Yesterday my husband and I decided to head to the store to start a baby registry. Being both a minimalist and unbelievably frugal I could not believe the prices of the items I saw. How can something so tiny require items that cost so much?
Despite my price shock we walked around the store with one of those little scanners and walked out an hour and a half later with over $3,000 worth of baby stuff on our registry. The big ticket items included the crib, two dressers, a stroller and the most comfortable glider I’ve ever sat in. We created the list more for ourselves than for anyone else. It’s a good way to walk around and think about all of the things we should buy before the little one arrives.
In my mind the most important things are the crib and car seat. Everything else seems like it’s not so necessary, at least not right off the bat. I want to purchase an organic mattress, which costs a lot more than a standard one. I’d also like to focus on organic sheets and other bedding material.
We registered for typical items like bouncy seats, baby carriers and play yards. I took the advice of my readers and didn’t include diapers or baby clothes, since almost everyone said I’d receive a ton of that stuff anyway. In terms of cost I included a number of fairly inexpensive items. It’s actually pretty crazy to look at the list, items range from $2.99 to $500.
I’m not certain that we’ll purchase the dressers from the store where we registered. They were unbelievably expensive and at the end of the day I’m not sure they are worth the money. I have a feeling we can purchase quality furniture for a lot less somewhere else.
When we walked out of the store my husband and I looked at one another and said, ‘things are about to change.’ I’m definitely a bit OCD when it comes to clutter in the house and looking at all of the baby items I realized we’ll have a lot more stuff laying around.
So I’m off to prune the list to ensure we included everything I think we’ll really need and remove things that aren’t vital. I still can’t believe that we created a baby registry worth $3,000. While some of the organic items cost quite a bit more than the non-organic ones it’s still quite remarkable!
I just stumbled on your blog from another PF blogger . . . I totally relate to the sticker shock! I'm a new mom-to-be (due in August) and my husband and I also created a registry – mostly to track what we thought we wanted rather than use for a shower (we opted not to have one). With 3.5 weeks to go I feel very satisfied that we have almost everything that we need – I estimate we spent about $1,500 (and also received some very generous gifts). The only thing we haven't gotten yet is a stroller but I plan to "wear" the baby via a sling/wrap for the first few months . . . and a rocking chair/glider. I hope I don't regret not having a rocking chair but we really are cramped for space!
A friend sent me a link to this post. We just bought a Natura crib mattress from Eden Home, they were having a huge sale, we got a bunch of organic cotton crib bedding too, everything was 35% off. They had organic baby clothes too. I didn't see anything like strollers or bottles, but they did have an organic car seat cover. Happy hunting.
@wheresmomsmoney – Thanks for the comment. I'm interested in your decision not to have a shower. Did you specifically tell people not to throw you one or did someone throw you one but you asked that no one bring gifts?
@Andy – Thanks for the info on the organic site. I've been comparing prices on a bunch of things, but the bedding items here seemed pretty comparable to some of the lowest I've found so far.