Babies have a lot of needs and boy, is there a lot of stuff being sold to new parents to take care of those babies. $90 billion a year. In today's episode, we are going to discuss what of that stuff do you actually need? Keep listening to the Catholic Money show. A few episodes ago we did an episode about consignment sales. Love them and how much we love them. We told a story about our first consignment sale, which we hoped to get a bunch of baby stuff and walked.

Out with a Thanksgiving outfit.

That was about it. So we missed our opportunity there to really save a bunch of bucks. And it turns out one of you listeners is in a similar boat right now and sent us a voicemail. Let's give that a quick listen.

Hi there. My husband and I have been listening to your podcast for a while now. We're newlyweds and it has been so exciting to hear about all the different things you guys speak about, specifically about finances, just because we didn't really have a lot of background with that and it's been so good for our new marriage and we're expecting a baby. So really exciting. And we just listened to your guys'episode about the Consignment sales, and we think it was super providential because there's actually a Consignment sale going on this upcoming Thursday. And we were wondering what your guys'thoughts were on, what sorts of things to look out for at the sales and what things are actually necessary. Because we feel like we could go in and be either very overwhelmed or buy the Thanksgiving outfit. So we can't wait to hear what you say and God bless you for all your work. We want to answer this very important question. As you shared earlier, the baby industry is a $90 billion market and ever expanding companies are willing to pay top dollar to get in front of your eyeballs to tell you that you need X, Y or Z. And maybe some of it you do need, but a good deal of it you don't.

Yes.

And then even more of it you could probably get gently used.

Of course, this baby stuff market is so big and so powerful. I think this is from the Power of Habit book and it's kind of a side story, but he talks about Target and their targeted advertising and using purchase data to go after particularly new parents.

Because if they get you there, they.

Get them for the new parents, they're going to get you loyal customers and they'll buy a bunch of other stuff at Target as well. So this is a big industry that has a lot of it designed maybe to take care of your baby, but to take care of the real baby, which is their business.