Having a baby on a budget

I've made no secret of the fact that it's taken a lot of expense to make Baby Bo, physical and emotional expense mostly, but there's a lot of actual financial expense there too.

For starters there was a £4000 loan for our private first round of treatment (which was ultimately cancelled so we didn't actually use it all).

Then there were all the pennies spent on our 'free' NHS goes. Whenever IVF on the NHS gets mentioned in the news it seems to be assumed that you're just handed the treatment on a plate, but there are a huge number of costs associated with it; travel to the hospital for scans and blood tests three times a week, the days lost from work for those appointments, the hotel you may need to stop in to get to egg collection on time, the recovery time afterwards which again eats into your work hours.

Plus there's the other little expenses associated with trying to conceive; 7.5 years worth of folic acid (admittedly, I qualified for that on the NHS but when they started finding my baby I switched to buying my own multivitamin), ovulation tests, the masses of pregnancy tests.

It all adds up.

People have been very quick to tell me that having a baby is expensive. We've spent thousands on making Baby Bo; getting ready for his arrival, we've spent hundreds and we're practically ready to go.

Here's how we're doing it:

Buy second-hand
This seems so obvious to me but the number of people who have reacted with horror at the thought of us putting our previous infant into things that have been *gasp* used before!

Newsflash! Babies grow. Fast.

In the same breath as telling me they only ever bought brand new stuff for their baby, at massive expense, these people often tell me how many things they passed on that had never been worn or used because baby outgrew them.

With that in mind, Mr Click and I have been scouring our local Facebook resale pages and eBay for bargains with the caveat that the two things we absolutely must buy new are the cot mattress and car seat.

Sometimes this might mean buying things a little sooner than you planned. I agonized over whether or not to pick up the Moses basket above when it was listed on Facebook as I'd only just turned 13 weeks pregnant, wasn't that too early?

The desire for a good bargain won out and we got it for £20, when the complete set online retails for around £140. Obviously we bought a brand new mattress but the whole thing came to less than £30.

Other great deals have included:

• A box of assorted 0-3 months clothing for £13 on eBay
• A bouncy chair for £10 from a local Facebook group
• A second bouncy chair (for Grandma and Grandad's house), baby gym, baby bath seat, and a selection of toys, blankets, muslins, and clothes of various sizes all for £60 from our next door neighbour
• A cot complete with brand new, never used mattress, for £45 from our friends' parents
• Another box of assorted baby clothes, blankets and bedding for £15 from eBay

We've got some filling up round the edges to do in the clothing department but getting second-hand means we have a good selection of clothes to be starting with. And what we buy new will be filling in the gaps, rather than having to start from scratch so it helps take some of the pressure off too.

Use what you already have

Buying baby stuff seems to be a lot like buying wedding stuff. You add one extra little keyword and suddenly there's another one (or two!) zeros on the end of the price!

I was horrified early in the pregnancy to discover that in one popular baby supply store you can buy a set of drawers for over £200 which you then have to pay an additional £60 to get a wooden tray to attach to the top to use as a changing table! Especially as 90% of the people I've spoken to have said 'don't waste your money on a changing table'.

Bo's room has been a spare room/general dumping ground since we moved in. We've put a bed in there, which we're keeping as it doesn't make sense to get rid of a perfectly good need he'll eventually need anyway. And two bookcases, one of which we always planned to keep in there for him, the other had a slightly more ambiguous fate.

Until recently.

It occurred to me that the bookcase would probably actually work quite well as a makeshift wardrobe. Sure enough, £21 later, we've bought some plastic tubs and baskets to use as 'drawers' and I've already started stashing baby clothes in them.

In the future we can buy a wardrobe when Bo's actually old enough to need one. And then I can have my bookcase back.

Accept hand-me-downs and gifts, but be specific

Several people have offered me freebies, just the other week at work a friend heard me talking about sheets for the Moses basket. A few days later she gave me a bag containing three from when her daughters were tiny.

Other people have offered to buy little presents or asked what we needed. It's weird to tell people what you want, but it's a good way to fill in the gaps in your inventory. To start off with I was noncommittal and replied with things like 'whatever, just clothes and things' which is clearly a frustrating answer to receive.

When a friend asked more recently I was perfectly happy to let her know I was looking for a baby sleeping bag. It gave her something specific to look for and I've got something to tick off my list of things to get.

Plus it saves me the trouble of having to clear through a bunch of things we'll never want nor need without hurting anyone's feelings. If you don't want your baby dressed in a certain style of clothing, tell people, they'll be grateful to get you something you'll actually like.

The biggest gift we've received is our pram, from my mum and step-dad (no pictures yet since it deserves a post of its own). We saved money here by doing our research, going for a less well-known brand and ordering it direct from the manufacturer. This meant that we got a lot more for our money than if we'd gone for the equivalent big name brand version.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have people who can spring for the big ticket stuff like this and we would have been happy going second-hand for the pram, then getting our car seat brand new ourselves. Bo's other grandparents have offered to take car of his next car seat for us which was also very generous and not something we were counting on. People want to get involved when you're having a baby so don't feel bad about saying yes if someone wants to treat you and the baby. Make sure you find out their budget and stick within it; spend their money wisely, you don't want to take liberties with their goodwill.

Speaking of which...

Set a budget

Mr Click and I never formally sat down with a spreadsheet to work out what we'd spend and where, but we had a rough idea of what we were willing to pay. We visited John Lewis and Mothercare early in the game to get an idea of prices for things, then compared then across the board in places like Tesco, Asda and online.

It's very easy to get swept up in the excitement of having a baby and get carried away buying things you could get cheaper or elsewhere.

Listen to advice (but feel free to disregard it)

You know how it is, you get pregnant and suddenly everyone's an expert on what you should and shouldn't be doing, but the people who have done it before are a handy resource.

I've asked countless people what their essential items were and what they've regretted buying. And been surprised by the answers a lot of the time. Changing tables are viewed by most as wholly unnecessary whereas you can never have too many blankets or muslins. Certain brands of nappies get ranked higher than others and plenty of people are quick to tell you which own brand products are better than the real thing.

Of course, for every person who insists they couldn't have done without the £200 vibrating baby chair for their colicky infant, there's someone else whose baby hated it. So ask around before making any big purchases and if you're at all unsure, don't rush into buying something just because someone else said you should.

Take advantage of offers and stock up in advance

Everyone seems to have a Baby Event every few months nowadays. Between us my mum, Mr Click and I have taken great advantage of the Aldi event, buying a little of everything so we've now got bottles, blankets, muslins (can't have too many, remember), towels and a baby monitor.

It felt a little strange to start buying nappies when I was just four months pregnant, but it helps to spread the cost. Better to spend the odd £5-10 on them now and get a good supply in, than find ourselves constantly running out and having to go to the expensive local shops when Bo arrives (though that well inevitably happen too).

I'm sure that there are plenty of other things I could add to this list. As it stands we've probably spent less than £300 kiting ourselves out for Baby Bo's arrival; including the travel system that's still less than £600 (we easily spent that much on hospital trips to the ACS clinic in Glasgow this year alone).

So while we might have spent a small fortune making the baby, we're fairly confident that we're saving enough money in our preparations for him getting here that we'll be able to focus on using the money we've saved to really enjoy him when he's born.

What are your tips for having a baby on a budget?