Hello everyone! Here at The Financial Wilderness we’ve got a baby on the way, and anyone who’s been through the process will know that the amount of stuff it’s suggested you buy can be slightly overwhelming. So today I’m going to be covering my tips on how to save money when buying baby stuff.
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Save money with a wait and see approach for baby stuff
One of the challenges of buying baby stuff is that you’ll get fairly contradictory advice from everyone. One parent will tell you something is an absolute must have, another will tell you they got exactly the same thing and ignored it.
As a new parent, there’s a fear factor that you won’t have the right thing when you need it. There are some things you absolutely do need in the moment like nappies and a crib. Some aspects like a feeding chair or a chest of drawers with a changing topper? They can help, but absolutely aren’t essential
So we suggest working out what you see is essential because you can only really work out what’s useful when baby arrives and you start to get a sense of how they feed, sleep and play. You can then tailor your approach around this.
We sometimes forget that in the age of rapid delivery and supermarkets (in many places, not all) having longish hours and being reasonably close it’s not very hard to start course correcting as you go.
Save Money with Specialist Charity Shops for Baby Stuff
There are a number of charity shops that specialise in items for children, and we often found items we’d describe as being in a nearly-new condition as a considerable markdown on buying new. This included bigger ticket items like prams, cots, toys and baby rockers.
Where I think the charity shops come into their own is for baby clothes – they grow up so fast that you’ll be on a constant rotation of these and whilst it’s lovely for them to have a special outfit, they’re not going to be in anything very long!
We picked up some really nice M&S, White Company etc. pieces for very little.
Baby specialist shops can be a little bit regional – for those in London and the surrounding areas, we found FARA Kids who work as a charity supporting Romanian orphanages to be particularly good. It’s also nice to feel a side effect is a charity is benefiting from this!
Save money with secondhand fairs
Schools in particularly will often host and run secondhand fairs, given the have an obvious link to parents who may be looking to pass on items to start the journey.
This is an excellent way of picking up clothes in particular, and you can get a good range of items throughout the baby, toddler and child life cycle.
Save money with baby and toddler shows
If you’d prefer to go down the buying new route, it can be worth seeing if there are any baby and toddler shows on in your areas.
These tend to be well attended by the baby and toddler product manufacturers and as they’re looking to sell as much as possible, there does tend to be some good deals on offer.
We recommend going after doing some research beforehand on pricing to make sure you’ve got a sense of what a good deal actually is. It’s also worth usually going earlier rather than later in the show, as you can find stock is running short on the later days.
Save money with Supermarkets for Baby Stuff
People used to be a little bit dismissive of supermarket clothes ranges but it’s really not justified, and baby clothes in particular are an area they excel at.
You’ll often get some really good deals and can combine them with baby promotions.
Tesco and Asda tend to get particular plaudits for their baby products, and we’ve highlighted in our article on UK shops with baby discount schemes that Morrisons and Asda have add-ons to their reward schemes to provide extra benefits to parents of babies and toddlers.
Save money by Borrowing Baby Stuff
There’s a few different ways you can look at saving money by borrowing baby stuff.
Save money by borrowing baby stuff from a friend
The first and most obvious is from friends who have had children and have made the decision to store stuff. Obviously they own the underlying and it’s important you note what’s there’s to give back to them.
It’ll depend on the individual person if they’re happy to lend you items – some of them might be connection to treasured memories for their own child that they’d like to keep.
Save money by using product rental scheme for baby stuff
National schemes remain quite rare, but increasingly there are local networks cropping up designed to enable an ability to rent some of the big
There’s a few items which you might need for a very short period of time (such as a TENS machine for pain relief in the birthing process) where you can rent them from Supermarkets or Chemists – we got one from Boots.
Save money by borrowing from a toy library
Whilst your baby or child will want some of their own toys, there are a number of toy libraries out there (our real library hosts one of these) where you can borrow various items.
This is a really fantastic resource for giving your child some variety, but also to work out what they play style is to work out what might be worth buying, and what they may not be so interested in.
Save money by utilising baby discount schemes for baby stuff
Discount schemes for baby and toddlers are complex enough to merit their own topic, so we’ve written a separate article on best UK shops with baby and toddlers discount schemes.
Save money on baby stuff with Vinted
Online second hand clothes site Vinted has become a really popular option for buying baby and toddler stuff, with clothes in particular.
The reason for this is that it provides the option to buy bundles, where you get a variety of items at once in a convenient package where you can get a range of items for particular age groups very easily.
The site is easy to use, but you need to be aware of you bear the shipping costs and fees as the buyer and once you account for these, you need to make sure you are actually getting a bargain.
Is baby equipment safe to use second hand?
Generally yes with a couple of exceptions.
Car Seats
Car seats are inadvisable to use second hand unless you know the full history of it’s usage and if it tallies to present safety rules.
The reason for this is that if it’s been involved in a previous accident or sustained damage from being dropped, this may limit the safety effectiveness.
Cot Mattresses
Research has shown an interest in sudden infant death syndrome with using a cot mattress previously used outside the family home – this is also a relatively inexpensive item, so it is better to buy a new one you know the sourcing off.
Everything else
With everything else, it’s really important to do a full inspection and make sure the equipment is in good condition and has undergone full washing and cleaning.
And that’s it!
We’d absolutely love to hear from you if you have any other tips on how to save money on baby stuff – just drop us a note in the comments below.
And that’s it!
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