I’m a new mum and here’s six ways we cut costs when stocking up for our first child – use your baby shower tactically
A NEW MUM has revealed six easy ways to cut costs when preparing for the arrival of your little one.
Emma Kay Smith suggested waiting until the nine-month mark to start shopping to avoid duplications and using your baby shower tactically to stock up for FREE.
She also shared that she and her partner have only bought two packs of nappies since the birth of their daughter Capri, thanks to her generous friends and family.
In a new TikTok reel, she said: “If you are pregnant or you want to have kids soon but you’re kind of worried about breaking the bank when it comes to getting all the baby necessities, listen up.
“I’m going to share five or six different ways that my fiance and I saved money when I got pregnant.
“Because our pregnancy was not planned and we were not financially ready.
“Okay the first thing, and probably the most important thing, is to make a registry with everything that you actually need, and put on the invitation and ask your guests to please stick to the registry.
“We were coming to our baby showers from out of town so we put on the invitation like, ’due to small car space, please stick to the registry’ or something like that.
“And mostly everyone stuck to it.
“Number two, add diapers to your registry. Or have a co-ed baby shower and have the men bring diapers and the women bring different gifts.
“We’ve only had to buy one or two little packs of diapers and that was when we were travelling.
“And we probably won’t have to buy diapers until she’s like past a year old.
“Number three is to add lotions, like shampoos and sunscreens to your registry. But not just one of each, do like three or four of each.
“I added a bunch of lotions and sunscreen and body wash and all that to my registry, and I had someone gift me three or four of each of them. We are set for a long time.
“Number four, try to keep yourself from shopping for your baby as long as possible.
“I know this is so hard but take it from me, you’ll want to shop even more when your baby is actually here.
“Because now I wake up and I’m like, ‘I want to get her a little outfit, like c’mon Capri, we’re going to TJ Maxx’.
“But I’m proud to say I held off buying her any clothes until I was literally nine months pregnant, and that saved a lot of money.”
Emma’s next tip – try to be as minimal as possible when it comes to bottles and other essentials.
For example, their family only have two bottles – one to use and a spare.
She continued: “Number five, be as minimal as possible. For example, no one got us bottles from our registry so we had to get them ourselves, and I see these people with a million bottles, and I know that it’s different when you exclusively formula feed, but we have two bottles.
“And we’ve only used those two for her entire life thus far and it’s been fine.
“Same goes for bibs, we have two. Same for forks and little baby spoons, we have two of each.
“Just be minimal, I promise you don’t need all the things that you think that you need.
“Number six is breastfeed.
“I am not trying to do this to put anyone down or say that formula feeding is wrong, I’m just saying that it saved us so much money.
“It can definitely suck at times, but also there’s downsides to formula feeding as well but personally it saved us a bunch of money and I’m so glad that we did it.”
Fans loved the mum’s savvy tips, with the video gaining more than 27,600 likes and 232,700 views.
In the comments, other parents shared their thoughts, with one writing: “Yeah I’m 32 weeks and I literally haven’t bought anything full price this pregnancy yet!!!! Catching deals & our registry were game changers.”
Some shared their money-saving suggestions, with another adding: “If you do a gender reveal, say if you think the baby will be a boy bring diapers, if you think it’ll be a girl bring wipes!”
“Girrrrrl Facebook Marketplace saved our life,” added another.
A fourth commented: “This is really solid advice! Thanks from someone who also had an unplanned, financial unready pregnancy.”