... Manageable

It can be overwhelming when people tell you the absurdly large costs involved with raising a child. I can't speak for the whole process yet, but so far I've been happy to find ways to make those costs more manageable. (Feel free to skip to the bottom of the post by clicking here).

Consignment

Let's just face it. When baby #1 comes along you have no ide what you'll need or really use. No matter how much research I tried to do before hand, I found myself with an alarming amount of stuff. No matter how cute or thoughtful it may have been, BabyK wasn't touching 1/2 of it. So what did I do? Consignment! yes you could try selling on Facebook Marketplace or even Kijiji, but the there is so much hassle involved. With ever changing Covid regulations I found it easier to go through two local cosigning options; Outgrow Outplay and Once Upon A Child.

OutGrow OutPlay - Local traveling consignors. You pay $15 to be able to sell at one of their locally hosted (or virtual) events, then make 65% of your sales. If you volunteer you can earn a higher percentage based on your hours. Its a lot of work, but totally great for the A-Type personality side I have.

Once Upon A Child - Local store will look through your bins and offer you cash or store credit for any of the items they want to buy from you. There's no obligation and their team is happy to give you reasons why items may have been passed over so you have a better idea what might sell next time. During Covid, our local store has even held live Facebook auctions, arranged for virtual shopping appointments and curbside pickups.

A good friend of mine has a system that I've adopted. She gathers their outgrown items and takes them to the store to sell. Whatever they don't want she offers on her local BuyNothing Group. If all else fails, she can always donate to the thrift stores. I love that in this model. Everyone gets a piece of the pie and material things are cycled through communities rather than left in closets to die or landfills to be wasted.

Second Hand

Speaking of second hand items... I have always been a lover of thrift stores; even before it was vogue. Coming from a house of 5 kids; if your clothes and toys weren't a hand-me-downs, they likely came from a garage sale or a thrift store. Once I had seen the seas of baby clothes overflowing in my local thrift shops I was convinced that there would never be a need to buy brand new clothes for our little one. So far, there has been few occasions warranted, and on those occasions even fewer items were bought brand new.

Diapering

This one's hard. I know as a new momma I wasn't ready to deal with another responsibility like cloth diapering. Although it was something I wanted to do, it felt daunting and overwhelming when there were simple disposables at my fingertips. But with a little help from my Hubby, we were able to jump in about 40days after BabyK was born. Now we stilled use the occasional disposable for trips and night time, but on a regular day she used 7-8 cloth diapers. Here's the math:

Best place I've found for disposable diapers is Amazon.ca. Depending on brand and box size (and if you sign up for their subscription) the average price for each diaper is usually between $.019 and $0.25. If I used 8 diapers a day it would cost me $555-$730/yr. We were given our cloth diapers from my sister in-law as a present and the only thing I purchased were the 2 wet bags for $20 on Amazon. Having said that, cloth diaper set ups can range from ~$300-900 depending on cost of utilities and accessories.

Food

It's no secret that making your own food is cheaper that buying prepared food, and its certainly no different with baby food. I had been gifted Baby Breeza reusable pouches which we've filled with homemade apple sauce, Applecado, sweet potato, yogurt and the like. To put the savings in perspective to buy a food pouch from the store would cost you anywhere from $1-$2 depending on sales and discounts. Our Applecado recipe cost about $3(probably the most expensive) to make the equivalent of 5 pouches (that comes to $0.60 per pouch). If baby eats one pouch per day for a year that's $219 for homemade or $547.5 per year for the store bought. Now we still get store bought pouches from time to time, but its nice to know there are cheaper options if the budget gets tight.

In conclusion, there have been many ways that we've been able to make things work. This beautiful little girl has been worth every penny spent. At the end of the day I know that it is God who is our provider. In His eyes, children are a precious blessing, not a burden.

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Matthew 19:14

"Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”