Having a baby can get kind of expensive.... and I am not even talking about all of the hospital visits, labor and delivery and test you have to pay for!
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I am a Budget Betty... Toot Toot! Seriously though, I get it from my Momma. I don't like to consider myself to be cheap, but I do like to find the best deal out there before I buy something. It is easier when I have a lot of time, lets say... 9 months!
Casey and I found out that we were pregnant with our miscarriage baby at 5-6 weeks and I decided why not go ahead and start buying stuff? If the worst happens (and it did) we can save it for the next baby. So when we got pregnant again, we had a lot of the bigger items I had found for dirt cheap. All I did with this pregnancy was find a checklist online, print it out and start checking items off. You can find the check list I used here:
We then decided to stock up on diapers. For the past 6 paychecks, we have been buying 1 case of diapers. We played around with the math for a little bit and decided to buy 8 boxes of size 1/2 diapers ($19.99), 7 boxes of size 3 diapers ($38.99) and 2 boxes of wipes ($19.79). We have been buying most of these from Costco, however we have bought a few different brands just to be safe too. This comes out to right under $500 that we have slowly spent over the time of us being pregnant. The only down fall to this is making room in the house to stockpile all of these diapers!
We bought the dresser from Good Will, a friend gave us the desk and another friend sold us the crib and mattress for $50. Nothing matched at all so we sanded it down and re-painted everything to match. This saved us a BUNCH of money.
Another way we have saved money is accepting hand me downs! Never and I mean never be too proud to take hand me downs. My only piece of advice is to really inspect the item(s) and clean them up some before using them. Hand me downs we have received: excersaucer, baby bath tub, rock and play, and TONS of clothes...
Facebook Resale Pages - this has been a saving grace for me! I am not on the pages ALL the time, like Casey thinks I am BUT I do get on every once and awhile to look for good deals. I bought a bumbo with a tray for $10, a boppy pillow with 2 covers for $15, matching swing and bouncing chair for $100 (retails for over $200), a glider rocking chair for $20, a wooden highchair for $40, changing pad with 2 covers for $10... and so much more!
Kid Resale Stores - Kid-to-Kid has been a GREAT go to store for me. I bought Dax some clothes from there (before I received the hand me downs) and stocked up on some bottles (that I took home and sterilized and bought new nipples for) all for under $50!
Being Crafty - This has helped save us a lot of money! I love to sew anything and everything... so I decided to try and make a lot of Dax's stuff myself. So far I have made him a carseat cover, 2 new covers for his changing pad, cushions for his highchair, and I have recovered his bumper pads in his crib.
Burlington Coat Factory - for any of you who have never been here... girl you are missing out! They have one of the BEST baby depots you will ever find. Most everything is name brand and marked down really low!! They also are online (www.burlingtoncoatfactory.com) and they sale maternity clothes too! We found this adorable diaper bag for $40 on their website and they accidently sent us 3, I called and they told me to keep them or return them for in-store credit... so I returned one and then while we were there we found this Jeep jogging stroller that was marked down from $160 to $50 because the model was out of date... we ended up buying it and with the in-store credit, we only spent $10!!! Steal of a deal...
Babies are VERY expensive, but there is always a way to cut down on the cost if you have the time and energy to really sit down and figure it out. I high suggest planning ahead and starting early. Yes, a baby shower is a great place to receive a lot of these items and I am all for baby showers... just don't rely on getting EVERYTHING you need/want.
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