I love hand me downs I take whatever I can get. And anything I can make by hand I make like all my blankets and even made cloth diapers but I wait till the fabric stores have coupons and a sale going on. And crackpots is awesome for cheap or free things u can repaint or fix up.
Hey that's my country of birth Croatia! :-) living in US now. We are having our first baby and we move a lot don't have many friends and family close by so we had to buy everything new. I'm very paranoid about second hand stuff from people I don't know. Anyways the biggest expenses here are bedroom furniture and stroller Car seat. We got new high quality set that will hopefully last for our next child and it converts into twin size bed. Car seats have expiration dates so we needed new and you also cant use them if they have been in a minor accident. But you are right everything is so expensive its crazy. So many things needed im hoping that most things last for the rest of our kids to come since clothes will only be used for a couple weeks at the most. Too much money.
I agree with you. I'm having my third daughter and the only thing I have bought new is my play yard.? I have yet to buy bottles. But those will more than likely be the only things I buy brand new.
Cloth diapers saved us thousands of dollars on our first baby and since we'll be using them again for our second baby our cost will be almost nothing (I need to buy some flannel for cloth wipes but that shouldn't be more than $20 plus a little time in cutting and sewing).