advice from mummy's who are anal about finances! lol

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  mrs__e

  Feb 28, 2010 11:20AM

  i am in charge of finances in this house i put everything through microsoft money!
  
  anyway it really really is difficult to say. i am sorry that can't be of much use but these are things to consider:
  
  will any of your family be buying you things or handing things down to you? (my parents bought us his pram/puschair/car seat combination, which obviously helped us a lot, and we had a relative give us an almost new cot that they weren't using)
  
  will you have to spend much decorating/making room for the baby?
  
  i didn't want to buy too much when i was pregnant as i was scared (i'd had 2 MCs) but i did buy a few things like wipes etc when they were on offer in sainsburys.
  
  it also depends on whether you will breast or bottle feed - obviously bottle feeding is more expensive, but if you breastfeed you may want to express etc.
  
  we often get Argos vouchers for things so that saves us "spending" money at times.
  
  it might be worth getting a mothercare catalogue and having a look through there are some of the things you think you might need?
  
  you really can spend as much or as little as you want - everything varies in price. i've wasted money on some things that i've never used. other things (like his highchair) i wish we had bought sooner as it is fab and could have been used from birth.
  
  i could have a look at my "baby" category on microsoft money but i really don't think that would be of much help. we had do much bought us in the beginning (especially clothes) so it is difficult to say
  
  sorry!! xxx

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  mrs__e

  Feb 28, 2010 11:23AM

  ps you will also have to think about whether you will want to go back to work. we were lucky in that we never really spent that much money beforehand anyway, but i always assumed i would go back to work. now i am dreading going back and want to go back for as few hours as possible. we've realised we can get by on less money than i was earning before. i had no idea of that beforehand! xx

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  Nicky1976-97350

  Feb 28, 2010 11:35AM

  I agree, it'll cost you as much as you want to spend. I have found that our biggest expense will be household bills etc when i'm on maternity leave, we could never pay everything with 1 income and SMP so we saved like crazy beforehand so that i didnt have to worry about rushing back to work. most of our big things, pushchair etc will be hand me downs from my neice, but best thing is to check out ebay etc, peple sell brand new baby things for a fraction of the price

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  emsyj

  Feb 28, 2010 1:25PM

  My husband is very anal about saving and planning. In total he has set aside ??2k for buying baby stuff (although I don't think we will need all this as we're using cloth nappies, which my mum is buying us as a gift, and his parents are buying us the pram/travel system) plus ??12k for mortgage payments whilst I am on maternity leave, which is a bit less than the total cost of our mortgage for one year but enough to boost my statutory maternity pay to cover the mortgage and then we'll have his pay to cover other living expenses. He is very very organised with money which is brilliant cos I'm not at all!

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