Purpose – As becoming a mother becomes increasingly embedded in the marketplace, this paper explores how a group of low-income pregnant and newly parenting young mothers engaged with expansive markets for the new mother and baby. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on an extended period of fieldwork carried out at a Pupil Referral Unit and a Mother and Baby Unit in the city of Bristol, UK. The research took a staged and incremental approach, incorporating aspects of participant observation, activity-based focus groups and a photo elicitation exercise. Findings – This paper highlights the anxiety the young women experienced around their ability (or lack thereof) to participate in practices of childrearing consumption and details how the young women strived to provide well for their children despite their limited incomes, developing a sophisticated knowledge of markets and adopting a range of budgeting and smart shopping strategies to ensure they could acquire the “stuff” their children “needed”. Originality/value – Contrary to popular discourse, the young women emerge as careful and pragmatic consumers who plan and manage their finances carefully, and the paper acknowledges skills that are often missing from accounts of young mothers and working-class people more broadly.