Overview
This book is a fantastic account of the financial changes you face when expecting a baby and after the happy arrival. It includes top tips on how to avoid unnecessary spending/over extravagance when kitting out your nursery and what items you really don’t need. It also has invaluable information on creative ways to save money and even make some extra, around your children and existing commitments.
There is also a very useful “resource bank” at the back of the book which lists the websites / contact details of the many organisations (etc) that are referred to within the book, and this, coupled with a comprehensive index makes this book less of a read and more of an invaluable tool.
My thoughts:
What a fantastic resource!! I consider myself a very thrifty Mum and can general do pretty much anything really well on a pretty small shoestring, but even I found some invaluable hints and tips that hadn’t crossed my mind. One thing for sure, I wish I had this book before, when I was pregnant with Kieran. What a fortune I would have saved back then! I’m afraid I bought into the “you must have this, and this and this….” marketing that new mums-to-be are plagued with and this book would have kept me more grounded and quite frankly, have saved me a lot of waste!!
Now my bug bear with many parenting guides and written advice is that it is quite often impersonal and quite frankly condescending, however this book is anything but! Becky writes from first hand experience, and as a Mum. I read this book in one sitting and have revisited it a couple of times since- especially now that I am expecting baby number two! I have a friend who is due around the same time as me who is expecting her first child and has already realised that she is going to have to make huge changes financially who after hearing about this title, can’t wait to borrow/pinch it!
The one thing that really struck me about this title, on top of the excellent advice is the realisation that the family don’t actually have to miss out or suffer in anyway and you can have a perfectly great, interesting and memorable early family life, without overspending or creating additional debt.
Overall rating:
5/5 I would (and do) recommend this book to mums/parents-to-be, parents and anyone trying for a baby as a must-have title.
You can purchase this book from Amazon – Direct Link: http://amzn.to/d0lmkP and don’t forget to visit Becky’s fantastic website/blog, Baby Budgeting at http://bit.ly/3ZdA3M
