Zatera Ul

This is my Official Blurb for the book:

“These are tough economic times, and having a baby seems like an unaffordable luxury to many people. But it doesn’t have to be.

This book provides a crash course in superfrugal baby care, starting before conception and continuing through the baby’s first year. You can make, birth, house, feed, diaper, clothe, entertain, and transport a baby for a mere fraction of what the experts say it all will cost, and have fun at the same time. I wrote this book to be the reference that I wish I’d had before I started having children. It starts with basic financial planning for aspiring parents and straightforward how-to instructions for frugal baby care, and keeps right on going into black-belt frugality topics and some of the more controversial issues of modern parenting. I’ve read the studies and done the math, and in this book I tell you what I’ve learned. At the end there is a long list of helpful print and online references, for further reading.”

The book is available from Lulu.com here. There’s a free preview of the entire book (of rather poor resolution, but readable), a download version (currently $1.34 after a 10% discount), and a paperback version (currently $14.99 with a 20% discount, so $11.99). Shipping for a single book starts at about $4.

The book is also now available from Amazon.com here, current price is $14.99, and it is eligible toward the free Super Saver Shipping.

Also it is available from Barnesandnoble.com, for the same price as Amazon.

Lulu has even managed to convert it to an ePub, with a fair degree of success. It’s not as pretty as the other options, but is easier to read on the go. This format is available from both Lulu and the iBookstore, for $6.99.

The main topics that it covers are:

The details of how the USDA determines that it costs about $200,000 to raise a child, and why they are both wrong and right.

Financial preparation for parenthood.

The different kinds of prenatal/childbirth care providers and how to pick one.

When to leave work and start maternity leave.

Options for working (or not) after the baby is born.

Understanding insurance benefits.

Feeding, including how to make your own baby food.

Diapering, demystifying cloth diapers and how to compare costs against disposables to see if cloth will be cheaper in your situation.

How to make a nursing top, simple diapers, diaper covers, and a comfortable baby carrier.

Choosing daycare and babysitters.

Which baby stuff is most essential and useful, and lower-cost alternatives for most baby gear.

How to weed out bad baby care advice.

Getting your financial life back in order after the baby is born.

Advanced frugality topics such as the connection between creativity and frugality, and how you can create personal rituals that bring you joy while also saving money.

I don’t know of any other single book that covers all these topics. The Complete Tightwad Gazette contains many helpful hints, but the ones pertaining to babies are relatively few, scattered throughout the book, and not entirely in accordance with modern safety standards. Baby Bargains is a helpful buying guide, but doesn’t go into the frugal alternatives to buying new retail items.

Since I’m self-publishing, there was no editor to restrain me from throwing in allusions to other subjects, such as architecture and economics and computer science and artificial intelligence and theology and decorating, or from illustrating the book with cartoons of Martians, or from referencing a lot of “out-of-date” books by authors that are still worth reading. I also put in a list of online resources that I’ve found helpful. The book is 200 pages altogether, and there’s a decent amount of meat in it. It has a good index, too.

This book is for anyone who would like to have a baby in the next few years, but is holding back because of the state of the economy. By all the indicators I’ve been following, the economy is going to be at best limping along for the next few years, if not actually in Great Depression 2.0, and extreme frugality will be almost the only way to start a family while keeping off the dole. If you’re not planning on having a baby yourself, maybe you know of someone who is almost ready to start a family. This book would be a good graduation or wedding gift, and a very tacky baby shower gift or gag gift.