Sense to Save

How much we’ve spent on our baby so far

I’m 38 weeks pregnant and just about all of the things I had hoped to purchase before the baby comes have been acquired. I think we have enough things to get us through that first month (hopefully) but I’m fine with sending someone to the store or going myself if necessary.

Out of pocket so far, we have spent $1,086.31. This does not include the value of gift items (and gifts are listed in the sheet so you can see all of what we have).

If you’d like to see a detailed breakdown of how that was spent, you can see my list here. Here’s a categorical breakdown:

Medical: $8 out of pocket. Gotta love our HMO!
Maternity wear: $191.53
Baby clothes: $63.14
Carriers: $15
Car seat: $148
Crib items: $275
Baby’s room: $118.97
Books: $4
Classes/help: $123.94
Diapering: $112.12
Misc.: $26.61

Ways we could have saved:

We could have avoided buying so many baby clothes ourselves. We received a lot as gifts and also some hand-me-downs. In all, we spent about $63 ourselves on clothes ranging from sizes newborn through 9 months. Judging by my baby clothes inventory and his already-full closet, I think we have too many clothes already!

I got a lot of use out of most of my maternity clothes and I feel like many of them will be useful when I’m gearing up for our second baby.

We could have scouted more second-hand stores for storage solutions for our baby’s room, but I am happy with what we came up with.

Overall, I think we did a good job getting what we needed without spending too much. Still, we’ve already spent more than a thousand dollars, and the little guy isn’t even here yet! It has been tremendously helpful for us to set aside a “baby” fund. We threw all extra money into it until we had $1,000. Some things were purchased from our regular budget, just because. We still have a few hundred in the baby fund to use for the first month or so, if needed. And, we’ll continue to set aside money for diapers, clothes, gadgets, whatever.

I estimate that we’ll be able to reuse at least $650 worth of that stuff with our second child.

About how much did you spend on your first baby?

A peek at my freezer meals

Since mid-November, I’ve been adding foods to the freezer to eat after our baby is born. I decided not to do a big marathon cooking session. Rather, I just planned meals that would freeze well and then I’d make triple (or more) portions. We ate whatever meal it was for dinner and lunch the next day and then I’d freeze the rest in individual serving sizes.

For saucy or soupy meals, I froze them flat. This allows the bags to stack easily and take up the least amount of space in the freezer.

I’ve made:

• Baked ziti
• Meaty spaghetti sauce
• Taco meat
• Split pea soup
• Chicken noodle soup
• Taco soup
• Ham (leftover from Thanksgiving)

I plan to make some meatloaves and some Caribbean jerk chicken as well. And, if I happen to make any meal that freezes well, we’ll try to save some for later. Any suggestions for other foods that freeze well?

In all, we have 25+ servings of food. Not a ton of variety, but every little bit helps and we can eat this stuff over the course of the next few months, hopefully.

In addition to our freezer foods, we have some convenience meals in the pantry to throw together.

My goal in doing all this was to give us some options besides take-out in the early weeks with Baby.

Finally, I have a list posted on the fridge that details how many packages of whatever I have. When someone eats a serving of taco soup, we’ll just cross one off the list so we can keep a running tally of what’s on hand.

The top shelf is all freezer meals (and a pack of flour) and below that I have frozen pizza, ice cream, waffles and some chicken. I keep some juice bottles full of water in there, since a full freezer is supposed to be more efficient.

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