They retired in their 30s and saved $10,000 in their baby’s first year. Here’s their secret to cheaper parenting - Toronto Star

The baby industry is counting on your guilt. Here's how to push back.

From baby gear to education savings, here’s how to keep costs down without compromising on what matters most.

While most Canadian parents struggle to keep budgets in check, Kristy Shen managed to save more than $10,000 in the year after her son was born. She bought a used $300 bassinet for $30, paid less than 40 cents per onesie at a second-hand shop, and took a business-class flight to Switzerland for just $200 per person.

The same strategies that let Shen and her husband, Bryce Leung, retire in their early 30s form the foundation of their new book, “Parent Like a Millionaire (Without Being One)” — a road map, they say, that any parent can follow, regardless of income.

The costs of raising a child are staggering — and growing. Canadian families spend an average of $17,235 per year raising a child from birth to age 17, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada, though that figure is likely higher since the data was released in 2023. The global baby products market alone was worth more than $355 billion (U.S.) in 2025, according to Grand View Research, and is projected to top $579 billion (U.S.) by 2033.

Shen says it’s easy for “big baby” to target parents, because society frames spending on yourself as frivolous, but spending on your child as virtuous.

“Here’s the secret,” Leung says. “How much you love your child is not related to how much you spend on them.”

The co-authors and other financial experts say parents can maximize savings by shopping second-hand, investing in kids’ education funds and ETFs, and renting homes and cars instead of buying.

Shen has saved thousands each year by buying second-hand. She’s purchased used BabyBjörn carriers and bouncers, Babyzen Yoyo strollers and Lovevery toys through Facebook Marketplace and Karrot — a neighbourhood-focused buy-and-sell platform. She bought a baby carrier worth more than $250 for less than $50, and a second-hand bassinet that retailed for $300 new for $30, then sold it for $65. Many items were new or only used for a few months and still under warranty. (Leung recommends searching model and serial numbers to check for recalls.)

The couple has also scored free items through social media, including boxes of diapers parents gave away after their infant outgrew them.

For toys, Shen takes her son, now three years old, to second-hand stores like Value Village and Goodwill, where he can try something out before she buys it — eliminating the guesswork of buying new.

Shen also buys her son’s clothes at a local Value Village, which offered a deal letting her fill a small bag with baby clothes for just $3.99. She once squeezed in 12 onesies, working out to about 33 cents per piece.

Shen and Leung found that daycare is typically most expensive during the first few years because subsidized spots are harder to find. These spots are often easier to find after a child turns three, since daycare centres can legally care for more children with fewer staff. Leung suggests looking for spots in August, as many kids move from daycare to kindergarten in September.

For the early years, the couple suggests community-based solutions. They’ve shared a nanny with another family, splitting the cost, and recommend babysitting co-ops, where parents with different schedules trade off child-care duties.

Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung, co-authors of “Parent Like a Millionaire (Without Being One),” say great parenting doesn’t have to come with a big price tag.

If you’re considering leaving your job to look after your child, make sure it makes sense long-term. If a child-care situation is untenable, some parents decide not to work full-time, or forgo promotions, says Bruce Sellery, CEO of Credit Canada. But “that can have financial consequences that could be lifelong, because they get off track or lose pensionable earnings.”

Shen and Leung created free online calculators to help parents find affordable local daycare and determine whether it makes economic sense for a parent to quit their job to care for a child.

Shen says three apps made a big impact on her family’s grocery bills.

Using Flash Food — which lets users buy items approaching their expiry dates from local stores — to purchase bread, milk and meat in bulk then freeze it, saved her family thousands of dollars in a single year.

The couple also orders from Too Good to Go, an app that offers unsold food from shops and restaurants at a discount, and finds the best deals on groceries through Flipp, a savings and price-matching app that shows local stores’ weekly flyers and coupons.

“There’s this idea that when you have a kid, you have to buy a house,” Leung says, but renting doesn’t mean throwing your money away. Instead, it offers certainty about how much you’re spending every month, while home ownership can come with unexpected maintenance costs that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Shen and Leung stayed in their one-bedroom apartment for two years after their son was born. When they moved to Vancouver from Toronto earlier this year, they upgraded to a three-bedroom unit. They look for rent-controlled buildings for stability. (In Ontario, rent control applies to any residential unit that was first occupied for residential purposes on or before Nov. 15, 2018.)

They also suggest moving at the very end or beginning of the year, when holiday-season demand drops. “We got this rental for hundreds of dollars below market value because we decided to move in January,” Shen says.

Owning a vehicle comes with recurring costs like insurance, gas, parking and maintenance. “The solution is actually quite similar to what we discovered with housing,” Leung says. “Rent as much as possible.”

He suggests Torontonians look into car-sharing services like Communauto, where you can rent cars by the minute, hour or day. “That way, you’re only paying for the car when you use it,” Leung says.

If you have two or more kids, or a car feels necessary, the couple suggests buying a used economy car rather than a new one.

Shen and Leung retired at 31 and 32, respectively, through aggressive saving and investing. Today, their portfolio is mostly low-cost index exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that generate around $85,000 a year in dividends.

“We make investing so complicated, but it’s really not,” Sellery says, adding that the same advice applies to everyone: buy low-cost, diversified investments and hold on to them.

Parents can invest through a registered education savings plan (RESP) through banks and discount brokerages. The government will match 20 per cent of annual contributions — up to $500 a year — through the Canada Education Savings Grant. To get the maximum grant, contribute $2,500 per year (or around $208 monthly) per child.

Leung says the winning move is to buy index ETFs, which are a basket of stocks. Many companies offer balanced ETFs that own different Canadian, American and international index funds.

With RESPs, the investment time frame is 18 years, so you can buy a balanced ETF and essentially “set it and forget it.”

Credit card rewards can go a long way. Shen and Leung recently took their son to Whistler, B.C., and got one free night at a hotel valued at $500 — an annual reward from their Marriott Bonvoy Amex card. The family of three also recently flew to Switzerland in business class for around $200 per person using Aeroplan points.

Leung says they also earn thousands of reward points through Chexy, a Canadian company that lets users pay rent, property taxes and other bills using a credit card.

Another tip: exchange homes with other families instead of booking hotels or Airbnbs. With HomeExchange, you pay an annual membership fee of $235 (U.S.) rather than paying by the night.

Exchanging with parents who have similarly aged children saves even more, Leung says, since they often have supplies you would otherwise need to rent (such as high chairs and cribs). The home is often already childproof and stocked with toys your kid will like.

Parents have to make trade-offs to stay within budget, Sellery says — “between representative hockey and summer travel,” for instance.

Certified financial planner Shannon Lee Simmons says word choice matters when speaking to kids about these trade-offs. Saying “we can’t afford it” can cause stress and a scarcity mindset. “If you say to your kids, ‘that’s not in our plan right now,’ it makes them feel like this is a strategic decision,” she says.

In the end, Leung says, kids don’t care how much things cost. “What they actually want is to spend time with you. It’s not about what you buy them, it’s about how you make them feel.”

Shen agrees. “Expensive parenting and good parenting are not the same thing.”

Lora Grady is a personal finance reporter for the Star. Reach her via email at lgrady@thestar.ca.