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Oregon Babies
Cost of baby?
So I am typically on the nest... but I need some help from you bump ladies 
How much does your baby typically cost you each month??
I ask because my husband and I are trying to decide when to start trying... and he asks me "How much does a baby cost on average?" and I said there are lots of different factors (ff vs. breast fed, diapers, childcare, doctors appointments, vaccinactions, hospital bills, health insurance for baby...) and then he told me "Go ask your nest people how much these things cost them."
So... hence my question. On average, how much does your baby cost you a month? Thanks ladies. I know this is kind of broad- so even just a guess
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Re: Cost of baby?
I think our insurance cost us about $70 more per month when we had to switch to +children and our medical bills for DS #1 were about $3500 with Blue Cross however we switched to Kaiser for this reason for #2 and our max out of pocket for #2 is about $500. Diapers, I'd say we go through about a case/month, I don't have to change DS as often anymore and they're right around $40. As an infant I'd say maybe $50-$60. Formula was really expensive. I BF'd for 9 months and when I switched to formula it was about 2 large cans per week, I don't remember what they cost but I think it was around $30/week however we didn't use generic like many do I just used the $5 off coupons and buy one get one free from Fred Meyer and Safeway to help with the cost. Most of your Dr. appts should be covered under well baby visits and not cost anything or just your normal co-pay. So, minus medical bills I'd say tops would be $250/month if you formula feed. If you get frugal and creative you can do it for quite a bit less. BF'ing and stacking sales and coupons for diapers and/or formula and not being choosy about brands can save you a ton.
diapers: newborn 8-12 diapers a day, older baby/toddler 5 diapers a day depends on brand coupons sales etc. I started out with Pampers, eventually moved down to Luvs, and now I use Target brand. Going through 5 diapers a day I spend about $26 a month on diapers. When DS was a newborn and I used brand name it was a lot more, but I don't remember the figure maybe around $60-70.
wipes: again depends on brand and age $12-30 a month
formula: DS was a preemie so this is the extreme, he had to have preemie formula (when I no longer had breast milk and to fortify it when I did) which only comes in the smaller cans and is only brand name it cost us about $180 a month. On the opposite end when DS was almost off bottles and we could use regular formula we bought the large Costco cans which are two for $20 and we spent $40 a month.
baby food: 3 meals a day= 3 tubs or jars a day plus baby cereal = about $1.60 a day or about $48 a month using regular gerber, more if you use organic you'll eventually add in snacks and finger foods
healthcare: I think the difference in price from the 2 of us to a family was about $70 a month, we have $30 a visit co-pay and a pretty big out of pocket deductible and maximum so any bloodwork procedures etc. will be our expense until we meet those. This varies per insurance and if you have an HMO your out of pocket expenses will be very small. We used to have an HMO and now DH's employer only offers a PPO =(
There are a lot of "start up" costs as far as furniture, clothes, bottles, and baby gear unless you have family and friends who will shower you with these things. (Since DS came early we didn't end up having a shower and bought everything for ourselves, this can add up to a lot). Then there are upgrades infant to a convertible carseat etc...and toys and replacement items, such as new pacifiers, new bottle nipples, bottle liners if you use those, garbage bags or diaper genie replacement bags etc. and clothes because they grow so fast.
I'm not sure what all this adds up to, and it may sound overwhelming, but somehow when you're ready you manage to fit it all in. I still don't know how we did it, but you will!
My little man is formula fed and we pay about $10/week in formula @ 6months months old.... We get the Costco brand and it is $20 for 2 large cans. The diapers are about $50 ish a month.. also get them from costco. Baby food is going to be expensive though. We get Earth's Best because it is organic and they are close to .80C a jar. So far we really only eat one jar a day... sometimes I will give him 2. I try to only buy clothes at the consignment sales. They are used but in great condition and considering little man will only be wearing that wardrobe for 2 or 3 months (or 1 month), it just isn't worth the money to me to buy brand new. When we go to the consignment sales, I buy the next size that he will be wearing. If the next sale is far enough away I buy the next 2 sizes. I spend about $100... but have been finding I have enough to have triplets! One other thing, I go to the sales on Sundays because a lot of the stuff is 50% off. That is one thing I am grateful that I did. Most of our stuff was either used but great condition or given to us. I can't imagine how much money we saved doing that. We still spent a lot but saved a lot more!
Our health insurance pays for all the well visits and vaccinations so we didn't have any costs there. The premium did go up to about $200 a paycheck pre-tax.
Our daycare is the biggest expense and is about $800 a month for full-time care. I know some centers cost even more. I have a dependent care FSA through work that allows me to put $5000 pre-tax in it and as the year progresses I can get reimbursed for some of the daycare costs.
Diapers and wipes we get at Costco. A big case of diapers is about $50 and lasts us 1-2 months. Wipes are about $15 for a large case. I BF for 9 months and after that we did formula for 3 months. Again Costco has a great deal for 2 cans of formula for $20.
I buy DD's clothes mostly at Kohl's. They have sales all the time and I have a cc card with them that often gives me 15-20% off. Tops and bottoms only cost me about $4 each, about the same price or less than many clothes in consignment shops. And they are cute too. The Jumping Beans collection is super cute and you can mix and match. Sometimes JC Penney or Target can have some great deals too. And the other day we had a Fred Meyer coupon for 20% off and their Carter's stuff was already 40% off so I got a good deal on that as well. I don't buy too far ahead as DD is very tall and it's hard to predict what size she'll fit in. We had to buy her 4T Carters pants already since her legs are so tall. For shoes we go to the Stride Ride outlet in Woodburn.
We didn't buy a lot of jarred food for her. We only started solids at 6 months. Started off with oatmeal cereal, then added organic apple sauce. Then we just bought sweet potatoes and vegetables like that and made our own purees. You can freeze them in ice cube trays and once frozen put them in zip loc bags in the freezer.
My amateur photo blog
Hmmm... This is so hard.
Childcare: Half of the week is free care by grandparents, and my husband dropped to half time to take the other half of the week. That reduced his take-home pay by about $1500/mo.
Food: I BF and we only have a handful of (cheap) bottles, so that's free. Now that she is on solids, DD is a BIG eater, and we give primarily jarred, organic food. I'd estimate $70/mo.
Diapers: We do cloth. We went with AIOs, which is one of the more expensive options. Averaged over two years, our stash will cost $16/mo. I figure we use about that on water, power for heating the water and drying. We also use disposables overnight, which is probably about $6/mo. We don't use wipes. So ~$40/mo.
Medical: We haven't had to pay for any health care not covered by our insurance, so it's just the increase in premium. On our last plan, that was about $200 and our current plan it's $30. Other than that, it's just been a bottle of tylenol or motrin ever now and then, which is just a couple of bucks.
That's all I can think of. We actually haven't bought many clothes (gifts and hand me downs) and the only other costs that I can think of are one-time expenses (ie, crib, stroller, car seat).
The costs do vary so much. You could take into consideration that I didn't work for the first year (but I was in social services, so I made nothing and childcare costs just didn't make it worth it in our opinion). We cloth diaper, and have probably spent $300 on diapers supplies (including creams and wipes) over 18 months. He was EBF until 8 months, and since he was fully weaned our grocery costs have probably gone up $10 a week (this amount would vary a lot based on how much prepared and/or organic foods you buy... we buy about 50% local/organic and eat mostly at home). We don't spend much on toys, spend about $50 per size (really rough estimate) on clothes. The crib and mattress were expensive, everything else was pretty cheap.
So post breast feeding, I'd say maybe $100 a month, plus the increase in insurance. While breastfeeding, maybe $50 or so plus insurance. Geesh, those numbers are real estimates though!