What's your budget for baby/kid stuff?

Re: What's your budget for baby/kid stuff?

• mssaint

  January 2012

  Last time we looked at the budget, we forecast expenses for the next few months - new car seats, baby gates, clothes, Cmas and birthday gifts, toys, diapers, wipes. I think we decided to allot about $100-$150 per month and I think that's on the high side.

  Food comes out of our food budget, and co-pays come out of our medical budget and daycare is its own line item (our second biggest after our mortgage!).
  

  I am buying gates, and new car seats and an umbrella stroller this weekend so I feel like I'm dropping a ton of money right now - probably $600 or so - but we haven't had any big baby expenses recently. Even Cmas and birthday were pretty low-key.
  

  

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• LindseyJW member

  January 2012

  we include these purchases in our misc. line item. but we haven't needed to make big purchases since we are on #2 and #1 doesn't really need a lot of stuff right now, at 5yrs old. 

  i'd say on average, we spend about $60/mo on stuff for them including diapers and wipes, but not including 4 seasonal clothing/shoes purchases. i try to do a monthly budget a quarter in advance, and project those bigger purchases out quarterly and try to adjust the savings budget accordingly so the money is available when we need it. so right now i'm working on the budget for april. 

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• Hey Jellisy

  January 2012

  We budget seasonally for clothes and fun stuff (you know sleds for winter, bubble mower for summer).  For big ticket items like car seats (we just bought two) they don't come around often so we just do miscellaneous funds as needed.  I tend to buy toys and books spread out over the year and not at Christmas/birthday time.  I am terrible at saving things and usually give them the toys, etc. as I buy them - I need to be better about this as they get older, at their current age they have no idea.  We use DHs bonus for real big ticket items, like a swing set.  He gets his bonus in Feb, so every January, after the amount is disclosed, we discuss what we are going to do with it. Diapers btw are in the food budget.    
  

  From December 29, 2011

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• pixieprincss member

  January 2012

  We budget $50 a month. That said, we were over budget last year and actual spending was more like $65. We CD, so unless we buy new diapers, that doesn't come out of that money regularly. (Establishing our stash was part of the over-spending last year). I BF, so that also has kept costs down. Other food comes out of groceries, as we did BLW and LO eats versions of what we are eating. Birthday and Christmas come out of gift budget lines. If we want something pricey, we need to underspend in other months. We are not big baby gear people, so we have minimal baby stuff and toys. What we do want, we borrow from friends, shop consignment and yard sales, look at Freecycle or CL, or wait for gift times (our families are big on giving from wish-lists). We do not have paid daycare, but that $50 does include treating our parents to dinner every now and then as a thank you for watching V or an occasional babysitter for a date. The $50 also includes any baby-and-me activities or dues to baby-related groups (like LLL), but not any whole-family activities (like eating out or going to the pool).

  

  
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