One Caveman’s Financial Journey

The following is a guest post written by my wife, The Cavewife. She regularly writes here about what’s on her heart as a frugal stay-at-home mom.

At the end of April, I found out that I am pregnant with our second child. All sorts of things have been running through my mind: How are we going to be able to afford two kids? How am I going to manage my time with a newborn and a toddler? My thoughts are crazed while I’m sitting here dealing with the never-ending symptoms of pregnancy.

The good thing is I have experience being a parent. I’ve learned the basics of parenting over the course of the last seventeen months. How hard could it be the second time around? It shouldn’t be too hard as long as we do not end up twins. People keep telling my husband and me that we are going to have twins. It also does not help the fact that twins are common on my side of the family. We are just hoping for a healthy baby. If we do end up twins though, we have a wonderful support system with family and friends that are more than willing to help.

We have many months to plan. We have plenty of baby items, but I figure that we’ll still be shopping at numerous garage and yard sales this summer. Most of the items we found for our daughter were purchased at yard sales. We were fortunate at the time to have a friend whose daughter was getting rid of her twins’ things (since they were grown). We spent under $330 for a stroller, car seat [Ed. Note: We now recommend against buying a used car seat since it may have unseen damage that would put your child's life at risk.], crib, crib bedding set, changing table, pack and play, and swing. You can’t beat that price nowadays. I would advise any new parents to check out yard sales. You can get some great bargains for items that are slightly used and in good condition.

For feeding, I plan on breastfeeding and making my own baby food. My husband and I definitely learned how expensive items like formula and packaged baby food were. It adds up over a course of a few months. You can find simple cookbooks for making baby food at your local library. I have a book that my husband picked up for me, The Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers & Children: 365 Quick, Easy, and Healthy Dishes, and it is a wonderful starter book.

Clothing should be somewhat easy to deal with. We have quite a bit of neutral newborn clothes. With my first pregnancy, we chose not to find out the gender of the baby. Because of that, we have lots of yellow newborn clothes. This should hold us over after the baby is born. And we have lots of girls’ clothes ready for hand-me-downs. If for some reason, it ends up being a boy, there is always a nice shopping trip to Goodwill. Goodwill is a great place to shop. In fact, they have a decent selection of baby/children’s clothing. It just takes some time to browse and find the sizes you need. The end result is you end up spending less there than you would anywhere else.

As far as diapers, we are still debating on going to cloth or sticking to disposable. The disposable diapers are convenient to use. I’m a little unsure about reusable diapers right now, but I know it would save us a lot of money in the long run. I’m not really thrilled about the idea of washing them among other things.

I think that things will be okay with a second child. We will be spending the next couple of months getting our daughter into a new room and doing some room rearranging. With careful planning, I think we will be well-prepared. If you are parent, I would love to hear your thoughts or helpful frugal ideas.

Other articles you might enjoy reading

• Now and Then
• Setting Boundaries for Grandparental Spending
• With Changes Come Sacrifices
• Save Big With Summer Bargain Hunting