Six savvy money saving tips for new parents to save £100s on babies
TINY steps can add up to big savings for new mums and dads.
In the first month of a newborn baby’s life, parents splash out an average of £500.
But there are ways to spend less.
Mel Hunter looks at some simple money-saving tips . . .
JOIN THE CLUB
JOINING a baby club can get you vouchers and freebies.
But Coupon Queen and mum-of-four Holly Smith warns you may get swamped with annoying marketing spam.
She advises: “Set up a dedicated email so your main inbox isn’t deluged.”
Morrisons has just relaunched its Baby Club.
Shoppers who have a More loyalty card can stack up savings.
The Asda Rewards Baby & Toddler Club puts 50p in customers’ cashpots – to convert to vouchers – with every £5 spent on baby items.
With Boots Parenting Club, you get eight Advantage Card points for every £1 spent on baby products – five more points than with the Advantage Card alone, plus a free Aveeno product.
Brands including Pampers and SMA also have their own clubs dishing out advice and vouchers.
GO TO THE SHOW
THE big-name baby companies – and many smaller ones – have stands at The Baby Show with Lidl.
Sun readers can get a pair of free tickets to the next one at London’s Olympia on October 25-27 with the code PRSUNSAVER at thebabyshow. co.uk/olympia, saving up to £52.
For £6, get a Baby Show Goody Bag with products worth more than £75.
When Holly visited in 2019, she picked up a travel system worth £1,500 for £349.
Always compare prices online, and at Idealo. co.uk or pricerunner.com, and be wary of big bundles that may include things you will never use.
TRY SECONDHAND
NOT everything you buy needs to be new, except the cot mattress and car seat.
Check Facebook Marketplace, Vinted or find a National Childbirth Trust nearly new sale locally for second-hand baby clothes and clothes.
Join local mum Facebook groups. Search the name of your area along with “mum” or “parent” to find active ones near you.
BULK BUY ESSENTIALS
ONCE you have found a brand you like, it is worth bulk-buying your essentials such as nappies and wipes.
For example, Huggies Pure baby wipes this week at Sainsbury’s with a jumbo pack of 12 x 56 wipes for £7 with a Nectar card.
The same pack is £11.50 at Asda.
Compare the per nappy price on Pampers, Boots and Aldi nappies at bumdeal.co.uk.
It currently shows that the cheapest size one Pampers are on offer at Morrisons for 9p a nappy compared with 17p at Sainsbury’s.
Aldi Mamia size ones are 3p.
Asda’s latest Baby & Toddler Event runs until next weekend.
Get predicted dates for other supermarket baby sales at babyevent.co.uk.
There’s a big promotion at Matalan until Thursday, with hundreds of super-cute clothes for under a fiver.
CHECK BENEFITS
YOU may be entitled to a Sure Start Maternity Grant worth £500 and could get up to £442 a year for milk and food through the Healthy Start scheme, depending on your income and benefits.
In Scotland, help is through the Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods.
Pregnant and new mums get free dental care, plus free prescriptions, in England – the only part of the UK where you usually have to pay.
Claim Child Benefit worth £25.60 a week for your first child and £16.95 for any additional children.
If you or your partner earn more than £60,000, you’ll have to pay back one per cent for every £200 over this amount, or pay back the full amount if you earn more than £80,000.
It still may be worth applying, especially if you or your partner aren’t working or earn below the lower earnings limit for National Insurance contributions, as it protects state pension entitlement.
Check what else you could get at turn2us.org.uk.
FIND SUPPORT
NEW parents can find local support and advice on the NHS at nhs.uk/start-for-life.
If you’re coping with newborn twins the TwinsTrust helpline can give free support and advice. Call 0800 138 0509 or visit twinstrust.org.
Home-Start volunteers also help parents for free with practical and emotional support.
See home-start.org.uk.
Two-year pension wait
THOUSANDS of savers may have to wait two years longer to start drawing on their pensions following a huge mix-up, Sun Money can reveal.
In 2028, the age at which you can start taking money out of your pension will rise from 55 to 57.
But many savers have a “protected pension age” of 55, meaning they won’t be affected.
However some people may have lost that protection if they transferred pensions.
Experts say pension schemes should tell savers if they would be giving up a benefit by transferring their pension to another scheme.
But we have learned that anyone who has transferred their pension since November 4, 2021, and had this benefit, may not have been informed, while the scheme they transferred to was also not told.
The pensions industry is now running a huge “sweep-up” exercise to track down affected savers, but this has revealed that in some cases, it’s too late to reverse the loss of the benefit.
So thousands of people may have given up their protected pension age for good without their knowledge.
A spokesperson for the Association of British Insurers, which is helping coordinate the sweep-up exercise, told The Sun:
“Through the sweep-up, we’re working with other industry bodies to help our members safely share the data of individuals who have since transferred out of their pension, so that their new provider knows if they have a protected pension age.”
Savers miss £1.2k freebie
MILLIONS of people are missing out on up to £1,255 in FREE cash because they keep their savings in the wrong account.
Over a quarter of adults (28 per cent) keep their earnings in current accounts that pay no interest, says the Building Societies Association.
Most major high street banks offer no interest on current account deposits.
Of the 24 that do, rates are still outperformed by leading savings accounts, according to MoneyFactsCompare.
For example, Kroo, an online-only challenger bank, offers 4.1 per cent on deposits up to £500,000. But Cahoot’s top-rate easy-access savings account, pays 4.85 per cent.
Older savers generally have more savings so are the hardest hit if keeping their money in no-interest accounts.
With average savings of £25,000, they miss out on £1,255 in annual interest by not shifting their cash to an account paying 4.85 per cent, says the BSA.
Savers aged 18 to 24, with average savings of £7,800, forfeit more than £389 annually. While 25 to 35-year-olds, who have £16,800 squirrelled away, miss out on £837 a year.
Nearly half (47 per cent) of 18 to 24-year-olds keep their money in no-interest accounts, compared to just one in five (21 per cent) of those aged 55 to 64.
Andrew Gall, head of savings and economics at the BSA, said: “There is £250 billion in zero per cent accounts, money that could be providing an income.”