Maternity clothes are made to flatter the figure of a pregnant woman. While it is not something you absolutely need during pregnancy, maternity clothes sure do make a girl feel better about herself with the way the clothes hug her belly and fit more comfortably.
Typically, women start wearing maternity clothes in their second trimester. Just as their regular clothing starts to fit a little snug. In my opinion, it is good to purchase a few maternity clothing items in your first trimester so you are prepared as you begin growing out of your every day clothes.
Not sure where to get started? Check out my list of maternity clothing essentials, here.
This post contains affiliate links which means that I will make a small commission if you purchase a product after clicking on any of them, at no extra cost to you.
Rakuten Extension
Rakuten helps you find coupon codes and cash back savings at your favorite stores. It can be used through an app on your phone, browser extension on your computer, or on their website. I prefer the browser extension because it helps me remember to use it and get savings.
The first time I used it, I got $15 cash back. When you sign up to use Rakuten, just make an account using your email, make a purchase through Rakuten from the store of your choice, and Rakuten will send you a check with $10 (as a thank you for using them for the first time) plus the “cash back” you earned though purchasing what you were going to buy anyway.
This is a super easy way to save extra on maternity clothes or even baby clothes in the future, putting money back in your pocket to buy other things you need.
Honey Extension
Honey is a browser extension much like Rakuten, but it applies tons of coupons to your cart upon checkout at your favorite online stores.
For example, when shopping online at Old Navy recently, when I was finished adding items to the cart, I pressed the Honey icon at the top of my browser screen and it got to work finding the best coupons and applying them to my cart to get me the best savings possible.
I ended up saving $14.40 on my purchase using the Honey extension. The most I have saved on one purchase using Honey is $50. Who doesn’t get excited about saving $50 when shopping? That being said, it is a great way to save money when buying maternity clothes.
Shop Sale or Clearance Only
I never, I repeat, never, buy maternity clothes at full price. It isn’t worth to me.
What I do instead is sign up to my favorite maternity clothing stores email lists and wait until they have a big sale.
They will alert you via email so you don’t miss out, then while you’re already buying maternity clothes on sale, apply coupons from Honey or the Rakuten cash back if it is available that day for the specific store you are shopping at.
That’s savings on top of savings on top of savings for brand new clothes!
Thrift Store
There is nothing wrong with buying clothes from a thrift store. By buying thrift clothing, you are helping keep items out of the landfills and cluttering our earth.
I love buying thrift clothes because you can find things that look fairly new and only spend a few dollars per item.
And when you will only be wearing these maternity clothes for two trimesters and maybe a few months after child birth, you won’t want to spend an arm and a leg on maternity outfits.
Head over to your local thrift shop and have a look around in their maternity section. You are bound to find some high quality maternity clothes for cheap.
Just wash them once you get home and they are good to go! Sometimes you will even find items with the tags still on.
ThredUP
If you want to shop thrift clothing but aren’t able to get out and about or would just like to shop online, ThredUP is an awesome online thrift store.
They pride themselves in being eco friendly and helping you save on gently used clothing from the brands you love. ThredUP has maternity clothes (and women’s clothing) from stores like Carter’s, Osh Kosh, Old Navy, Gap, H&M, and other more higher end stores.
Their filtering system makes it easy to find the items you are looking for (because if you don’t use a filter, its easy to sit scrolling thousands of items for hours like I’ve done before).
Same with a normal thrift store, there is the possibility of finding nice clothes with the tags still on it, but even then, ThredUP lets you know what kind of condition the clothes are in or if they have stains or not. I recently bought $146 worth of clothing on ThredUP and only spent $65. That is incredible savings.
Consignment Sales
Many cities or towns will put on a children’s consignment sale once or twice a year. These are typically held at a state fairgrounds style area or an arena setting where they can fit racks and racks of kid’s clothing, toys, baby gear, nursery furniture and they also sell maternity clothing at most of these sales- that people are trying to get rid of.
Consigners (regular folks selling their own used items) will put a price on the items they bring to sell and if you purchase their items, they will typically get a percentage of that sale. It’s a win-win for both parties. You get what you need for a good price, while the consigner makes some cash back from items they don’t need anymore.
Buy Clothes A Season Ahead
When seasons change, stores usually have big sales to sell all the left over inventory of the last seasons clothing. Use this time to purchase all your maternity clothes.
For example, if you just got the good news that you are pregnant, chances are you wont need maternity clothes for a few more months.
This is great because you can watch for some of these pricier maternity items to go on sale now and save them in your closet for when you are able to fit in them!
Buy Non Maternity Clothing A Size Larger
The majority of clothes I wore while I was pregnant where my husband’s t-shirts. I did not wear these out anywhere, it was more so to wear around the house.
But if you don’t want to spend the extra money on maternity clothing, since they tend to be pricier than regular clothes, just purchase clothes you love but in a size larger, that way your belly has room to grow into it.
Wear More Dresses
For the majority of my pregnancy that my belly was the largest, it was in summer time so I wore a lot of sundresses with an empire waist.
An empire waist dress is one that is sensed in under the chest but above the belly.
You can wear these types of dresses all year long, my favorite dress I wore all the time during pregnancy was this one from Amazon. It is still flattering and comfortable to wear even after pregnancy.
Conclusion
The best way to save on maternity clothes is to only buy clothes when they are on sale, also in conjunction with the money you are saving on sales items, using the Honey or Rakuten browser extensions will save you even more money on maternity clothes.
Shopping thrift clothing is always a great option to save on pregnancy clothes as well and be earth friendly by keeping these clothes from sitting in the land fills.
I hope these tips save you hundreds of dollars and maybe even make money buying maternity clothes!
