Keeping Baby Frugal Part 2 - Our Biggest Money Savers

Those of you with kids already know that the biggest expenses with little babies is not the big-ticket items such as cribs or car seats. The largest amount of money is actually spent feeding and clothing those tiny bodies. The cost of diapers, formula, baby food, and clothes can easily add up to thousands of dollars for the first year alone! Here is where we end up saving the most by making smart choices and being a little creative.

Feeding Baby

Formula can easily cost over $100 a month for the first year. I'm too cheap for that! My solution? BOOBS!!! They're not (just) a man's plaything- they are milk bags. I have been fortunate enough to breastfeed all 4 of my children, and we have all benefited from it. They get nutritious breast milk, I get decreased breast cancer risk, and we all get to save money. Though honestly, I really enjoy breastfeeding simply because I get to cuddle with my little ones while they are still little :o) It makes it easier for me to be lazy too! There's no bottles to clean, nothing to sterilize, no formula to mix, and nothing to heat up in the middle of the night. All I have to do is lift my shirt and stuff my boob in baby's mouth- much easier. I was even able to get an electric breast pump through my health insurance company at no cost to me. I realize that breastfeeding may not work for every family, but it works great for us!

Every time I walk down the baby isle at the grocery store I am amazed at how expensive those tiny jars of baby food are. I mean, what are they made of to warrant such a high price tag? Unicorns??? (not that I would want to feed my child pureed unicorns, mind you) And have you ever tasted them? They don't even taste remotely similar to the food on the label. Some of them are just plain GROSS! I swear the pureed chicken baby food smells just like cat food. We save money here by making our own baby food. It's very simple - just puree some fruits or veggies with a blender and voila, you have baby food. You can even puree whatever the family is eating so you don't have to cook anything extra. It freezes easily in ice cube trays, so I like to make a large batch at once and freeze for later to save time. I really like knowing exactly what is in my baby's food, and it tastes so much better than the jarred stuff.

Diapers

Babies poop. A LOT! Newborns can go through a dozen or more diapers per day, and they can get crazy expensive. Disposable diapers can cost over a thousand dollars by the time your little one learns to use the potty, not including baby wipes. This is where we save a HUGE chunk of change by using cloth diapers. These aren't like the diapers your grandma used- these are just as easy as disposables now. Our favorite kind of cloth diapers are "pocket diapers" that have a waterproof outer to keep baby's clothes dry, a soft fleece inside that keeps baby's bum dry, and an absorbent insert that you stuff it with to catch everything that comes out of baby's hiney. We recently discovered a cloth diaper company in China named Alva Baby that makes really inexpensive diapers that are just as good as many other brands. We bought some of their one-size-fits-most diapers, and hope to keep using them until the minion is potty trained. I will admit that we did slpurge a bit on some custom embroidered diapers from ChunkabuTT Creations because we're dorks and found it necessary to plaster that fact on our child's bum.

We also use cloth wipes that I made from an old flannel bed sheet that was given to me. I was able to make 40 double-sided wipes that are 8" x 8" and fit nicely in a regular baby wipes box. I even found a video for folding the wipes so they pop up in a wipes container. Yay for more free handmade stuff!

Our total cost for all our diapers and wipes is less than $300 total. Much better that those pricey disposables!

Clothes

For the first few years of a child's life they grow amazingly fast. So fast that they will outgrow nearly all their clothes before they even become slightly worn out. Because of this I have a hard time dropping $20 on one pair of jammies that my baby will wear maybe 5 times before outgrowing them. For this minion, about 95% of his clothing came from 2 places- the thrift store and a children's resale shop. I usually spend no more than $5 for a complete outfit, and the clothing is all in fantastic shape because it was barely worn. The cheapest clothing is from the thrift shop. I buy whatever is on sale for half off and have a frequent shopper's discount card, so most things cost $1 or less. The children's resale shop is slightly more expensive, but all of their stuff is name-brands in excellent shape. Another good place to get clothing is yard sales, but we weren't able to go to many this past summer. As an added bonus, when the minion has outgrown his clothes yet again I can sell the good stuff to the resale shop and make back some of the money spent (though the money usually goes towards clothing in the next size). If you're not interested in buying clothing used, then check out the clearance rack at your favorite store. I can often score brand new clothing for less than $5!

Tip: when buying used clothing, always look at it carefully in the store to check for stains and holes. It's not worth buying something that is stained or falling apart, and many thrift shops and resale stores do not allow you to return items.