Baby Money Saving Tips

So I thought I would blog some money saving tips for all you thousands of readers out there. These tips are for the parents of babies or the soon to be parents!

1. To save money on wipes only use one half unless the baby is poopy. (It actually took me about 3 years of diapering before I realized this tip....thanks to my sister Becky.)

2. Whenever you go to the store go to the back bargain section and look for diapers on clearance! You never know when there will be a package or two. Often they have been damaged or opened but only one or two is even missing. I often get diapers for around $4 or $5! Especially because I often have a coupon to combine it with. In fact I have just started having to buy diapers for Avery and she is 15 months old-because before I was even pregnant with her Safeway had a huge clearance and I bought two cartloads full of size 1, 2, and 3!! I have a surplus of 4, 5, 6 right now but little Avery seems like she is going to stay in 3's for quite awhile so I have had to buy some. (Anyone want to trade?)

3. Whenever possible catch the baby while pooping and run and put her on the toilet. This worked like a charm with Hailey, sometimes with Karis, and frankly I forgot about it with Avery and have only tried it once. This may not save the diaper (unless it was put on recently and still dry but it will save a big mess and lots of wipes!)

4. Potty train early!!! This saves so many diapers. NEVER use pull-ups....they are so expensive and work just like a diaper so there is no motivation to stay dry!! Although I do use pull-ups that I have bought on clearance with a coupon for naps and bedtime after the baby is trained. It is not hard to potty-train if you do it early. Hailey was 25 months and Karis was 20 months and trained in less than a week! I plan to train Avery even earlier. (However posting this has probably jinxed me and she will end up being 4 or something.) I figure with the girls training when they did, especially Karis I saved at least a years worth of diapers!!

5. There is no need to buy baby food, baby crackers, baby juice etc. Anything made by Gerbers is a marketing ploy! Except rice cereal...that is hard to duplicate. All else can be made very cheaply. My sister Hannah is more of an expert on this as my children pretty much refused to eat any baby food and went straight to table food.

6. Save your extra breast milk and put it in your regular milk. No one will know the difference and it will give all members of your family the same nutritive benefits. Just kidding...and this is a little test to see who actually is reading this long post!