Baby Expense Report: Month 3

Family & Kids 1 Minute

It’s the 8th of the month again, which means another look into our monthly baby expenses! It’s been a fairly consistent month; in fact, we saw a significant drop in month-to-month expenses as health care and miscallaneous items have converted into more regular things, like buying diapers and cleaning/care supplies.

Here’s how everything breaks down this month, and in overall terms:

Here are a few points of note about what you see:

  • This is the lowest number since we started tracking in January (okay, so the college savings skew things a bit), but we enjoyed seeing a lot of progress since last month’s huge outlays.
  • If the diapers/wipes number seems huge, that’s because it’s been inflated by bulk purchases. We took a trip down to the local Costco lats week and bought enough diapers to last through next month.
  • If you’re wondering about the nursery number, it consists of a bulk pack of batteries, a space heater (remember my adventures?), and a second Diaper Champ for a family member’s house.

In total, we spent $259 this month, and $976 so far since birth. I think we’re starting to get a good baseline going from which we can evaluate efforts to cut costs! What do you think?

Until next month…

Photo by M.ADA

Published by Peter

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21 thoughts on “Baby Expense Report: Month 3”

    1. It’s not much, but we definitely wanted to start as early as possible. Any little bit definitely helps and we’ll let compounding take care of the rest. 🙂

  2. I think you are doing a great job on tracking and it is good that you are buying in bulk. It might make one month have some very odd numbers but if you get a great deal on non-perishables then it is better to buy tons of them one month and have a carryover until the next month.

    Keep tracking and let us know how it all turns out.
    .-= Lulu´s last post: How I Save Money At CVS: 4 April 2010 =-.

  3. Under 1k through 3 months is very impressive! Especially when you factor in what you are saving for her future
    .-= Evan´s last post: Paying for college without going broke =-.

    1. Thank you! I’m curious to do some research on “typical” costs and compare to see how we’re doing.

  4. I am curious, do you not have insurance? If you cloth diapered (or cloth wiped) you could save some big bucks. Good that you have started on a college fund, many people let that wait.

    1. We do have insurance (the type of insurance has actually switched in the last few weeks from co-pay to HSA-type). If we had not over the last few months, those “health care” costs you see above would have been closer to $1,000 or more…we have been to the doctor about 6 or 7 times now. Crazy how much care the little guy needs! 🙂

      You’ll see the health care number rise, as we now need to cover all prescriptions and non-well child visits, but our overall cost of health care has gone down. You would have also seen insurance premiums, had there been any over the last 3 months, but our employer was carrying the cost during the switch-over.

      We thought about the cloth options and decided against it for various reasons! But I agree–there is definitely potential there to shave more costs.

  5. We have baby #1 on the way in June. Looks like we better do the same type of tracking. Although I love spreadsheets, I have a hard time recording everything. Any suggestions?
    .-= BibleDebt´s last post: Outsource Your Job – Then Catch up on Sleep =-.

    1. I have a habit of collecting all of my receipts in my left pant pocket throughout the day and recording each night. Anything that smells like “baby” gets pulled right into my little spreadsheet. I try to neither be too detailed or too specific.

      Same goes for my envelope balances, etc., so the baby stuff is just another “layer.”

      If you want a more “traditional” approach, maybe Quicken or Mint is a good bet? It would be easy to categorize spending for the baby.

    1. I agree 100%! By the way, our diaper costs will probably average out to $50/month, we’ve just been buying in bulk and stockpiling the past few months.

  8. Check out the site babycheapskate.com. Every week, they do a round up of the best diaper and formula deal. By following their deals, I’ve routinely been able to buy Huggies for under $5 for Jumbo sized packages, frequently less. That’s about half the cost of Costco, which I used before finding the deals. There are times when they’re nearly free and I stock up. Last summer, I got a dozen packages at Rite Aid and was paid to take them after a mail in rebate. Also, if you use Huggies, you can mail in the receipt to Caregiver’s Marketplace at the end of the year for $.75 per package. Last year, I got back almost $40.

    Cleaning and bathing supplies are frequently free with coupon and sale combos, too.

    Babies are expensive, but there are definitely ways to cut the cost!

    1. We do use Huggies, so I’ll definitely check out your suggestions!! Thanks.

  9. We had three in diapers for awhile (newborn, 1 yr old and 2 yr old) the wipes/diapers were definitely our biggest expense. I tried every generic brand of diapers in an effort to cut costs but only the expensive ones seem to do the job (although target and cvs wipes were decent). Now with only one in diapers, our biggest expense is probably the GALLONS of milk we go through a week:)

    1. Ha! Yeah, I’m curious to see how the numbers will change as he grows up!

  10. I enjoy your updates. Our first is due in May, I think I’ll borrow your format and track our expenses as well. So far we’ve done really well keeping costs down thanks to hand-me-downs from relatives and Craigslist.
    .-= Mrs. Frugal´s last post: Yakezie Round Up – Retirement Edition =-.

    1. Craigslist is very active for baby stuff! Just be careful with what you get.

      One thing that helped us a lot with baby stuff was Consumer Reports.

      We’re lucky because we know a lot of people just above our age group, so they were more than willing to part with the kid stuff for our benefit. 🙂 Score!

  11. Our babies are the same age, except this is my 3rd. I tracked the expenses faithfully with my first, but have now found that there’s no time for such things. 😉 That’s OK, because I let mint do a lot of my budgeting and we’re still making great progress on our goals. As the kids get older, you might be like me and just start adding their needs to your household budget, so instead of kids->bathing, it becomes personal grooming or even the ubiquitous “shopping” category in mint. 😉

    I look forward to reading your updates. I also find that my preschool costs for child #2 overshadows any variation in wipes, etc, so really that’s the main driver in the budget.

    1. You’re most likely right, I think eventually these expenses will be incorporated. I’m separating them largely for the benefit of my readers. 🙂

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