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Newborn Baby Budget

Before I make your jaw drop with the facts of a newborn baby budget, can I tell you this one thing?

It's all worth it.

“A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be.”
--Anonymous

Every dime. Every sacrifice (and yes, someday you may have to give up that favorite gourmet coffee in exchange for the money to buy diapers, but it is still worth it!).

Some people assume that since we chose to have nine children, we must be wealthy. Nope.

We knew that having children would require sacrifices, and not just sacrificing money (but that story is for another article). The joy that we receive with the birth of each child more than compensates for any "sacrifices".

Now on to the baby budget...

Yes, having a baby can be expensive. However, much of it is determined by the choices we make. Breast Feeding vs. Bottle Feeding, Cloth Diapers vs. Disposable Diapers, Designer Clothes vs. Hand-Me-Downs, Jarred Baby Food vs. Make-Your-Own Baby Food, Day-Care vs. Stay-at-Home.

If you are on a tight budget, see tips and learn tricks on how to save big bucks on quality baby clothes at Best-Baby-Gifts.com

Other factors that influence how much money we need in planning for baby costs include regional cost-of-living, whether or not we make "a killing" from baby showers, how crazy the new grandparents go on buying for their new grandchild, and how good of health insurance we have.

Provided below is a newborn baby budget worksheet. It's my hope that you will find it beneficial in your planning. I recommend that if you have Excel, you download the Excel worksheet as it provides some calculations that will save you time.

Baby Budget Worksheet for Excel

Baby Budget Printable PDF

Do The Research

My favorite book on this subject, Baby Bargains: Secrets to Saving 20% to 50% on baby furniture, gear, clothes, toys, maternity wear and much, much more!, estimates that the 1st year average costs for a baby budget is $7205 in 2011 (based on name brand products at regular retail prices). This number excludes costs for medical care, childcare, and savings for college. It also assumes that the baby is exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months and then fed jarred baby food and formula until 12 months of age.

If you are looking for terrific ways to trim your baby budget down to a manageable size, put this book at the top of your list. (Put it in your budget under miscellaneous.)

One of the reasons why I can wholeheartedly recommend this book without reservations is the final page of the book. It says that if you don't save at least $250 off your baby expenses by using this book, they will refund the cost of the book! (Think of how many gourmet coffees that $250 can buy you!)

Not only does this book tell you terrific ways to save money on everything from maternity clothes to baby furniture to childcare, it also rates items on quality and safety. It's 600 pages full of tips and advice on what to buy -- and what not to buy.

For anyone on a limited budget, this book is a "must have". It's available in paperback or Kindle. Anyone who follows the recommendations in it should be able to shave off close to $3000 from that seven grand figure listed above.

For those of you not on a limited baby budget...wrong page! You should check out some of these incredible purchases!

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