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There are common ways to save money when you are expecting a new baby (only buy the essentials and buy used or borrow from friends), but my number one money saving tip is a lot less popular.
The secret to saving money on a new baby is…
Don’t find out the gender ahead of time!
Waiting to find out the sex of our babies saved us a lot of money for 3 different reasons.
1. We were forced to buy gender neutral baby equipment. Every time Nate and I picked out a new item for our registry we asked ourselves, “Is this too girly? Is this too boyish?” We wanted to be sure that we could use everything again with our second child regardless of the gender. The oh-so-sweet pink bedding set (that you might have to replace if baby #2 is a boy!) is easier to leave in the store if you don’t know the sex of your baby.
Here are some of my favorite gender neutral baby gear:
- organic bedding set – This is almost exactly what we have except our’s has bunnies on it instead of deer.
- portable swing – I loved having a swing that folds up and doesn’t take up much space.
- play mat – Both of my kids loved the little animals on this thing.
2. The majority of our baby shower gifts were practical items. One of my girlfriends shared that at her baby shower she was flooded with pink clothes for her soon-to-be born little girl. The clothes were adorable, but she wished she would have received some of the more practical items off of her registry.
Nate and I didn’t have that problem. Since we waited to find out the gender of our first baby, everyone was able to avoid the temptations of the tiny pink dresses and little blue sleepers and focus on items that we really needed. Plus we were able to use all those items with baby number two!
Of course gifts of gender appropriate clothing are nice. We were extremely thankful for the ones we received after our babies were born. Don’t believe the lie that your baby will be forced to wear only yellow and green if you wait to find out the gender!
3. Sometimes gender predictions are wrong. With both of our pregnancies we waited to find out the sex of our babies, but we asked our ultrasound technicians to write down and seal their predictions in an envelope for us just in case we changed our minds. It was fun to open the sealed envelope in the hospital after Grace was born. When we opened Noah’s envelope…
It was wrong!!! I was so thankful that we waited to find out the sex. I can’t imagine the shock and stress of being mentally and physical prepared for a girl and then having a boy.
Our experience with Noah’s ultrasound predicting the wrong gender sealed the deal for Nate and me. If we ever decide to add to our family again we will definitely wait to find out the sex of the baby.
Waiting to find out the sex of your baby guarantees that your baby equipment will be gender appropriate for all of your children, it forces your friends and family to focus more on your practical needs rather than cute clothes, and it can save oodles of money if the prediction is wrong.
Psst! I want to interrupt just for a moment to let you know about the problem I had breastfeeding my children. The problem is called excess lipase activity and it caused my pumped breast milk to develop a bad taste over time. Because of this my children didn’t like to take a bottle of breast milk until I discovered the problem and was able to fix it.
I encourage all of you to taste your pumped breast milk to make sure you don’t have this problem! And if you do, I wrote an eBook all about my experience. I have all the answers you need to overcome excess lipase activity. I’ve got your back, mama!
Could you or did you wait to find out your baby’s gender? Do you think waiting can save parents money?
This post is being linked to Thrive @ Home, Your Green Resource, and Works for Me Wednesday.
Top photo by Cicely Berkey. This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Simply Rebekah.
Wow! I can’t believe that they thought Noah was a girl! That is crazy! This is a great tip that we totally didn’t follow. 🙂 I wanted to be surprised with our third, but my hubs said he couldn’t stand to wait. ha!
We found out the gender with both pregnancies. We still bought everything gender neutral because we didn’t know what our future children’s genders would be. We did buy some gender specific clothes with our first but not many because we knew we’d get a baby shower after the baby was born. And yes– I’m also always worried that their prediction will be wrong!
It was WRONG?? Wow! I love the idea of having the gender sealed in an envelope just in case. We found out with all 3. Not sure if we’d find out in future pregnancies or not. A friend of mine has 4 boys and is pregnant again. She found out last night – it’s a GIRL! You are right though – that would save a bunch of money!
We didn’t find out with either of ours. We “felt” our first one was a boy but we were way wrong! She is the girlest girl ever. Our second was a boy and we were able to use all our stuff, including bedding, toys and some clothes the second time. It was nice having the clothes already hanging in the closet as we had even less to shop for clothes with the a preschooler and an infant. My sister didn’t find out with her first and was able to use the items we had. Now that between the two of us we have had two girls and one boy. As the 3rd baby is outgrowing items we are trying to pair down to the items we know she will need (that are still in good shape) and going through clothes and trying to eliminate anything that is soiled or hard to put on infants ect. Because we are now storing both boy and girls clothes she will probably find out what she is having so we can get rid of one set of clothes. Don’t forget that gender neutral items can also be easier to sell!
So true! I had a baby in October and we didn’t find out. I told my husband a few times how that definately saved us money. Everytime I saw a cute outfit or baby item I never bought it because I wasn’t sure what we were having 🙂 I can’t believe that your ultrasound tech was wrong! I was kind of wanting to find out next time we have a baby, but after hearing this I don’t think so 🙂
Although I agree with this… knowing ahead of time can also help save you money… we knew with both what we were having and I was able to yard sale throughout my pregnancy for gender specific clothing…we kept our first baby’s gender a secret from everyone else and only registered for nuetrals, so got mostly necessity items at our shower.
I totally agree! I did not really need to have “the 20-week ultrasound” that everybody seems to take for granted these days. I had had bleeding in the 6th week and had ultrasound then and saw that the baby had 4 limbs, a skull, and a beating heart; we felt there was no need to check on it again unless there was some sign of trouble. So we didn’t know the sex, and that had all the advantages you mention.
Definitely, there’s plenty of time to get gender-specific items later. By the time my son was 2 months old, he owned 11 blue suits! 🙂 At yard sales before he was born, if I saw something gender-specific that I really liked, I went ahead and bought it–and then after he was born, the girl clothes went into the “things to give as gifts” box.
We went with gender neutral nursery items too. It’s a great way to save and be practical. I have a Tuesday Greens linky on http://www.craftygardenmama.com and would love to have you stop by and link up. Have a great week!
We found out with both of ours, but they were wrong for our son! So we thought we were having a girl and had all kinds of girl things and then surprise, it was a boy! 🙂
You can also buy or make inexpensive covers for things like the boppy, bumbo, car seats, strollers, and high chairs if you want to go gender specific. Our Finale is riding around in his big sisters hot pink car seat with a lovely inexpensive cover over it.
Honestly, I don’t think it saved us money when we didn’t know, but I can’t say knowing saved us money either. For our first 2 babies, the babies did not share their gender, so regardless of our wants, we did not know. We were planning on getting all our gear gender-neutral anyway, as we knew we wanted more children, so it would not have mattered if we knew or not. After #2, we moved out of state and ended up selling or giving away most of our baby items. When we moved back, we found out I was pregnant with #3. She did share her gender with us and we did receive a pink bedding set, but the other items we got were again gender neutral. The bedding set also didn’t really matter because she used it on her toddler bed, while baby #4, a boy slept in the crib with gender neutral bedding. In the end, we generally spent the same amount on the first two babies (gender unknown until birth) as we did on numbers 3 and 4 (genders known before birth). With babies 5 and 6 (5 we knew before birth and I am 8 weeks pregnant with 6 and planning to find out) we will be spending hardly anything at all simply because we had most of the big stuff on hand or received hand-me-downs from friends and family. Personally, I see both positives and negatives to finding out the gender ahead of time and for waiting to find out, but financially, at least for us, was not an issue either way. If you are one who has a difficult time fighting temptations to buy things, I can understand that finances would be an issue in the decision to know or not, and only you know your limits. Whether to find out or not is one of those areas that everyone has an opinion and no one person is right or wrong, nor are their reasons.
I think you are totally right. Some people are more tempted than others to buy gender specific items. I also think that waiting to find out the gender will save you the most money with the FIRST baby. After that, most people have the basic needs and it doesn’t matter as much.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and baby stories! Good luck with number six!
I agree! We didn’t know our the gender of our first baby and did receive more practical and neutral gifts (diapers, wipes, towels, money). Our decision to wait on the gender wasn’t based on a desire to save money, but that was a handy bi-product I didn’t realize until our second baby was born. 😉 I couldn’t wait to find out baby #2’s gender and probably wouldn’t want to wait with future babies, but it was a fun surprise with our first.
Hannah, we didn’t realize the money saving aspect of waiting to find out the gender either. It was a pleasant surprise along with the gender surprise! 🙂
I can see the logic in this, but you don’t have to make different purchasing choices just because you know the sex ahead of time. We knew we were having a girl…we still bought all gender-neutral equipment. And people *will buy* extraneous stuff for showers whether they know the gender or not (it’s like aunts are programmed to do that!)–I’m glad that at least we got clothes we could use instead of some of the more bizarro things they could have foisted on us!
In the end, it’s about deciding to be frugal about the impending arrival–mindset, not any particular choice!
You are right, Hyaline. You certainly don’t NEED to wait to find out the gender to make frugal choices. Some people (and some people’s relative’s) just aren’t that disciplined. Waiting helps. And… sometimes they are wrong!
We didn’t have a choice to find out and ours couldn’t be less than. 99.9% correct. We had an amniocentesis.
Hope we can wait to find out for the next one. 🙂
Another tip, is only have 5 weeks to prepare. We adopted and when we met our birth mom she was 7.5 months along. When you have so little time to prepare you don’t buy tons of stuff because you are too busy scrambling to get the basic necessities! We found out he was going to be a boy, but still went nuetral with all the major items because we decided we’d rather invest a little in things that were safer and will hopefully hold up better in case we get to do this again.
Only 5 weeks! Wow! I bet that was a crazy month for you!
Now THAT was an original post! I never thought of that. I knew the gender for two of my three, but either way very little money was spent on my babies. They slept with us, breast fed, wore top quality but always handmedowns from friends and cousins, and their special blankets were hand quilted gifts from Gramma. Cloth diapers, I had bought for an older sibling online (and I sold when he potty trained for about 75% of purchase price). The only thing I bought with my third was an amazing buckled Mai Tei style baby carrier that seemed outrageous at the time ($140!) but we still use with him three years later! Babies don’t have to be expensive!
Laura, you did an awesome job of keeping your baby purchases under control! Some people can’t handle the temptation. 😉
We were told girl and had a boy! We aren’t finding out next time 🙂 I wouldn’t change a thing of course, but I’ve gone through a couple hormonal days of feeling like we lost a girl.
April, I went over to your blog and read your post. It was so touchy. I’m sharing it on my Facebook page tonight. You can check it out at Facebook.com/SimplyRebekah.
I can beat you all–they were wrong with all three of my children!
What?!? That is just crazy!!! I need to hear this story!
They called my first child a boy, she was a girl and we named her Michael Ann; they called the second a boy, we named her Christopher Lynne. They said the third was probably a girl because my husband’s three children were all girls. We named him Devin Scott. They just called them wrong.
That is just crazy! Thanks for sharing more of the story.
Whoa, I can’t believe the ultrasound technician thought your babe was a girl! That must have been rather shocking to open. I loooove the idea of having them write down the gender, and put it in a sealed envelope. I am definitely tucking that idea away for the future.
It was a shock, but it would have been an even bigger shock if we were expecting a girl! Noah’s birth was full of all kinds of surprises. I think that would have pushed me over the edge completely. haha!
We are about to have our second and have not found out the sex for either. A big reason we didn’t was to avoid the massive piles of kids clothes. We have just enough gender neutral clothes to get us through the first 3-6 months. I did buy two outfits (on sale) for if we have a boy/ girl. Since all our friends are having babies too with the first inwas able to give away the unneeded outfit and I’m sure I will be able to this time as well.
Danielle, that is a great reason to wait to find out the gender. People find it really hard to resist all the cute clothes when they know what gender you are expecting. Clothes are a blessing, but too many clothes can be a problem – especially if you are left with other necessities on your registry that you really need, but aren’t being purchased.