- This topic has 7 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 7 months, 3 weeks ago by
.
- Posts
How would you cut costs knowing that a new human is joining the family?
- Cheeky Wipes (other brands available) rather than baby wipes! Massive saving!
- Reusable Nappies, it’s a bit messy, but we just used them at home and it saved loads!
- If reusable nappies are not your thing, then use Aldi/Lidl nappies. They work just as well as Pampers and are way cheaper!
- Aldi/Lidl in general!!!
Our biggest thing was preparation. We weren’t worried about getting a few hand me downs.
We got a next to me cot from Gumtree for about £70 cleaned it down and it was good to go.
We shopped around for our travel system we went with a Joie Chrome pushchair and found a dlx model on offer saving a few quid. The same shop had received tye carrycot section 2 months earlier not knowing what it was had reduced it to a £1 from £100. We got the car seat from someone who had bought it in a package and didn’t want it. And got the base on gumtree too. All in all we more than halfed the cost of buying as a package and still use the pushchair and base at the moment over a year on.
Shop arround there are always bargains to be hadToday we picked up an entire wardrobe of 0-3month clothes from gumtree. At least 80 items with some brand new things in the pile for £50. Definitely worth it over buying new from shops with lots of other cheaper bundles that are available locally as well (wife wanted this one for the Batman onesies).
We were lucky with number one that we managed to squirrel some extra away to kit out the nursery and get the buggy etc, so we managed ok.
Looking at what we might do different for no2? Not a whole much as we’ve adapted to be pretty lean over the last few years so we’re comfortable but not overspending.
Areas were gonna focus probably to put a side pot together would be
• cutting bought meals out
(So take a picnic to any activities or days out we need etc)
– always take a refillable bottle on every trip.
• switch to reusable nappies
(Good shout on that!)
• cut down on number of meat based meals to reduce weekly shop cost.We’re holing to repurpose most of the stuff we’ve got already the. With clothes and furniture toys etc
I’m sceptical of some of the claimed cost savings of reusable nappies that I’ve read online. For our first child we logged every nappy change for the first four months and it worked out under £15 per month. We used mostly Aldi Mamia nappies but got a trolley load of Pampers ridiculously cheap when Netto closed down so I guess if you paid full price for brands you would save significantly more by switching to reusables. There are definitely environmental reasons for ditching the disposables but financially it’s not that clear cut.
My top tip for saving money and time is to get on the batch cooking. We always have tubs full of a variety of meals in the freezer ready to throw in the microwave and serve with rice/pasta/potatoes/whatever. Once your child starts weaning you can batch cook their baby meals too and freeze small portions in muffin trays.
I’d also not rush into buying gadgets before you know what you’re actually going to use.
Another tip – once you’ve identified things you want to buy, and if you don’t need them urgently, start tracking the prices that Amazon sell them for by looking up on uk.camelcamelcamel.com. You can be alerted when the price drops to a certain level. We’ve saved hundreds on pushchairs and car seats by waiting until they’re available at a good price.
It’s even worth checking prices on Amazon.de as we saved quite a lot importing from Germany compared to from the UK for a Cybex car seat (its a German company).
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.