Diapers and In The Night Garden

First off, let me say how disappointed I am at the diaper sales for the past few weeks. Diapers from all brands have started at about $0.19 per diaper, going up to as high as $0.29! However, I was at a Superstore in Mississauga and they have an in-store coupon for Huggies Snug & Dry for $3 off. I don't remember the count, but a size-3 box with the coupon was $0.16 per diaper. Unfortunately, I recently bought a box of Pampers 222 count (and with a stupid coupon they totaled at $0.18 per diaper!), so ... I'm stuck with that for now.

On the plus side, I discovered a thrift store called Talize. I never bothered to figure out what it was all about. However, I saw their sign in Brampton that said "Discover the new Power of Thrift" so I thought, "Okay, why not?" Well, thank goodness I did check it out because I found an In The Night Garden doll for $1.99 and it talks, too My daughter absolutely LOVES this show and Upsy Daisy, the doll below, is her favourite character. (Like many first-time adult viewers, I totally found the show weird at first (uh...Makka Pakka and Hahoo?!), but then I discovered it was made by the creators of Teletubbies, so it all made sense.)

My friend was asking me the best days to visit thrift stores for good finds and to be honest ... I can't think of any best days. (But if you know the secret, let me know please!) From my experience, it's been a luck of the draw. Sometimes you find things, sometimes you leave empty handed. So if you're trying to save some bucks on toys ... just keep checking out the thrift stores whenever you can. But come spring and summer time, it'll be garage-sale season, so those will be fun to sift through!

Free portrait from Black's!

Black's is doing a free portrait from Feb. 3-14, 2012.

Here's the link for details:

http://www.blacks.ca/User/feeds/blog/id/9370

Just want to say thanks to my cousin for passing on the tip!

Price matching

I live by a monthly budget and in order to keep it up to par, I combine two money-saving methods: couponing AND price matching. The best places to price match? In my experience, Walmart, No Frills and Freshco. However, occasionally you'll get a lazy cashier who doesn't want to price match an gives some lame excuse. So if I have time, I just take my items and go to another cashier.

I've had a lot of friends ask me how price matching works, so here's what I do: I get my flyers from my local newspaper, star/circle items that I need and are at a good price. Then I also note on the flyers which items I have coupons for. So let's say I go to Walmart and I want to price match formula that's on sale at Zellers AND I have a $5-off coupon: I simply go to the Walmart cashier, show them the Zellers. They'll charge me Zellers' price, then take $5 off. Simple, right?

But when you're price matching, you do need to take note of the following:

• Pay attention to the flyer dates, in particular, items that are only on sale from "Fri-Sun." 
• Some retailers are ridiculously picky with fruits and vegetables. For instance, I tried to price match bananas from a competitor, but a cashier said I couldn't because the bananas weren't from the country the competitor stated. 
• Occasionally there are limits to the number of items you can price match (i.e. maybe you want to price match six cartons of juice, but the store will only allow you to match four of them).

I'm not going to lie — sometimes this method is tedious and when you have a toddler circling your feet, it can get frustrating. However, I've been able to save up to 75% on items solely through price matching and couponing. In the past, I've paid $0.25 for a box of Catelli Healthy Harvest pasta, $12 for 900g of Similac Go and Grow formula, $0.97 for a box of Nestle baby cereal and $1.97 for a box of Heinz Nutrios.

Oh yea, one more tip: Don't throw away the flyers just because you think you're done shopping for the week! What if you need to do last-minute shopping?

And don't be afraid to ask retailers about price matching! What are they going to do, send you to the principal's office for asking?

Where to find coupons

I am an avid couponer, though not crazy enough to be on Extreme Couponing! Really, in Canada, you can't practice couponing as freely as those in the U.S. (But if you know a way, PLEASE let me know!). However, I try my best to use coupons when the time calls for it. Wondering where I find my coupons? Here's a quick list of links for your reference:

-Pampers
-Huggies
-Think Coupons
-Websaver
-Save.ca
-Go Coupons
-P&G Brandsaver
-Heinz Baby
-Nestle

You'll have to join their mailing lists or make an account to get coupons/choose coupons, but it's not a big deal. Where do you find your coupons? Let me know!

P.S. Yes, I do have a coupon book! Best places to find coupon books? Dollar stores, baby!

You don't have to buy it just because it's on sale!

One thing I've had to learn as a new mom is this: just because something is on sale (or you have a coupon for it), doesn't mean you have to buy it. I recently had a coupon for Gerber (something like buy 10, get $1 off) and jars were on sale at Walmart for 55 cents each. Though I was tempted to get my daughter strawberry-apple and apricot jars, I had to stop myself. Hold on, she's 14 months, she's practically on regular food! Then I remembered watching a few episodes of TLC's Extreme Couponing last year. Do I want to be like the weird old lady who bought cat food, even though she doesn't have a cat? Or the single twenty-something who stockpiled diapers and wasn't planning on having children anytime soon? So I've come to realize that when there's a good deal, you need to step back and ask yourself these questions: Does it expire? Do you have room to store it? And ... do you really need it?

How I saved money on bottles

My daughter hates the bottle. I can count on one hand how many times she willingly drank from it. I tried her on the bottle when she was two months old and by the time she was six months, I just gave up. She started solids at four months old anyway, so she she was nursing less and less. Overall, my husband and I tried many brands on her: Medella, Nuby, Nuk, Born Free, all the types of bottles Playtex had available. I thought she was doing okay with the Playtex latex bottle, so I stupidly bought the feeding kit. (Luckily, I had a $2 off coupon for it, haha!) But in the end, she was better with the sippy cup.

So where did the money-saving technique happen here? Well, I didn't have to buy any sample bottles. (Oh wait, I bought the bottles for the Medella breast pump, but I needed those anyway.) I ended up getting Nuby, Nuk and one Playtex bottle from the Babies R Us gift registry; Born Free was a gift; and the other Playtex bottles were free at the Baby Time Show in April 2011. So here's what I've learned from this experience:

• Gift registries can offer you goodies that'll be useful for months to come —don't throw samples away, especially if they are bottles!
• Accept bottles as gifts so that you won't have to pay for trial/sample ones in the future.
• Don't get too excited! Honestly, thinking back, my daughter barely took to that Playtex bottle before I bought the kit. I probably should have tried it a few more weeks before making up my mind!

Thoughts?

Diaper discussion

When I buy diapers, I NEVER purchase them without coupons. This is what I do: I go through all of the flyers in my local paper and check which store has Pampers or Huggies on sale (these diapers seem to work the best, in my experience. The stupid Seventh Generation ones rip and leak!). Then I price them per diaper using the sale price AND a coupon on top of the sale price. The most I've ever paid for a size-3 package is $0.16 per diaper.

So here's a little demo "case study": I have flyers from Walmart and Superstore. Walmart has a 222-pack of size-3 Pampers on sale for $32.99; Superstore has Pampers in a 172 pack for $28.99. I have a $2-off coupon. You'd think Superstore would be cheaper, but guess again.  According to my calculations, I would choose Walmart, as the package would be $0.13 per diaper. (If I were to go with Superstore AND use my coupon, it would be more expensive, as I would be paying $0.15 per diaper.) Many would think that my shopping technique is too frugal, BUT saving here and there goes a long way.

In my opinion, stocking up on diapers is a no-no. Here's why: babies grow FAST. You don't know how big they'll get. I used to think people said this to make conversation, but after having my own, I've realized that it actually means something! Babies tend to double their weight by the time they reach four months. So if your baby is only wearing size 2 for about a month and you've bought that size in bulk, you've wasted your money (and the diapers take up space!). I found purchasing NB diapers in bulk was a huge disadvantage: Although my daughter could have more than comfortably fit into size 1, I squeezed her little bottom into NB diapers because I had too many stored away. (Sorry, babes!) Generally speaking, today I purchase two boxes MAX in the diaper inventory.

Thoughts? Comments from lovers and haters are welcome! Bring it, biatch!