Save Thousands in Your Baby's First Year - $$$ - Save Money on Baby Stuff

hi everyone and welcome back to my channel and if you're new a big welcome to you and I hope you'll consider subscribing for more great videos like this one in today's video we're going to be talking about how to save thousands of dollars in your baby's first year of life so I'm not gonna ramble a lot in this intro we're just gonna get straight into it and talk about how to save you money on the things that you're going to be using day in and day out with your baby alright so buckle up because this one might be a little longer than some of my other videos but I'll try to keep it as concise as possible and I'm gonna put all the info and the things I'm talking about down in the description so if you need to reference back to it it's easyfor you to find I also have my notebook down here in my lap with all the notes for the things I'm gonna be talking about so if you see me looking down that's why I'm just referencing my notes so I don't leave anything out and so the first topic that we're going to touch on today are diapers obviously the easiest way to save money on diapers is to use cloth diapers and it's estimated that a family using cloth diapers will save about three hundred and, 50, dollars in their child's first year of life and then of course the savings of using cloth diapers will be exponential over the course of the next few years until your child is potty-trained and then if you choose to use those same diapers with your future children obviously cloth diapers are a lifestyle choice they don't align with everyone's philosophy they're not always practical and in fact the majority of us do use disposable diapers so now I'm going to tell you some ways that you can save on those so if you want to save on disposable diapers you're gonna need a game plan and it's a good idea to start stocking up early you're gonna want to consult a diaper chart the diaper chart is basically a piece of informationthat's been put together by consumer researchers and it estimates the averagenumber of diapers that a child will use over the course of their first year and it tells you the amount of each of the sizes that they're going to use this is really helpful because it can you can build a stockpile and you know how many of each type of diaper that you should be buying diapers are pretty much always on sale but theyrotate the cell through the different brands and through the different sizes and so if you can buy diapers when they're on sale at the lowest available price and then apply coupons to those low prices you're going to in turn end up with a stockpile of diapers that were purchased at at a great savings if you want to search for sales in your area a great app to do that is the full-auto app you could put it on your phone and set it to notify you when a diaper of your choice or any product of your choice goes on sale at any store in your area if you do more online shopping you can add a Chrome extension called price link that will also notify you when a certain product or diaper that you want to buy goes on sale so that way you know you're buying it at the lowest price and if you're not much of a bargain hunter it's good to know that the lowest prices for diapers are consistently found at amazon.com when you're using the Amazon family rewards program and also at Target when you're using their baby club program combined with cartwheel and coupons so a little bit more on that if you are an Amazon family Rewards member not only do you get 20% off a rotating list of baby items every month you'll also get 20% off of diapers and wipes if you click to subscribe and save through there subscribe and save program basically this is you committing to purchase a certain diaper brand of every month and they will mail it to you on your schedule and you'll get 20% off consistently and while that may only bea few dollars for every box of diaper if you think about it over the course of the year a 20% savings can add up to hundreds of dollars so with Target um it takes a little bitmore effort they do have generally low prices on diapers but they will price match as well and people don't know this but they'll also price match to Amazon so if you bring and you're a Matt your phone to customer service you can price match the Amazon prices for diapers at Target also if you sign up for the Target baby subscription you'll say percent on diapers and you can combine that with a five percent savings fromthe target red card so that will give you 10% off every time that you go to buy diapers from Target today cheering hi as I get to my video another for saving money with diapers is to join your preferred brands diaper rewards club so we use a lot of Pampers pure diapers so I joined the pampers and rewards program it's a little app I put on my phone every time I buy a new box of diapers or wipes I scan in the codethat's on the box and in turn I get access to a lot of great coupons and I build up points that can lead to free boxes of diapers in the future so if you have a brand that you are loyal to definitely join their rewards Club my final tip for saving money on diapers is to always always always check the price per diaper when you're shopping whether you're shopping in store or online amazon always lists it alongside thedifferent sizes of diapers that you can buy and in the stores it can be found on the tag underneath of actual price of the box of diapers oftentimes the smaller packs of diapers have a lower cost per diaper and I have no idea why they do this that I found that even shopping at Costco in buying the massive bulk boxes of diapers I can sometimes pay more per diaper than I would have if I would have bought a smaller pack in a regular store so always check the price for a diaper and see if it's moreeffective for you to buy a bunch of small packs as opposed to one large pack at any given time I don't notice that that was my final tip but I have one more tip for you for diapers and that is to save your receipts because Target and a lot of other stores accept baby item returns up to a year after their initial purchase so if you're buying a few boxes of diapers at a time I recommend getting gift receipts for those and taping they receipt on to each box of diapers that way and if you have boxes leftover thatyou're unable to use because your child has gone up in size for instance you're able to return those in exchange them for other items that you need or other diapers that you need in a larger size enough about diapers and let's talk about how to save on baby stuff and my best advice to you for saving on baby stuff is to get rid of your fear of second-hand items particularly free items and if you join a Buy Nothing group in your area this is a Facebook group that's nationwide it's specific to different neighborhoods and you can actually get a lot of free baby items we were able to do this with our son and I just hope that everyone knows about this because it's an amazing service that you can and pay it forward and give things away that you don't need and that you can in turn receive free things through so baby stuff is big it takes up a lot of space and usually the larger items like swings cribs rock and plays those are only used for a very specific amount of time people are generally happy to pass them on when they're not using them anymore you can also shop on the Facebookmarketplace and in secondhand stores to get great deals on baby products and mybest recommendation when you are looking for secondhand items is to get thingsthat are fully washable so plastic toys that can go in your dishwasher clothes I can go in your washing machine or things like a hard crib that you can wipe down fully then you know that you can sanitize them for your child and they're clean and ready to go my third tip for saving money on the baby stuff is to hold out for the mega sale so save up and hold out for Black Friday at the end of November or for Amazon Prime day in July and you can make your bigger purchases in and get a much better deal because generally they're at a greater discount so if you're shopping during pregnancy or if you're shopping for things you're gonna need later on in your child's first year hold out for those sales now my fourth set of tips are all geared towardssaving you money when feeding your child obviously breastfeeding is the cheapestway to go about feeding your baby but not all of us can or want to breastfeed and so when you're opting for formula there are ways to save on that as well if you are planning ahead to formula feed your baby a good it's a good idea to set up a formula fund so it's estimated that the average cost of formula feeding for a year is around$1700 so if you break that up over the course of a pregnancy that's about $200 a month so if you are able to set aside $200 a month into an account or a savings in your home then you'll know that your planned ahead to pay for formula and when your child arrives also if for some reason you don't end up formula feeding then you have a nice saving set away that you can use towards other baby items or maybe even something nice for yourself it's also a great idea to stockpile on samples and a great way to do this is to join formula clubs so if you know you're going to use Similac you could join some like strong moms and also has a program and they will send you a box full size samples a formula as well as some great great formula they're called formula checks so they can be combined with coupons but they'regenerally high-value coupons that you can apply towards formula also if you join the club of your brand of choice you'll accumulate points for every formula purchase you make which will earn you free cans of formula in the future so it's a great way to save on formula over the course of the year also if you plan on using formula it's a goodidea to buy the powdered version of the formula as opposed to the pre-mixed version by buying powdered formulas you saved generally about 50% over the cost of the prepared formula so in the long run you're gonna save a ton of money doing that it's also not widely known but you can ask your pediatricians office for samples of formula generally they have a large cabinet of formula samples and if you just put in a request with the nurse you can come out with a pretty big bag of them so it's a good idea to ask at the pediatrician lastly if your baby has sensitivities or they're on a specialty formula a lot of times your child's insurance will cover that formula and so all you need to do is ask and if you have a specialty formula that's available in stores ask your doctor for a prescription for it so that you can file it with your insurance and get reimbursed for the cost of it my fifth tip for saving on baby stuff is to think like a minimalist or think like a mom of multiples whenever you go to buy buy baby or to Target to make your baby registry they usually give you this huge list of things that you're gonna need for your baby and let me tell you you just need to throw that list away for instance on the list that I got from buy buy a baby just for sleep they told me I needed let me look at it down here so I needed a crib Rock and play a swinging adoc etat a bassinet no you don't need all of that stuff just for your baby to sleep so it's a good idea to compare compare compare pull up the items that you're interested in say you want a halo bassinet or you're considering a rock and play or maybe a docket hot read reviews look at videos online and compare people's experiences and then maybe pick one or two of the items that you're interested in and have them on hand and if for some reason those don't work you can return one of them andswitch it for another option until you find one that works for your child you don't need to fill your home and waste tons of money on buying all these different things before you even know if you need them definitely just save that money like I said beforetarget takes returns on baby items up to a year after their purchase so as long as you keep the boxes keep things in good condition if you try it out and it doesn't work take it back and switch it for something that will as a final note on the minimalism just basically any time you're buying especially a larger item for your child consider the purpose is it for sleep visit for changing is it for eating ask yourself do I already have something that meets this need and then ask yourself do I really need to buy this item number six for savings if you are really on a budget you can consider the cheaper alternatives there's a lot of cheaper alternatives for the larger baby purchases that you need to make for instance if you need a stroller you can buy a snap and go stroller which is basically like a stroller frame and it's about a quarter of the cost of the major stroller brands and all you do is snap your infant car seat into it so it turns your infant car seat into a stroller that can accommodate your child well into the first year and it's just a fraction of the cost of buying a stroller also instead of setting up an entire nursery and spending thousands of dollars on a crib a changing table a bassinet you can actually just buy a pack and play player combo and it comes with a bassinet a crib play yard and a changing station all in one and it's less than a hundred dollars for that so look for alternatives there's always cheaperalternatives for the major things that you need to buy my seventh tip for saving money is to remember your health insurance health insurance will pay for so many things that new moms and new babies need for instance with your health insurance alone you can get coverage for an electric breast pump chiropractic care you can get a free momma strut a postpartum support system which is really amazing I talked about that in my postpartum recovery video if you haven't seen that yet you can get free lactation consultants as I said before the specialty formula can be covered so there's a lot of things that insurance will pay for and if you just ask also if you don't have insurance if there's a lot of free services for new parents that can cover a lot of these needs for instance La Leche League offers free lactation consultants for all new moms they also have breastfeeding meetings that you can go to for with that you can go to baby book worms in your library for entertainment and education for your new child there's a lot of programs to actually talk about all of these in my free resources for new parents video which I'll also link below in the description but yeah look into free services and look into your insurance because a lot of times it will pay for things that you were gonna pay for out-of-pocket now my last tip for savings and your baby's first year is actually a tip for saving that we started with our first child and we're now continuing with our second and that is to keep your change so when Evelyn was born we set aside a jar in our kitchen and every day we committed to saving all the change from any cash that we spent and putting that in a jar and every month we deposited that into a bank account for her and now she's about four and a half and we have several thousand dollars put into that bank account just from saving our change and so if you're planning on eventually starting a college fund for your child or you want to set up a savings account for them for any kind of emergency needs that they may have in the future it's a great idea just to save your change it's not a big deal to set aside you know 30 40 cents at a time and it really really adds up and it can lead to a great potential for investment in the future and a way to save money so that's my last tip for saving thousands of dollars in your child's first year I hope you enjoyed this video if you have other tips for saving and I'm sure there's a ton of them out there and please leave them in the comments below and that way other people can reference them as well and until next time I will see you inthe next one