If you’re a parent, you probably have heard the scary statistic that it will cost you up the wazoo to have a child. Or, more specifically, more than $10,000 on baby’s first year, for the average family, according to BabyCenter.com.

Here’s a different, but just as jaw dropping, statistic. According to baby book authors Denise and Alan Fields, it costs $6,655 to outfit a baby and her room for the first 12 months, if you buy brand name products at retail prices.

Whoa.



My response is, why pay more than necessary? Hence, my willingness to use secondhand items. After all, they grow so fast, they’re in and out of it in a few months’ time.

Enter: my cousin Valerie. Val and I are the same age, but she churned out three little kiddies before I had even had my one. For years, she bugged me to “Hurry up and start, so our kids can play together!” The time wasn’t right. I missed that boat.



However, the good thing for me is that I am perfectly poised to receive all her leftovers. Her youngest child is just a year older than Olivia, so just as he’s getting out of whatever it is, Olivia is ready for it.

A survey of my house shows that just about everything in sight is from Val. This is probably an incomplete list: two (National Safety Council-approved) cribs, a playpen, two walkers, toys, stuffed animals, two high chairs, electric breast pump (if you don’t know, that’s a three-digit expense), a toddler bed, several car seats, two strollers, swing, nursing pillow, rocker, shoes, bibs, diaper bags, and bags and bags of clothes. Olivia has more clothes than both her parents put together.


I knew this was going to happen. The minute I announced my pregnancy, Val brought over bags of maternity clothes. When I told her where I was registered for the baby shower, she went back to the store and cut the list down faster than you can say “slash and burn Amazon rainforest.”

To the dismay of the shopkeeper, she removed fully 75 percent of the items off the list, because she had those items at home to give to me. “Tell people to buy diapers. You’ll need lots,” she warned. (I did, but few listened.)

Whatever Val hasn’t handed me, someone thoughtfully gave to me as a baby gift. How lucky I have been. The only thing I buy is diapers and food. It’s come to a point where if I think I need something, I ask Val if she has it before I go to the store. That woman is like my supplier. I consider myself very fortunate. (Thanks, Val!)

I know there are lots of people who think secondhand items are not good enough for their first child. Some of them even insisted that would be me. I’ve always had the same attitude about hand me downs, but they predicted I’d do an about-face once I actually saw the baby and decided ‘only the best!’ for my little precious. Well, that didn’t happen.


I don’t think I’m denying her anything. In fact, saving thousands of dollars on these material goods means I have more to put towards her education. And from a green standpoint, there’s an environmental cost to manufacture goods, so thanks to me and the piles of recycled kids clothes, some polar bear in the Arctic will have a chunk of iceberg to float on for another year or so.

SUGGESTIONS FOR ALTERNATIVE SHOPPING:
Craigslist, E bay, garage sales, LA Kids Consignment Sale, Children’s Cottage in Aiea consignment store

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