I am the mom of a six month old. When I first found out I was pregnant I was scared. I knew I would have a year off of work to begin raising my child, but that year off meant I no longer had an income. Yes, I would receive employment insurance, but the thing most people don't realize is that come tax time I could have to pay that back. So began my budgeting...
The first thing I think of when I think of buying for baby is diapers. They would cost about twenty dollars per bag, and each bag only held eighty four diapers, and as baby gets bigger the amount of diapers per bag decreases. An average cost per diaper is forty five cents. Babies can go through anywhere from five to fifteen diapers per day, or more. This means a cost of $2.25 - $6.75 per day or $821.25 - $2463.75 per year. I could not do this without an income.
As I was shopping around pricing out diapers I came across some coupons. I had never given a second thought to using coupons, but knowing I would not have any means to buy diapers I thought I better grab a few. Later that day I was venting to a friend. She told me about three websites that would mail coupons of your choice right to your door. As soon as I got home I found the sites, set up accounts and ordered some diaper coupons. The next weekend as I read my local paper I came across a flyer full of coupons. I previously overlooked these, shrugging them off as useless advertising. This time I neatly clipped all the coupons and organized them in file folders. While I was talking (bragging) to my sister about how much I was going to save with all my coupons, she told me about stacking them. Stacking coupons is where you use multiple coupons for one product. Well, after she gave me that idea I went looking for a store near me that would accept stacked coupons. It took awhile but I found one. They have some pretty easy rules, they will price match and use one coupon for that product, or they will accept a stack of coupons for a non-priced matched product. Each coupon in a stack must have a different UPC, and they will not take coupons for more than the price of a product.
With all this knowledge I went home (by now my online coupons had arrived in the mail) sat down and began to stack my coupons. My store just happened to have a sale on diapers that week. I just about fainted I had a enough coupons that I would get a package of diapers and a package of wipes for free. Since that day I have requested newspaper inserts from all of my friends and family, traded coupons in online forums and grabbed coupons every time I see them hanging in the store. Needless to say I have never paid full price for diapers; I have never even paid more than five cents per diaper. When my son was born I had twenty five bags/boxes of diapers set aside. I have never once had to run to the store because I was out of diapers or wipes, and I am now set for at least six more months of diapers.
