Hellobee

I kept track of 90% of baby-related expenses for the first year of J’s life. I remember reading some similar posts on this and found it so intriguing to see costs among different families who live in different regions, work in different industries, etc. I would deem us as a fairly frugal family and I think what we spent on our son for his first year is probably a little less than the average American family; however I was a stay-at-home-mom until he turned a year old so we had no childcare costs and that helped tremendously. We also had very generous friends and family who gifted us about 60% of our baby registry and were blessed to only spend less than $500 for remaining baby gear and necessities. In addition I was able to nurse exclusively, so there were no formula costs and we didn’t take a hit to our food budget until he was about 9 months old and eating a considerable amount of solids.

I think sometimes the numbers that are out there seem daunting, but in my experience you spend what you have to and there are a lot of frills added into those numbers that may not be necessary. I know I definitely bought J a lot of clothes that were “unnecessary” because he technically had enough clothes, but I couldn’t help but buy stylish duds and pad his wardrobe especially during clearance sales.

Here is my baby budget breakdown for the first year:

Cloth Diaper Stash: $500, then an additional $280 when the first two systems didn’t work for J. Then we sold all the diapers and recouped $500 and put that toward J’s birthday party.

Disposable diapers: $350

Arms Reach Co-Sleeper:$160 + $15 organic sheet

Crib + Mattress/mattress topper: $188 for the crib, $115 mattress and our splurge item ($204) was this organic sheep’s wool mattress topper because J wouldn’t sleep on extremely firm surfaces. This provided a safe amount of comfort, I supported a wonderful small etsy business and even more I loved knowing what he was sleeping on was 100% natural! If I could go back I would have just purchased the crib mattress from them which probably would have been the same price as the organic mattress and topper together.

Rocking chair: $400 (sample sale)

Infant carseat: $100 using BRU coupons

Breast pump: $50 at secondhand sale + new tubes $20

Diaper Bag: $30 clearance at Bluefly

Changing table: $10 + plus supplies to fix it (craigslist) = $20.

Dresser: upcycled from my childhood; we just paid for paint: $15

Bookshelf: Mr. Pen built this, $50 plus paint and supplies $20

Food (6 months-12 months): about $200

Clothes (NB-12 mos): $500 – this is where I splurged. I did find a ton from craigslist, secondhand sales and received a few hand me downs, however I shopped the clearance racks every season and found so many great things that he ended up with more clothes than he technically needed.

Misc. Items: $350 – such as room decor (curtains, frames, organization, etc), books, toys, nose frida, humidifier, hangers, car mirrors, crib sheets, baby monitor, blankets, bibs, burp cloths, etc.

First Birthday Party: the $500 from selling his cloth diaper stash, plus another $200.

Gifted Items: bouncer chair, clothes, boppy, bumbo, bottles, books, toys, blankets and activity gym. Estimated cost of gifted items: $500

Labor/Delivery charges: $1,731.79

Total: $5,998.79

– To keep costs low I definitely “shopped around” and used a lot of coupons! To justify how many clothes I bought him, I purchased a lot for future seasons at end-of-season clearance sales. I already had about five pairs of shorts for him this summer that I bought last year for only about $2/each, as well as some tees for about the same price. That also helped me be able to “splurge” on some nicer items like good quality shoes. Carters has some of the best baby sales I’ve ever seen. We live near the outlet and a few times a year they have a 50% off the entire store and if you’re on their email list, they send out an additional 20% off $40+ coupon which is a huge savings. Stores like The Children’s Place outlet usually have amazing end of season clearance sales where you can get pieces for less than $5/each.

– Many clothes, toys and some baby gear are best bought secondhand. There is a baby consignment sale, JBF, that hosts a sale a few times a year in my area. First time moms of babies less than a year old get to shop a preview day before it goes live to the public. This sale sells everything you could think of: strollers, clothes, shoes, books, toys, exersaucers, changing tables, riding toys, etc. If I hadn’t been gifted so much gear, this is where I would have bought those extras like bouncer chairs, exersaucers, bumbos etc. I did purchase a number of books and clothes from this sale.

– If you are crafty, there are many items that are much cheaper to make on your own such as baby bedding. I bought $7 sheets from Target, and made a crib skirt myself.

– Be realistic about what a baby needs versus what you might want! I definitely would have loved a beautiful bedding set, an extravagant blog-worthy nursery, tons of beautiful wooden hand-crafted toys, designer clothing, etc… but I knew that J would know no difference – he needed a safe place to sleep, clothing, diapers, carseat  and food. Mostly everything else were merely “extras.” I skipped a lot of items for the sake of practicality and frugality. I wanted to save that money the first year so that I can afford those extras once he’s old enough to appreciate and enjoy them.

– Keep an eye out for the 20% off coupons from Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us. Both send out those coupons consistently. For our carseat, BRU was having a trade-in event; for trading in an old carseat we got a 25% off coupon in addition to our 10% registry completion discount. Also, if there are only a few things you need at one store, consider a baby registry just to use the 10% completion discount. Although our main registry was Amazon, we were able to use the 10% anyhow and purchase remaining items. Other specialty stores you might do this with are Land of Nod and Pottery Barn or even some online cloth diaper retailers.

– As hard as it is, avoid buying too many things before your baby shower. We were so blessed to receive such a generous outpouring of gifts, I was so shocked we had to buy so little ourselves.

– Take advantage of freebies while pregnant! When shopping at places like BRU, Target, Motherhood Maternity and other baby-related stores I was often given “goodie bags” of coupons, samples, gift certificates and other freebies just for being pregnant! Sometimes I had to ask and other times I was just given one.

Do you know how much you spent for your baby’s first year? Where did you save and splurge?