The baby furniture is ordered, the mattress and bedding have been purchased, the paint color is being agonized over...all we need is the baby to put in the room! After this last week's spending spree, it's amazing to me what a baby costs. Granted, what we spent on just the sleeping arrangements for our future child cost less than one month of fertility treatment, but it's still mind boggling.
I don't have a problem telling you that we were spending 3K a month to GET pregnant. We only spent 2K to get a solid wood crib, 2 dressers, bedding, and mattress. Now we didn't have to spend that much money, but we tried to look long term. This crib eventually converts into a todller bed, and eventually a full size bed. And the dressers will work well for a teenager as well as they do for a baby. So in my mind, we saved money down the road, but what if you didn't have money?
For example, my mom lives next door to a girl who is 22 and had an "oops" baby. She's living at home with her parents (who don't make a lot of money), has no job, gets no child support. How does she afford to care for her baby? Even a CHEAP crib at Babies R Us ran about $250. You HAVE to have a crib, right? Even if you don't get a changing table or dresser....your kid has to sleep! They don't give out coupons for cribs, do they? I've been around to a lot of garage sales. They don't sell a lot of baby furniture. Toys? Yes. Cribs? No. Even the second hand stores and Goodwill don't have many. So what does someone in that position do?
But the scary part is that it's just the beginning of our cashapalooza......
6 comments:
There are programs out there that help people like the girl. It just depends on if they choose to take part in them or not. Someone who qualifies can get breastpumps, formula, diapers, carseats, etc. I only just found this out because of the population I work with.
It costs a lot of money to raise kids. With the diapers alone you could have funded 2 college educations (at least that's what it feels like anyway). Then if you do formula... jeeze! But we do it because we love our children! :-D
Woman, why are you buying all this stuff? that's what REGISTRIES are for!
And we spent $850 on the convertable bed ($700 for the frame and another $150 for the rails when it moves into being a full-sized bed). It's solid wood. it's heavy. I'm not kidding, EVERYONE comments on how nice it is when they walk in the room. I thought - i can buy a $250 piece of crap from Babies R Us and then spend another $450+ on a bed later, or i can get one piece of furniture now that looks good for the next 20 years and costs me the same thing.
OH, the mother's sale i'm going to in September has lots of cribs and bedroom items.
I agree with Karen--put some of this stuff on your registry. :) Then you only need to buy what other people didn't buy. I want to have an event that I do that. :) It seems like such a good system!!
As to the programs Sarah discussed, I don't know how many poeple know about them. I didn't until she said something.
I don't mind saying we went to Walmart for our nursery furniture. And we get a lot of nice compliments on it. And it's sturdy...come on. I'm Type A. Oh, and the crib converts, too. I'm not a fan of Walmart, necessarily, but I'm a fan of their prices sometimes.
Here's my 2cents on registries, take it or leave it. I would never have put large items like furniture on it. Because no one I know has that kind of money to spend on my child, whether they want to or not. I had a relatively conservative registry. And guess what. Hardly anyone used it. *shrugs*
Wow - Nicole's bed cost more than my bed. Granted I don't have a grownup bedroom set, yet, but the bed is still queen size and is great in terms of the mattress.
Daniel's crib we got at an unfinished furniture place- it was the display and already done up but they were discontinuing the style so I got it for $100. The matching changing table was another $100. I didn't want (and couldn't afford)to buy a second so my Aunt lent us her crib (that just barely met saftey standards). And I hung up all of their clothes- no dressers except the hanger shelves.
That's what we did 'cause we were poor residents. :( My poor babies.
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