Good Buy, Baby!

A good friend once told me; babies aren’t expensive, but lifestyles can be.  Having a little girl can be so exciting, but can also be quite trying on your wallet if you’re not careful.  Our little one is no exception.  She can’t wear too many of her brothers’ hand-me-downs and everything in the girls’ department seems to cost a lot more.  Girls can’t get away with wearing jeans and khakis everyday, and baby girls with no hair usually wear headbands (so no one has to question their gender!)  Even the toys seem to cost more!  Dolls, kitchenettes, princess dresses and tiaras, oh my!  I know that there are ways to be frugal, though.

Breastfeeding
I started saving money within minutes of my daughter’s birth by choosing to breastfeed. My decision to do so had very little to do with cost, but that is a pretty sweet incentive in addition to the health benefits.  Not only do I save ~$150/mo by not buying formula, I also save on bottles and all other additional accessories.

Diapers / Diaper Bags
Since I don’t need to worry about bringing these additional items wherever we go, I also saved money by not buying a diaper bag.  I just use my large purse and toss in an extra outfit, diapers, wipes, and sometimes baby snacks. This has saved us a lot of money and I’m proud of that.  Another way I’ve pinched pennies with the new addition is by using cloth diapers.  Some people do choose to use cloth for the environment or for the health of their little ones (disposable diapers can be irritating to some babies’ delicate bums!), but we chose to go cloth just to save money.  After hours of research, we decided to go with Alva baby diapers, which have snaps, wicking properties, inserts, and are really inexpensive at 6 bucks a pop.  There is a store in my area that sells cloth diapers just like Alva for 3-4 times the price.  Yes, 3-4 TIMES.  I read through countless reviews and decided to buy a handful to supplement the stash we still had from our first child.  They are not organic cotton or even cotton at all, but they work great, wash clean, and dry quickly. After the first month, the diapers had already paid for themselves.  At this point, we use cloth about 90% of the time.  There are times when we go out that I prefer to put her in a sposie, but for the most part we are saving quite the bundle.  For any mom that might be apprehensive about the laundry situation, it really isn’t that bad.  I do one extra load a day, alternating the wet and monkey pants (what?  You don’t call number two “monkey” in your house?).

Baby Food
Since our little bee recently turned 6 months old, we started her on solid foods.  My lovely, thoughtful, practical mother bought us a Baby Bullet* for Christmas and we haven’t bought a jar of food yet!  I don’t think we will either.  I can give my daughter healthy, fresh food, know exactly what’s in the food I give her, and save a ton in the process.  Even if I feed her only organic foods, I’m still saving money!  I’ve been really good about eating every bit of the foods we make, too.  When my daughter has sweet potatoes, for example, I give her the soft inside of the potato and I put the skin in the fridge for me.  Later, that’s a healthy snack for mama!  I do this with all of the foods I make her.  Recently, little miss has been extremely needy and clingy to me.  She wants to nurse all the time and I’ve wanted to quit on numerous occasions.  Because this is so healthy for her and so cheap for me, though, we will trudge on.

*Note: if you don’t have a Baby Bullet, no sweat.  A lot of foods can be mashed with a fork just as easily.  It just might take a bit longer.  Babies eat pureed foods for such a short period of time, so if we hadn’t received one as a gift, we probably would have purchased a cheaper food processor.  I’m sure you could find one at Wal-mart for under 20 bucks.  Yes, it’s more money up front, but making baby food is easy and cheap this way.  Oh, and also…don’t worry about buying jars to store the food.  You can fill muffin tins with the pureed goodness, seal in a freezer bag, and toss in the freezer.  Once frozen, you can remove the muffin tin and the food will stay in the perfect portion sizes in the bag.

Baby Fashionistette
Same rules apply to babies’ clothing as for adults.  Shop off season to save money (sometimes difficult to know what size baby will be, so if you are unsure, buy clothing that can be layered) and only buy clothes that will go with other items and that are practical enough to be worn more than once or twice.  Yes, that lime green tutu is pure preciousness, but how many times is sweetpea really going to sport it?  Most trends can be followed with a budget in mind.  For baby girl hair and clothing accessories, look at sites like girlscrochetheadbands.com and mylittlelegs.com.  They cost a fraction of what you would pay at the mall!  For example, a headband at the mall is at least $4.00.  A headband on one of these sites is under $0.40.  Obviously, if you are hardcore about saving money (that’s why you’re reading this, right?), your little princess doesn’t have a headband for every outfit or a pair of crib shoes in every color/design.  That would just be silly, but when you do buy, keep these wholesale sites in mind.  A big trend right now are baby legwarmers.  These are awesome for cloth-diapering moms because they don’t have to be taken off for diaper changes!  GENIUS!!  If you are handy with a needle and thread, you can easily make your own legwarmers for $1-3.  Women’s knee highs(dollar store!) + scissors + ruffle/lace/ribbon for hem and voila.  A lot of clothing items I’ve purchased for my daughter were made before she was born.  That way, I could get the good postseason sales.  Couple that with a store coupon or search slickdeals.net for store name coupons and you can get some pretty sweet deals.

Furniture and Toys
Boy oh boy is it good to have friends!  Sure, it’d be nice to have all new furniture and such for our preciousness, but with how long they’ll actually use the items I’m so glad we didn’t!  We borrowed a swing from a good friend and only used it for about 3 months.  I’m pretty sure I would’ve been annoyed if I’d bought a brand-new one for that amount of usage.  For the boys, we actually had one that we bought from a garage sale for $10.00.  It was completely old (had to be cranked), but it served its purpose and looked just fine in our house.  Honestly though, when you have the cutest kids in the world, they can make anything look like a million bucks.  We also decided that a lot of things were complete wastes of money.  Why in the world would we buy a changing table?  We have a two-story house and having a changing table would mean we could only change her in one room.  Most of the items we have for baby were either gifts or borrowed from friends.  Babies don’t need toys.  Babies need love.  On Christmas, it was pretty obvious that our smart girl preferred to rip the wrapping paper over and over than even look at the shiny, new toys.  Kids value time and attention, not stuff.

Case in point: I really want to write about couponing right now!  (My husband had the most BRILLIANT idea earlier this week!)  But you’ll have to read about that later as my tiny dancer is practically climbing me trying to get my attention!

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