Frugal Parenting Series: Tips to Save Money with a Newborn Baby

One of the most rewarding adventures in life! Also one of the most expensive; having a child. In this series we’ll cover some tips and tricks for frugal parenting.  Starting with the “newborn” or “baby phase” – which will encompass pre-birth up until they’re a walking, talking, toddler.  Or about ready to ditch the diapers.

As always, the first step in being frugal = the plan.  Am I sounding repetitive yet? The best way to control costs in any aspect of life is to budget and plan.  Whether your baby is planned or unplanned doesn’t matter. Natural birth, C-section, surrogate, adopted, inherited; again, doesn’t matter! At some point you became aware of the fact that you’re going to be responsible for another little human being. From there you can start to plan financially how you’ll be able to make that happen.

The first planning task that often comes to mind is considering all the “stuff” that goes along with having a baby. In reality, you really don’t need much to provide a healthy and safe upbringing. On the other hand, your social media feed ads will become inundated with swaddles, bottles, and teethers that you “MUST HAVE”.

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Start Baby Registries

And start them EVERYWHERE! Many registries cost nothing to sign up for (other than your information) and provide a welcome gift. This will range from coupons, to formula samples, to bath supplies, diapers and toys. Even if you aren’t going to use that particular registry as your registry of choice to send out to friends and family, sign up, add some items and take the gifts and coupons for later use.

Our favorite registry? The Amazon Baby Registry of course! The promotions change over time, but they’ve offered many great features. Freebies for signing up, decent checklists by category, easily monitor what you still need, track who bought what for thank yous, a diaper fund, extended return window, add items from third party ability, group gifting for expensive items, and a completion discount once your baby has arrived. Plan that completion discount carefully, you can add hidden items and purchase them after your delivery date as long as they were on the registry list prior.

Unopened boxes of diapers can be exchanged at most large retail chains (even if not purchased there) to size up or even swap brands. No worries if you stockpiled way to many newborn diapers, they can easily be traded in for the next size.

Some other notable baby registry mentions: Babylist.com, Target, Buy Buy Baby, and Walmart.  Most all of them will hit you with some good perks. You might just want to create a separate email address for when they continuously bomb you with consumerism at it’s finest. Great segue into the next section (is that really spelled with a “-ue”? learn something new every day).

Don’t Fall for Advertising

The only watch out here is that you really don’t need everything they suggest. Every baby is different but some won’t mind cold wipes, scratch the wipe warmer. Some don’t even mind cold milk/formula – save time and money skipping the bottle warmer.

Do you really need to have a baby monitor with an 18” screen, app, wifi, 2-way comms, heat mapping, heart rate, blood O2, and smell-o-vision? Might be handy but kids have been fine with much less for many years. Probably with less stressed out parents too. Simplicity in some areas is key.

Side Tip:

Ditch the diaper genie. The refill bags are expensive. Bags need to be changed daily. Saving old bag rings to tie on your own garbage bags is tedious and frustrating to repeat constantly. The plastic tabs on the front cover are fragile. It doesn't even control the stink that well!

We found a simple and cheap 13 gallon step-lid garbage can from Lowe's with some weather stripping around the lid to seal it better (leftover from my office sound proofing project), a couple of smell good things on the inside of the lid, and scented bags in bulk from Sam's club does the trick. We change bags once a week with minimal smell. 

There’s a million other gizmos and gadgets out there that you could buy all of and never use once. Many of which have little to no resale value. Again, a baby only needs to be clean, warm, dry, fed, and loved to be happy and healthy. The rest of the nice-to-have items on your registry should be considered in terms of: is the cost worth the convenience? Create a value filled life.

Ask For Help

So now you’ve got all the “stuff” laid out in your registry and you’re thinking “how in the hell can I afford all that?!” Well hopefully you’ve got a supportive group of friends and family that will purchase or hand down most of it.  Even the things on the list that aren’t really needed but are nice to have. If you don’t end up needing them, return and use the store credit for whatever new needs pop up. Trust us, you’ll always have a new need or problem to solve.

Don’t get over-excited and remove the tags from all the baby clothes you get gifted. They’ll spend a majority of their first days in simple onesies and pajamas. You won’t have the energy or desire to dress them up cute in multiple outfits daily. Then they’ll outgrow them before ever getting worn! Return/exchange for next sizes up that you don’t have enough of yet when they get there.

If you don’t have a close network of friends and family, there’s still no excuse. There’s a lot of babies out there in the world, which means there’s a lot of baby stuff already purchased. Loads of this stuff will never get used, or only used very lightly. Facebook marketplace, offerup, etc. can be great sources of cheap used baby gear. However, be leery of used car seats/safety items. They do have lifespans/expiration dates and should not be used after impacts such as being dropped too hard or car accidents.

“It takes a village to raise a child” is the old proverb about needing the support of others. Do you know people that recently had a baby? Can you find them in local support groups? They’ll most likely have a bunch of leftover items to share and help you out.  Every stage has it’s needs that quickly get surpassed, leaving unexpired formula, starter baby foods, opened boxes of smaller sized diapers, and plenty of once or never worn clothes behind. (Because they removed the tags too soon!) There’s nothing wrong with hand me downs and passing outfits around friend groups to help each other through.

You’re Having a Baby!

Now you’ve got everything you need to bring a life into this world. Hospital bags are packed and Mama’s about to pop any day now.  The last thing you need during delivery is to question what’s going on, what it’s going to cost, and hidden expenses. Most of this can be avoided with the typical “birthing plan” that prompts you to discuss different types of birth and preferential options for each. This covers environment, ambiance, and experience.

The part that’s often overlooked is the price tag of the medical coverage billed to you and your insurance.  Most hospitals will be able to give you a ballpark of their typical vaginal or C-section birth, but they’ll have a tough time producing itemized bills for you ahead of time.  Just be aware that a lot of things that are thought to be “included” are billed separately, or part of their “birthing package” when really they should be your choice to pay for or not.

The Insurance Scam

If you’re not familiar with how health insurance works, it’s pretty scammy. Say you’re having some post labor pains treated with Tylenol; just your typical over the counter acetaminophen. The hospital may bill your insurance something like $100 for just one dose, to cover diagnosis, administration costs etc. If you have full coverage insurance, then you don’t really see it in the bottom line of your premium.  But if you have a high deductible health plan (HDHP) and aren’t nearing your max out of pocket limit for the year, even with child birth, you just took $100 out of a triple tax sheltered HSA account for a couple cent pill! Although you need to always be upfront with your physicians about what medications you have taken and only take pregnancy safe mediations, consider bringing your own.

Same goes for extra meals, drinks, lactation consultants, “included gifts” like swaddles and outfits.  They may actually be included depending on where you live and what programs that hospital is able to offer for truly free. Other times every little thing is tacked on. Call and discuss with your insurance provider ahead of time. Make it clear to the staff during pre-delivery hospital visits, and again when you sign in the day of that you want to be aware of every line item. Sometimes in the moment there’s nothing you can do except ask billing for an itemized bill later on and learn what you paid for that you shouldn’t have. At least you’ll be better educated for the next time around.

After Baby is Here

Congrats you did it!  You should have everything you need already to have a clean, comfortable, happy, fed baby. How else can you cut costs at this point?

Feeding

Breast feeding is by far the cheapest way to feed your newborn. It’s also very healthy for both Mom and baby. Insurance companies often have programs to cover the full cost of breast pumps, perfect for the working mom or when latching is an issue. Breast feeding is not always possible though, so plan on the expense of formula and enjoy the savings if you are able to breast feed.

Baby led weaning is another penny pinching tactic that’s healthy too. If your baby is showing interest in the food you’re eating, you may not need to spend extra money on expensive food introduction meals. Be conscious of allergens and introduce them as your pediatrician instructs. Otherwise, keep some bland unseasoned version of whatever you’re eating off to the side and let baby explore different tastes and textures. Only cooking one meal for the whole family and eating leftovers together is nice.

Everything Else

Reiterating from the tip above, leave the tags on everything (not only clothes) until you need it. Not sure if you know this, but these things grow like weeds! They’ll be outgrowing sizes of clothes, bottles, diapers, and stages of toys at a blazing pace for the first year or two. Return or exchange what you don’t use. Or pay it forward from those that helped you to help others.

If you’re breastfeeding and stocked up on diapers and wipes from the baby registry and baby shower, you should be in for a relatively cheap first year! In the next part of this series we’ll explore frugal parenting tips for raising children from the potty training stage on up through leaving the house. Time goes by faster than you could ever imagine.