Frugal Finds

I have always been a tight wad, but I find myself watching my bank account even more closely now that I have started to build a business at the same time as planning to buy a new home.

Buying used is a second nature to me, especially now that I have a child. Kids go through things so quickly-toys, shoes, clothes, etc. that it's really not practical (for me at least) to buy everything new. I have always loved Craigslist. We have bought and sold many items, from plants that we dug up and replanted, to motorcycles and Pampered Chef pots and pans. The deals you can find are amazing, and of course endless as people are always looking to get rid of something they no longer use. 

Baby J in her birthday dress-bought at Kid to Kid for $5.50 and I got an additional 25% off of that price! :)

As my daughter's first birthday approached, which also just happened to be my husband's and my fifth anniversary, I contemplated on what to get her. She doesn't need clothes even though it's always fund to buy them. Because her birthday is in the summer and she LOVES to be outside even when it's 115* out, I decided we needed to get her something for the backyard. I love the Little Tikes outdoor furniture so we thought about that and also considered getting a baby pool. We nixed the pool because we will have one in our new home-hopefully sooner than later. 

After checking online and in store for the perfect outdoor play set, and seeing that most are $100 or more, I decided to go to my favorite online garage sale: Craigslist. I found a ton of Little Tikes items available for super cheap! I was so excited and wanted to buy everything just because it was such a great deal, but that kind of takes away from the saving money idea...

Of course, some of the ads were already unavailable and people 'forgot' to take down their ad and other posters just never email back. Fortunately, there were two items I scored. One was a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe car. I never thought about it for the first birthday, but for $15, I just couldn't pass it up. Baby J loves it and, although she can only go backwards because she hasn't mastered driving, she loves sitting in it and honking the horn or just climbing in and out and shutting the door. 

Retails new for $49.99-savings of $34.99+tax:)

I still wanted an item for outdoor play, so I emailed a handful of posters about their slides. One poster had just listed various items that she was going to sell at a garage sale without pictures and it just so happened that one was a Little Tikes slide for $10. Unfortunately she was having technical difficulties loading any pictures, but since she only lived about 15 minutes away (and everything seems to be 15 minutes away from me anyway) my husband decided to go check it out. It was a little faded, but for $10, how perfect for our little June Bug!! 

Baby J is waiting for her best friend at the bottom of the slide.

Good job friend! I need to try that now.

Not only did I save tons of money on these items, I feel great that I am passing on some previously loved toys to my daughter who would never know the difference.

Now I hope to get some cash selling items she no longer uses to other frugal families!

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Convincing Dad to do Cloth

Like many new dads, my husband thought I was crazy when I told him I was considering using cloth diapers when I was pregnant. He kept shaking his head at me and raising his eyebrows making me feel like maybe I really have gone too far with being 'green.'

I did a ton of research since everyone I mentioned it to thought I was just as crazy as he did. I looked online and tried deciphering all the acronyms and learned about all the different types and brands of cloth diapers. Even with all this research, I felt lost. 

Luckily, a coworker of mine who was pregnant had decided to cloth diaper and mentioned it to me. I was so excited because now I had someone to talk to and ask questions. Her sister cloth diapered and it turned out another teacher at our school had cloth diapered her child as well. I didn't feel as crazy anymore. 

I found a local store, Zoolikins (formerly Wildflower Diapers), that offered free cloth diaper classes. It was the closest store to us, but I finally convinced my husband to go even though it was an hour away. It was about a month before my due date when we actually went. The class was full and so informative! The store associate gave us the facts and then threw in a few opinions on her favorite diapering systems and detergents. After we learned all about them, we were able to go and touch/feel/play with them. They even had a baby size teddy bear to try the diapers on. 

Because I'm a cheapo, I always thought we would do prefolds and covers, especially with the larger start up cost of cloth. My husband was definitely against that after we went to the class. He hated the Snappi-he said it was too sharp and what if we scratched the baby. We both decided that a one size diaper would be the most cost effective for us. We considered a lot of different brands, (well I had beforehand) but we actually went with one I had never heard of until we attended the class-Fuzzibunz. I was fascinated with the adjustable elastic which seemed like such a better idea than the snap down rise. My husband was fascinated by the soft fleece. He even rubbed the sample diaper against his cheek. We wanted to make sure we were absolutely certain, so we didn't buy our diapers that day. 

After doing more research and wanting to know why some diapers are $5 and others are $20, I decided we should only invest in ten Fuzzibunz to start. We also bought ten Babyland and 10 Sunbaby diapers. I prepped all the diapers and they were ready for Baby J when she came home from the hospital.

The Fuzzibunz worked great, but the cheaper pocket diapers did not. They always leaked out of the legs. A few days into CDing, we decided to buy 10 more Fuzzibunz. We put the 20 diapers that were leaking into a space bag and thought we would use them in a few months when Baby J was bigger, even though she was 9lbs. 7oz. when she was born. 

Baby J is eight days old here in a Fuzzibunz diaper.

A couple weeks after we received our new diapers, I saw an ad on Craigslist for Fuzzibunz. The ad was for 26 diapers barely used-the mother had decided not to use cloth-and I got them for $10 a piece! I was stoked! Convincing hubby wasn't too hard, but he did say that I was cut off from buying anymore cloth diapers since we had enough. :( That was okay. I always told myself that it was crazy how some people could become addicted to buying so many diapers. Hahaha!! Here was another one of those mom moments where you look back at what you said before you had kids.

A month old

Almost two months old

My hubby is now a pro at changing diapers. He never sprays a poopy one and he doesn't stuff the pockets or adjust the elastic, but every once in awhile he'll take the clean laundry out to the backyard for me. 

4 months

This is actually a Sunbaby diaper because at the time, we didn't have any red Fuzzibunz-see how it left a red mark on her?

Large fitted Muttaqin-11 months

He is the one who wanted to start Bum Luxury and he even came up with the name. Now that I'm buying and selling diapers all the time, it's fun to see him put a new type of diaper on Baby J. He always asks to make sure he's done it right and he has. :) 

My two favorite people:)

So, to all the dads out there that are scared to do cloth, it's not that different than disposables, as long as your wife is doing the laundry!

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