Kids are expensive. I’m going down swinging. But how expensive they are does have some variability. In fact, when it comes to caring for an infant, we have found that we can fit him into our regular budget. This excludes the cost of childcare, of course. Hence why I’m still swinging. But looking back on our budget for a six-month old baby made me realize that it is entirely possible to fit in diapers, wipes, formula, and food for $100 a month. Here’s how we do it:
Know Your Situation
Before you can start to think about how to fit baby items into your budget, you need to know exactly what it is you are trying to fit in. For us, that includes disposable diapers, disposable wipes, soy formula, and organic baby food in glass jars. Quantity matters as well. Our son has been on a combination of mother’s milk and formula since his second month. As much as I would still like to offer a swift scoff to the finance blogs penned by men who suggest breastfeeding because it’s a real money saver, there is a kernel of truth to that. Breast milk is free when it comes to my budget. As for real life, breast milk is only free if you consider your time to be as well. (Spoiler: It’s not.) This does drive down our formula expense slightly, at least on paper. Our son is also a supremely gifted eater. As a result, we go through a lot of baby food…and diapers and wipes. Though, we do make more baby food than we buy. Your situation might be the same, or it might be dramatically different.
Work Backwards
Instead of starting with a price point, start by knowing what you need and what works for you. Then, find the deals to match. For instance, when I realized that cloth diapering was not in the cards, we tested out a variety of fragrance free, chlorine free diapers and cruelty-free wipes. That criteria is what mattered to us, along with ensuring that the diapers and wipes would do their jobs. After a bit of experimenting and a lot of laundry, we realized that our son wasn’t shaped for Seventh Generation diapers and Target wipes worked just as well. For now, his tush stays clean and dry with Up & Up brand from Target.
We also tested out a half dozen or so different formulas under the guidance of our pediatrician. Our son had issues with aspiration and acid reflux, but he also seemed to develop some sort of sensitivity to dairy. With his GI tract more developed now, it seems that he is starting to outgrow a lot of these issues, but he still takes soy formula. We tried a handful of pricey brands, but we actually found that the Up & Up version mixes better (and costs a whole lot less).
Finally, I knew that I wanted to try to feed him as many organic options as I could. I also knew that my preference would be to make the food, but I had to be realistic with what we could expect his caregivers to do in the mornings and at lunch time. So we tried out a few single-serve jars to find a brand that he really liked that also came in recyclable packaging. Once we knew what worked, then we started to figure out how we could get the cost down to $100 a month or less.
Shop Around
I know a lot of families use Amazon Subscribe & Save or Amazon Pantry. For us, we were tied into Target because of the store-brand. But when I tried to price out comparable items, Target still came out slightly ahead. That is probably because I still have a few tricks up my sleeve from my couponing days. Yes, I use the Cartwheel app for in store discounts at Target. Yet, I’m aware that there are percent discounts and coupons. But the biggest savings comes from the fact that I only shop at Target when things are on sale, and I “roll” my gift cards.
I’m not going to turn this into a couponing blog, but I do want to share my little trick. Often times, Target will do a promotion where you purchase $100 worth of baby items and get a $20 gift card. The initial purchase requires you to shell out $100, but then you put aside that $20 gift card until you need more items. Really. Put it aside. Lock it up. Freeze it in a block of ice. Whatever you have to do so you don’t spend the gift card. The next time Target runs that promotion (likely the following month, if not sooner), you still get $100 worth of product, but you only spend $80 of new money because you supplement with the gift card. The purchase still triggers a new gift card. So all that is left for you to do is rinse and repeat. And wait for an embarrassingly large delivery to appear on your doorstep.
Recent Past Orders
March 9, 2018
| Up & Up Diapers – Bulk Plus Pack (192 in size 4) | $28.99 |
| Up & Up Soy Formula – 36 oz canister | $17.99 x 4 = $71.96 |
| $100.95 |
January 27, 2018
| Earth’s Best Organic Dinner Favorites (12 pack case) | $11.49 |
| Earth’s Best Organic Delicious Din Din (12 pack case) | $10.39 x 2 = $20.78 |
| Up & Up Soy Formula – 36 oz canister | $17.99 x 3 = $53.97 |
| Up & Up Diapers – Super Pack (102 in size 3) | $14.99 |
| $101.23 |
(Note: So you don’t fear that we don’t actually use wipes, just know that we placed a comically big order of wipes four months ago and have been pulling from our stockpile in the basement. We followed the same gift-card rolling approach, though.)
Final Thoughts
There is no one-size fits all approach to budgeting for a baby. We could spend less. We could also spend significantly more. As with anything, we can’t make perfect decisions all the time. Instead, we try to make as many good decisions as often as possible given our situation. By doing so, we have found that we can fit our baby in our budget comfortably for under $100 a month when it comes to diapers, wipes, formula, and food. It worked at six months, and it is still working at eight.
So Tell Me…Does $100 seem reasonable for these items?
I always say that kids are cheap but costly. In complete honesty, between childcare and salary given up, our kids cost around $75k per year, and that’s before we’ve even fed them.
That said our explicit kid purchases only cost $100-$150 per month. That’s stuff like diapers, wipes, clothes, shoes, kid activities (by that I mean purchasing crayons and a museum membership) etc.
For baby, I was a big user of Target (though it helped that I had the 10% employee discount). Now that the kids are older I mostly use thrift shops for clothes and Aldi for diapers and wipes.
We didn’t do much formula because neither kid liked it. I did a little formula with Shirley because I was over pumping (and didn’t have conference calls where I could just pump while on mute), but that was just when I needed to be away. We also skipped baby foods, and did potatoes, sweet potatoes, yogurt and applesauce until the kids could chew pretty well. Thankfully, they liked to eat food, so we had a pretty easy time switching them over to a mostly food vs mostly milk diet.
I think that the amount you spend on a kid is highly dependent on the lifestyle you want to live. But even simple lifestyles have certain costs (like giving up a lot of salary).
This is awesome! I wish I would have had this mindset when our kids were babies. I think I wasted a lot of money back then! I like the Target gift card roll over idea!
Also, wanted to share a new trend I’m seeing that I am in love with – no gifts at birthday parties! This seriously makes me so happy! Most kids have more than enough toys and don’t need more. Parents are starting to write on birthday invites – no gifts please. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but felt that I would be a mean mom if I did. So glad others are paving the path for me, lol!
We rolled gift cards too! But I also had cheaper prices from Amazon competing with the gift card roll so that made it more complicated over time since I was bad at timing the cycles of their baby promotions. Get me that schedule or a rough idea of it, and I’d be way better at it.
About $100 a month seems reasonable to me. That’s roughly where I think we were.
I’d never heard the term roll used this way before. I like it! And delivery of bulk items.
Although I don’t have kids yet, I have several friends and family members who do. They say the same thing – that there is no one size fits all when it comes to kids. Each child is different and what works with baby #1 may not work with baby #2 also. You have some good advice and it looks like you are budgeting well for your new addition. Congrats!
Thanks, Kayla! And you’re right. ALL kids are different!
I’d say we probably spend about $100/mo as well (of course that excludes our ridiculous daycare expense). Have you had to buy many clothes yet? My best friend’s daughter is about 15mo older than my daughter and she shares clothes with me. We just got two giant plastic tubs full of clothes from her. It’s amazing!!
Wow that is impressive indeed Penny! Congrats on finding a supply and system that works for you. I think that’s really what it’s all about. Figuring out what works, and finding ways to optimize. I’m glued to your blog for the next 2 decades for sure, waiting for regular updates on how your budget changes over time. #thefinancialvoyeurismisreal 🙂
Well done with shopping around! The thing about diapers/wipes/formula is that they’re something you re buy for the first year+ of the baby’s time so it is well worth spending time working on getting that monthly cost down.
My wife and I are going to have kids someday, but we’re definitely not going to raise them here in Sydney. Everything here is ridiculously expensive: at least 2x what it would cost in the U.S.
That’s what I’ve heard! We are very fortunate when it comes to grocery costs and things like that.
We primarily use Target everything, too, although we buy Aldi diapers sometimes for pure convenience. A definite yes on the gift card “hack,” that’s how we do it, too.
We have been averaging less than $100 a month by far, but we were gifted lots of diapers, I am exclusively nursing (no formula yet), and we’re not on solids yet. I have been buying a few solids here and there in preparation for when she needs them using iBotta discounts.
I haven’t separated out what we spend specifically on our daughter but by breastfeeding (she won’t take a bottle), using cloth nappies (diapers in Australia) and wipes, and doing baby led weaning (where she eats what we eat) I’d say we spend less than $20 a month extra on our 13 month old.
We’ve also accepted any hand-me-downs and bought all our larger items second hand which has saved us thousands.
That’s amazing that you are able to do those things! I think it’s really daycare that throws a wrench into the cost of a kiddo.