Why I built My Nurevia

Both kinds of parent, and they use it in opposite directions.

If this is your first, the hard part is not knowing what you do not know. The list itself is the value — the things nobody mentions until you need one, in the month you will need it, with a price beside it.

If you have done this before, you already know the list. What you want is the subtraction: record what you still own from last time, what you are being handed down, and what has been promised, and watch the estimate fall to the number that is genuinely still to find. A second baby is not a second full price, and a tool that tells you it is has not understood the problem.

The split is one line: free tells you what it costs and what you have already got, and premium helps you shop. So the whole of the answer — the estimate, the prices, what you have ticked off, what is still to find and the milestones — runs before you have given anyone an email address. The premium tools are the ones you use with a basket open: which month a thing falls due in, where to buy it, and which one of them you are actually buying. They come with a 7-day free trial, so you can find out whether that is worth anything to you before deciding.

• Budget styles

  Free

  Five of them, from lean and practical through to full-featured. This is the setting that makes the estimate yours rather than an average: the same checklist priced the way you actually shop. Nobody planning on a tight budget needs a label implying they are doing it wrong, so the styles describe what you are buying, not what it says about you.

• The ledger

  Free

  Every category priced and colour-coded, one-off purchases separated from the monthly costs that keep coming. It is the answer to “what is this year going to cost”, and it is the screen most people stay on longest. Anything you have been given comes off the figure as you record it.

• Shopping timeline

  Free

  When to buy each thing, rather than all of it at once. It also marks what is genuinely essential against what is nice to have — the distinction that stops a first-year list turning into a wishlist you cannot afford and did not need.

• Support you may be entitled to

  Free

  Funded childcare hours, Tax-Free Childcare and the rest of what the UK government makes available to parents, with links to check your own position. Most calculators quietly ignore all of it, which is the difference between a number that frightens you and one you can plan against.

• Still to find

  Free

  The number people act on. Not “£2,271 over a year”, which is a fact you can do nothing with, but what is left after what you have already bought or been given, how much that is per month between now and your due date, and what to put aside each month to get there.

• Milestones

  Free

  Ready to travel, somewhere to sleep, ready to feed, nursery ready, first wardrobe. They unlock as the things they depend on get sorted, so progress reads as “we can get them home” rather than as a percentage.

• Where to buy

  Premium

  For each item, where to actually get it — matched to the budget style you chose, so a lean plan is not sent to a boutique and a full-featured one is not sent somewhere that does not stock what it is describing. It tells you where to look; it never tells you a product is safe.

• Month by month

  Premium

  The ledger says what the year costs; this says which month each part of it lands in, and lets you work the plan a month at a time — ticking things off inside the month you bought them, and moving a purchase you would rather make later to a month that suits you, with every total following. Marking a whole category as bought, gifted or already owned is free on the ledger. What you pay for here is seeing the year as twelve bills instead of one, and being able to rearrange them.

• Shortlist

  Premium

  The feature for the question that comes after “how much” — which one. Paste the link to a product you are considering and it pulls in the picture, description and price the retailer publishes, so the comparison lives in one place instead of across fifteen browser tabs. You can use that real price in place of our estimate, so your plan reflects the pram you are actually buying rather than an average of all prams.

Every figure is built from published UK sources — MoneyHelper, DayNurseries and retailer pricing — and the childcare side assumes the funded hours available in England unless a page says otherwise. They are planning estimates, not quotes: what you actually pay depends on brand, region, and what you are given.

One thing this deliberately does not do: it does not judge whether a product is safe. It points you at the official recall and standards checks instead, because a tool that says “this one is fine” about a car seat is a tool making a promise it has no business making. It also never sells your information — to anyone, for anything.

Two ways, and you should know both before you trust a number I have put in front of you.

The first is the premium subscription. The second is that some of the retailer links in premium are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you buy through one. It costs you nothing extra. Those links are labelled where they appear, not only here — you should be able to see which is which at the moment you are deciding whether to click, rather than having to remember a page you read weeks ago.

The part that matters more than the disclosure: commission does not decide the recommendations. The shop picks are chosen on what a retailer actually stocks and what their returns and price-matching are like, and the code that adds an affiliate tag runs after that choice has been made and cannot reach back into it. A paid placement dressed as advice is the thing that makes this whole category untrustworthy, and I would rather earn less than become another example of it.

Is My Nurevia free?

Free tells you what it costs and what you have already got: the calculator, the ledger with prices, the shopping timeline, ticking things off as bought or gifted, what is still to find, the milestones, childcare with funded hours and the support section — with no account needed to see your estimate. Premium helps you shop: the month-by-month view, where to buy, and the shortlist. It starts with a 7-day free trial.

Are the prices real UK prices?

Yes. Every figure is built from published UK sources — MoneyHelper, DayNurseries and retailer pricing — in pounds, rather than converted from a US calculator. Childcare assumes the funded hours available in England unless stated otherwise.

Is it only for first-time parents?

No. First-time parents tend to use it to find out what they do not yet know they need. Parents who have done it before tend to use it the other way round — recording what they already own, so the estimate drops to what is genuinely still to buy.

Do I need an account?

Not to see your estimate. An account exists so your plan is still there tomorrow and on your phone, and so you can record what you have bought or been given.

Is this financial advice?

No. My Nurevia gives general cost estimates and planning tools. It does not test or endorse the safety of any product, and it is not a financial adviser — always check current safety standards and recall notices before buying.

My Nurevia is run by one person as a sole trader in the United Kingdom, and help@mynurevia.com reaches me directly. If a figure looks wrong, or something you needed was not on the list, that is the most useful thing you can send me — most of what is in here now came from somebody saying exactly that.