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So, you had your baby shower and are probably looking at the list of things you feel you still need and are getting a little nervous. You still need how many things?! How much is this going to cost? How can I save money on all these baby items?
Believe me, I get it.
I became obnoxiously obsessed with making sure we had everything we needed before our baby was born. Seriously, my husband had to remind me over and over that we didn’t need to buy everything she needed in her first year of life before she was even here.
It took a while, and a lot of convincing on my patient husband’s part, but he finally got my “I need to be a super-mom” complex to take a chill pill. Where we were in life (about to move/buy a house and take on a large renovation project) we didn’t need a bunch of extra things floating around. So, we only bought what we felt we needed for the first 3-4 months of her life.
But, I am so happy I held off on buying a bunch of things early! Seriously, especially clothes and diapers! I know everyone is like, “build a diaper stash!” but I didn’t want to end up with too many of a size she grew out of and have to deal with exchanging them. Because here’s the deal, I won’t exchange them. I will just put them in a closet for “the next kid”.
Clothes too. Holy cow. The amount of clothes I thought I needed vs. what our little girl actually wore enough is crazy! We seriously just ended up cycling outfits because while trendy and styled outfits are very cute, they can be a pain in the butt when you go through a few outfits a day.
Yup, we are fans of cozy and easy baby clothes. Especially since our baby was born during the pandemic and we weren’t really going anywhere.
Anyway, here are our favorite ways to save money on baby items.
REGISTER AT MORE THAN ONE WEBSITE
You don’t have to do this, but it really helps when it comes to helping you save money on baby items!
We suggest having one main registry, like Amazon or Babylist, where you can link from other websites. Both of these registries have ways of literally going to any website and linking an item in your registry so you don’t have to feel confined to one website.
Then, create other registries on other websites so you can take advantage of their completion discounts. Websites that allow for a completion discount are :
- Amazon (10% non-prime members, 15% prime members)
- Babylist (15% from their store, websites you linked in won’t get the discount)
- Buybuy Baby (15%) (or Bed Bath & Beyond)
- Crate and Kids (15%, but you have to wait until your due date, wah.)
- Pottery Barn Kids (20%)
- SpearmintLOVE (20%)
- Target (15%)
There may be more, but this is what I am familiar with. Some websites, like Walmart, will have baby registries but will not give you a completion discount. Just a heads up.
We created a main registry on Amazon since, let’s face it, everyone knows Amazon. We also created private registries on Buybuy Baby, Target, and Babylist. I didn’t know much about SpearmintLOVE at the time or I probably would have ordered a lot of her clothes from there!
We gave the link for the Amazon registry to those who asked, and kept the others as lists of things we felt we needed (or wanted) from other websites. So these other registries didn’t get shared.
GET FAMILIAR WITH REGISTRY COMPLETION DISCOUNT RULES AND EXCLUSIONS
Just because a website totes a 15% registry completion discount does not mean that it will apply to all of your chosen goodies.
Wah, I know.
This is why you should register at more than one place because some brands will be excluded on some websites but included on others!
Also, make sure you read through the rules and figure out how many times you can use the discount. Some places, like Amazon, let you use your discount twice (for a total of up to $2000 spent, a savings of $300 for Prime Members). Some give you a coupon for one discount in-store and one online too!
CHECK FOR DIAPER DISCOUNTS
Diapers (and wipes) are usually excluded from registry completion discounts. This is where a diaper discount comes in handy to help you save money!
See if your registry offers a diaper discount. These are helpful for those first few diaper packs. Because here’s the deal, if you look at Amazon’s Diaper discount you will see it says “20% off for one year”.
Which, that’s great right?! If you are like me you read that and think “Holy freaking cow! I am going to buy diapers of every size I will ever need before that year is up!” Sadly, it doesn’t work that way.
Really it isn’t this unlimited discount of 20% off diapers for a year, you only get the discount on the first $300 you spend on diapers.
But hey, it is still some savings! And after the diaper discount is over you can scour the internet for the cheapest price on your favorite diapers.
Or you can check for rewards programs with your diaper company of choice. We used Pampers Pure in the beginning (we just switched to Coterie Diapers and I am completely obsessed!) and they offer a rewards program. You just scan some barcodes on diapers or wipes you buy and slowly build up points you can use for discounts on diapers or other baby goodies.
Some brands, like Coterie, give you a discount for auto-renewing or subscribing to their diapers. So if you find a type you like that is something to look for.
LOOK ON THE BRAND’S WEBSITE FOR SALES
We actually bought a few of our more expensive items off of the actual brand’s website. Why? Because they had some holiday sales going on that made the discount equal to the completion discount percentage.
In some cases this gave a discount on something that wasn’t included in a registry discount.
So why not just use the registry discount if the discount is the same?
Because we didn’t want to spend a lot all at once so we broke it down over a few months to buy our bigger ticket items. Also, Amazon was where we had most of our items and planned on buying most of them through there, but with the $2000 cap, we wanted to get the larger items separate from that discount so we could use the discount on more things.
Some of the items we bought off their brand websites were:
- Our Newton Waterproof Mattress. You will see in mom groups, communities like Babycenter and The Bump, or “best crib mattress” lists that this is the favorite. It is breathable and completely washable, so it puts your worried mom brain at ease! We bought this during one of their sales on their website. (Too impatient to wait for a sale? Here is $30 off)
- Our Nanit Baby Monitor. Again, another fan favorite. We love ours but if you are looking for one that doesn’t work over wifi this is not for you. These monitors are amazing though, it gives you sleep analytics, tips, records sweet memories, etc. They also now sell sheets for the crib that will even measure your baby’s growth too. Also, check out Best Buy to see if they are having sales on the Nanit!
You should also consider that other websites may have sales on those items other than those you registered on and the brand website.
Don’t want to have to keep up on this? You can follow me on LIKEtoKNOW.it for sale reminders or sign up for our emails.
USE THOSE BED BATH & BEYOND COUPONS
Ok. We all get those emails and mailers, right? Those constant 20% off discount emails?
Yup, you can use those on Bed Bath & Beyond or BuyBuy Baby to save on baby items. We registered for a few Babybjorn things which were excluded from some registry completion discounts but included in Bed Bath & Beyond 20% off discounts.
Just be sure to read the fine print and be on the lookout for other discounts through them. If you don’t get these offers sign-up for their emails, you can always unsubscribe after you get what you want!
They also had some discounts or something they call “My Funds”. It is kinda like cash back for things you buy from Bed Bath & Beyond or Buybuy BABY. I had no clue this existed and had some to use on one of our BabyBjorn things with one of our 20% off coupons. So if you want to use these websites check for your “My Funds” in your “offers”.
COMPARE PRICES ACROSS REGISTRIES
You can use Babylist to compare prices across a few different websites, but it won’t give you prices for all websites. At least, when I set ours up it didn’t.
I actually went full-blown obsessive and made an excel document with everything we wanted to get for our baby listed out by category. I included prices for each item from every website we were using for completion discounts as well as if I could use the completion discount on that item.
Yup. I made it all color-coded with where we would buy it to save the most money and seriously strategized our entire baby product buying process.
Remember that different registries have different exclusions for their completion discounts.
Here is a snippet of what my excel document looked like. Obviously the prices, items, and websites are going to vary.
THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED
Some things you won’t need right away, like a high chair, clothes past 3 months, or even a crib if you are going the bassinet route.
Yes, if you buy these “older” items with your registry discount you can save money. BUT, if you need to break up the purchases then figure out what you need now.
Also, this is a good time to go over your registry and decide what you actually need.
When we put together our registry we had so many extra items on there that we didn’t actually need. So go over your list of remaining needs and wants with a critical eye.
I know it is very hard when you are a new parent. I get it, everything seems like something you are going to need or that will be helpful. But, remember you can always buy things after the baby is born if you decide you do need something.
But seriously, do yourself a favor and start light on the clothing!
If you need help figuring out what you actually need (and some insights into what has worked well for us) I wrote out a series of posts to guide you along here is a link to part one, “clothing”. Or here is the comprehensive (pretty freakin’ long. Just a warning) version.
SET UP AMAZON FAMILY “SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE”
This is something I am still learning how to use, but the idea is that if you use Amazon’s Subscribe and Save on Amazon Family you can save 20% on diapers and wipes.
I have a few things set up for Subscribe and Save, like Aquaphor, diapers (until we switched to Coterie), baby bottle soap, my prenatal vitamins, and my DHA vitamins. I want to add laundry detergent, our regular dish soap, garbage bags, and baby wipes once I get a better idea of how often I need those things.
The trick with subscribe and save is that you need 5+ items on a single order to get the discount. So right now my subscribe and save shipments are all over the place so I don’t get that great of a discount. But, if you get your essentials on this and time them right you can save quite a bit!
You may have to play around with it. I am actually going to delete all of mine off then reset them all to “once every 4 weeks” or “once every 2 weeks” (or basically even weeks out) and have them start on the same day. That way I get some kind of discount on our recurring purchases!
There you have it, the tips and tricks we used to save money on our baby registry items we had remaining.
What are some of your favorite ways to save money on baby items?