#2 isn't actually time consuming, at least for clothes and toys (the things you'll be buying the most often--it's not like you have to go buy more bottles or an

#2 isn't actually time consuming, at least for clothes and toys (the things you'll be buying the most often--it's not like you have to go buy more bottles or another car seat every three months). Huge lots of kids' clothes are available on Craigslist for something like 1/20-1/10 of what they'd cost new. Every few months you just check craigslist for a couple of days until one pops up with the rights sizes, then buy it. You can go out any Saturday morning and round up a mountain of toys from garage sales with no special planning, and any thrift shop will have tons of them at any given time. And, again, Craigslist (and other similar services--my wife uses some Swap Shop thing that's AFAIK tied to Facebook even more than she uses Craigslist these days) When you're done with the clothes or toys, sell them the same way you bought them. All that stuff ends up being very cheap when you do it this way. It's easier than buying stuff new. The only time it's maybe more difficult is if you want something specific (e.g. LEGO bricks) (mid-size city. Maybe it's different in small cities or big cities)