Having A Baby??

I have had great luck with freebies and coupons to get a lot of my baby supplies for either free or for pennies on the dollar. I have been wanting to share this post for a while, so FINALLY got to it today. If you are pregnant or have a baby in your house I really recommend looking in to these websites to help cut costs with your little one.

As soon as I find out I'm pregnant, I sign up for Similac's Strong Mom's program and Enfamil's Family Beginnings program. They send out fantastic freebies and coupons for about 18 months. I also start checking out WalMart's website as they offer formula samples pretty often too. Currently there is not a sample on WalMart's sample site, but I would bookmark it and check back often. When you sign up through WalMart it takes a few weeks to receive the sample, but as soon as you receive it, you can sign up for another one if they're still offering it.
Then shortly before or after the baby is born I start looking in to Gerber, Beech-Nut's Let's Grow and other baby food retailers to see if they have programs to sign up for offering freebies or coupons to help with cost there too. Watching for sales and coupons on diapers throughout your pregnancy will make life a lot easier when the baby comes too.

When Marcus was born I had enough diapers stockpiled to last his first year -- it is so great to just go downstairs to my own "store" when he is out of diapers instead of loading up everyone to go out and buy them (at full price too!). By the time he was 2 months old I had all the baby food he was going to need and I still have not had to buy formula for him (now 11 mos old). Now I have nursed my babies for 6-11 months, which makes a HUGE difference, but they still get formula with babysitters and after I wean them, so it's nice to have on hand.

A few "tips":
1. Formula. I signed up both Nathan & I for Enfamil & Similac's programs, so we get double the coupons & samples.
2. Regarding the diaper & baby food, print or cut the coupons and then keep your eyes peeled for sales. When you pair a coupon with a sale is when you save the big bucks. I never paid more than $2.50/pk for Marcus's diapers and got all his baby food for free.
3. Beech-Nut. That is the baby food Marcus ate. Shortly after I signed up for their program they e-mailed me a high value coupon ($1/3 jars)in PDF form so I printed to my heart's content. About 2 days later Kroger had Beech-Nut baby food on sale for 0.25/jar or 0.40/jar depending on which store I went to. They have it on sale for 0.40/jar pretty often and paired with a good coupon makes for VERY inexpensive baby food. I made all of MaryBeth's baby food, but I couldn't make it that cheap!
4. Wipes. I make my own wipes unless I can get them for 0.50/container or less. This has been a huge money-saver and I actually like them better than most store-bought wipes (including Huggies & Pampers). It is so easy to do & the older kids really like to help me making it a fun project.

I will share the wipes recipe on another post because this one is already pretty long. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions -- I love this kind of stuff (obviously!!).