Baby On A Budget: How We Avoid Unnecessary Spending

Baby on a Budget is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby.  When I read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!

While it's certainly difficult to keep from buying every single thing your kid might possibly be able to use when you're still expecting, it's near impossible to exercise a reasonable amount of restraint once your child is actually born.  Suddenly, nothing is too expensive for that cute little face! Every piece of baby clothing becomes essential. $500 photo shoot? Completely necessary!

Luckily, I've devised a way that has become so effective in keeping me from spending excessive amounts of money on my child that it surprised even myself: I make my baby pay for his own stuff. (And he's much less likely to buy yet another pair of pants to add to his overflowing collection.)

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Slashing Expenses: Unsubscribing...

In order to reach our goal of financial freedom, we are increasing income and slashing our expenses.  We will be sharing ways that we've successfully decreased our monthly expenses in order to help you cut your own costs.

I really enjoy home design.  Since purchasing our home six years ago,  we've renovated our house top to bottom and I have loved having the opportunity to redesign our home that is completely our own taste.  I love to read design blogs and I have been a faithful subscriber of Style at Home magazine for several years now.

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How We Save Money By Using Our Credit Cards

Credit cards have gotten a very bad rap in the personal finance world for quite some time now.  This is for good reason considering the amount of debt many people are carrying around on their credit card accounts and how much interest most of them are paying to service that debt.  We have been there and it wasn't pretty!  

As we began to dig ourselves out of debt we naturally had to stop using our credit cards (with some small exceptions).  It was very important to do this at the time as we needed to make changes to our relationship with money and the way we viewed it.  We needed to be more aware of our spending and feel the pinch of a lower bank balance at the same time as the high of a new purchase. 

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Baby On A Budget: Hand-Me-Downs and Second Hand Stores

Baby on a Budget is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby.  When I read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!

We were ridiculously lucky to have a baby boy almost exactly one year after my sister had her own baby boy.  This is not because our son would have a cousin close in age, though that's nice too.  My thoughts are inclined to be more selfish in nature.  I was mostly ecstatic about all the hand me downs I was about to receive!!

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Slashing Expenses: Couponing and Pricematching

I am desperately trying to cut our food budget.  I read about all these other people that are spending $50 a week on food or families of 6 spending $100 a week and I wonder how the heck they do it!?! I budget $200 a week on consumables and that feels like a lot.  That includes toiletries, gas and medications (mainly just over the counter) though so perhaps it isn't so bad...

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Slashing Expenses: Cutting Your Own Hair

In order to reach our goal of financial freedom, we are increasing income and slashing our expenses.  We will be sharing ways that we've successfully decreased our monthly expenses in order to help you cut your own costs.

About once every month (two if I'm lucky) my husband talks me into cutting his hair. I have to be entirely honest; this is one of my least favourite ways to save money.  The only reason I go along with this is because my husband absolutely insists.  He hates going to the hairdresser as much as I hate cutting his hair.

If you are going to attempt to employ this crazy money saving technique in your own life, do yourself a favour and learn from our mistakes.

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Our Next Big Purchase

Currently we are saving for our next big purchase.  This is a bit of a new concept for us as we've never really saved for anything big before.  We've always just financed and paid it off after obtaining whatever it is we 'needed' at the moment.  It's actually very exciting!  We are planning to buy a new vehicle and pay for it in cash!

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Baby On A Budget: Cloth Diapering 101

Baby on a Budget is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby.  When I read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!

One of the biggest expenses that we've saved on since having a baby is diapers.  I decided to cloth diaper after being inspired by Young House Love. I had never thought much about it prior to then but it all made sense and seemed right up my alley when they talked about it.  Plus, I had no idea they made such amazing cloth diapers as they do these days! When someone mentioned cloth to me before I just thought of prefolds and diaper pins.

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Baby On A Budget: DIY Wipes

Baby on a Budget is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby.  When I read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!

We have been making our own wipes at home using paper towel since the beginning and I can't believe how easy it's been! This is not to say that I don't buy wipes every once in awhile when they go on sale (my husband is currently heading to the store, coupons in hand to grab some $4 boxes of wipes for $1.25 each!).  I use commercial wipes if I'm in a pinch, if I'm going away for a weekend or for out of the house diaper changes (I like how compact the travel wipe cases are).  At home, however, I much prefer my homemade wipes as they hold up better, smell better and I can adjust their moisture level to my preference.  As I use cloth wipes for most diaper changes, I use these homemade wipes for messy hands and faces at mealtime and diaper changes on laundry days.


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