Little Wonders Wednesday and 5 Easy Ways to Save Money while Raising Babies

Saving money is something it is very important to each of us.  When I became a stay at home mom it was a pretty significant pay cut, plus there was the added expenses that come along with babies, saving money become a priority.  These are a few tricks I have learned along the way.

1 Cloth Diaper
 
This is by far my favorite way to save money.  I am so glad we made the choice to cloth diaper.  Yes, the initial start up can be some money, but the long run savings can be over 1,000 dollars.  If you plan to have more babies that savings jumps by so much!  If you want to learn more about cloth diapering I wrote a series on what I've learned from cloth diapering twins.  Check it out!
 
2 Consignment Store
I am super lucky to have a great consignment store near me.  Today I dropped off some outgrown clothes and I was able to get them 6 shirts,4 pairs of pants, and 4 books.  I got all of this for free with store credit!

3 Shop smart
Grocery shopping for a family of 4 can definitely cost a lot of money, even with toddlers.  What I basically do is shop at Sam's and Aldis for my staples.  I think this can cut things like canned goods and dairy and bread easily in half.  For everything else I make a list and stick to it.  I make my list from the circular and use coupons.  I get most of my coupons from coupons.com and my newspaper.

4 Lend and Borrow Things
This especially when you have babies is so great!  I borrowed bouncy seats, bumbos, all kinds of stuff.  I was given so many hand me downs and clothes to borrow.  Nothing is more exciting than recieving a big bag of clothes to go home and see all the goodies you got. I have found you are more likely to receive these goodies if you share the love. 

5 The Internet is you friend.
Clearly, the internet is already your friend, but it is such a great source of saving money.  Through the internet and local mommy internet sites I have gotten some really great info.  Like free park district activity for the little ones, kids eat free nights at local favorites,  and the coupons and things listed before.

So those are my saving money tips.  I am by no means an expert in saving money, there are many websites by people who know much more than me.  This is just what I have learned over the years and they are easy enough to work for me.  What are you tips?


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