet I still have that yucky feeling as if when I open the closet everything is going to pour out on top of me (see Rachel’s earlier blog re: her recurring dream).
When we first learned I was pregnant, I decided I just wanted the basics. I don’t think I was referring to it as minimalism at the time, but that is what it was. All I wanted to have were diapers, a few clothes and somewhere for her to sleep. Then … Oh and a stroller … oh.. and a mobile and oh… a baby carrier and oh yeah, books, and oh right, toys and… and… and… the one thing I can honestly say was worth it’s weight in gold was the Jumperoo. We got many hours of joy out of that… she loved it and I loved being able to give her something fun to do while I did the dishwasher, etc.
Key items now? Books, anything that makes a sound, small things in a container that she can pull out and inspect. We have this soft toy box/bag that I put anything smaller than my hand in and she pulls out, but another friend hides objects under plastic or metal bowls and her baby turns them over to find what is underneath.
To be honest, most of the Lamaze toys did not see much action, nor did any of the stuffed animals. She actually played more with two plastic bowls that I put in her play area… banging them together, putting things into them, turning them over, etc. Look in your cupboards and drawers to see what durable items they might like to play with before you spend $20 on a toy that looks cool but won’t get much use.
When do they start playing with stuffed animals? We had so many that I donated a bunch. Holding onto a few for when he shows interest.
Hilarious about the Lamaze toys being beat out by cups. At the moment my calming toy for Henry is the top to his sippy cup.