It’s been a 6-month break since I last published a baby expense report, and that’s entirely my fault. To everyone who was following along—sorry! Laziness and switching money tracking systems got the better of me.
But in good faith, I’ve decided to get back on track with monthly updates, and to catch up on the last 6 months of spending in this very post. If you need a reminder of where we left of, check out the May 7th report for Month 4.
What’s Happened Since May?
Not a whole lot, actually, at least financially speaking. We’ve settled into a monetary groove with our baby expenses, optimizing where we could, cutting back where we could, and spending a little more where we thought prudent.
My wife continues to take advantage of a work-at-home situation for a family company, and as a result, daycare expenses are nowhere to be found. With this alone, we estimate we’ve easily saved thousands of dollars by this point.
Breaking Down Our Expenses
Rather than detailing our month-by-month spending, I thought I’d take a look at general categories in today’s catch-up post and let you know how we’ve done on an average basis. We’ll return to a little more detail in next month’s post.
Here is how things have shaken out:
- Health Care: Our HSA-enabled insurance plan continues to cover 100% of all well-child visits and immunizations. Our monthly cost for the insurance premiums: $95.00.
- Diapers & Wipes: As we’ve talked about regularly, we’ve stuck exclusively to Costco for our diapers and Target for our wipes, and we buy the biggest packages available of each. Average monthly cost over the last six months: $40.00.
- Feeding Supplies: As Evan slowly transitioned into solid food over the last months, feeding “supplies” turned into actual food supplies for making baby food, and then into simply an extension of our grocery spending. We now use this category for tracking things like kid-friendly bowls, sippy cups, bibs, and other eating-related expenses. Average monthly expenses: $10.00.
- Toys: We’ve found ourselves buying more and more toys, since most of what we had was designed for newborns. Average monthly cost thus far: $15.00.
- Clothes: We’ve been lucky to limit clothing expenses with consistent gifts from friends and family, only having to supplement where needed. We’re also diligent about doing regular laundry so we can re-cycle clothes quickly. Average expenses: $15.00 per month.
- Other Expenses: This includes everything from odds and ends to things bought on road trips, and more. Average monthly cost: $25.00.
Summing Up
Over the last 6 months, our average monthly spending totals out to about $200 each month for our baby expenses.
Above and beyond this, of course, we continue to contribute to Evan’s college fund every month, but we’ve excluded this since Month 4 since it varies based on what you want to accomplish and skews our numbers.
That catches us up to December 1st! Stay tuned next month for the return to regularly scheduled updates. Also, by popular demand, an e-Book on kids & finances is in the works! Details are coming soon.
Photo by M.ADA
Fiscal Fizzle 
I love hearing all your details since our baby is right around the same age!
Awesome! I’ve now actually met quite a few people through these posts that have kids close to ours.
I have a black lab puppy (he’s over a year but still acts like one at least) and I think I spend close to $200 on him a month with food, taking him to doggie day care some days, toys etc.. Just crazy that it’s financially on par with having a baby – I guess at least I don’t have to worry about college though haha.
Wow! We budget about $20 a month for our dog, and it seems to last. What are you feeding him/her? lol
Just had my baby one week ago, to the day! The Wife is looking into Amazon Mom she thinks it is cheaper than Costco and they deliver right to your house. Ever check it out?
First of all, congratulations!
I just checked out Amazon Mom and signed up for the free account. As a point of comparison, I checked out the same Size-2 box of Huggies we buy at Costco, which costs us just about $45 with tax. The Amazon Mom price is $72.99.
http://www.amazon.com/Huggies-Size-12-18-Lbs-Diapers/dp/B000UTBPAU/ref=sr_1_19?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1291859840&sr=1-19
It’s possible other brands compare differently, but it wouldn’t work out for us, since our son is very sensitive to certain brands of diapers and wipes.
If you figure out which works better for you, let me know! I’m curious.
I went running to The Wife with your reply – she said you get 30% off when you do an automatic refill account. So it would bring you under.
Agreed, I didn’t take that into account, but I’ve recalculated with the items that offer the 30% and I’m still coming out over $50. Hopefully, whatever brand you’re looking at works out better than mine! 🙂
I highly recommend Craigslist for baby clothes. When my kids started outgrowing their clothes, there is an abundance of kid clothes up to about 4T size on that site. I would just put an ad out that said “wanted baby boy clothes 2T, $25” I would also specify what I was looking for “feetie PJ’s, etc.” It worked until my son got into boy clothes.
In my ad, I’d put that I’ll pay $1 an item or $20-$25 for a garbage bag full (I usually put a bigger number for winter clothes because coats and things are expensive. It was well worth it.
Bonus that you don’t have to pay daycare. That is my #1 expense right now. More than food, mortgage, etc.
Yeah, daycare would be cost-prohibitive for us, even with a decent paying job right now. It just doesn’t compute, so I’m very happy that this arrangement was able to happen at home.
Thanks for the tips on Craigslist! I’ll definitely check it out.
I have a black lab so he eats… a lot… 4 cups a day=(