Our daughter just had her first birthday a couple weeks ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already!

We were newlyweds when we found out we had a baby on the way. I was fresh out of college, and my husband was still in college, so we were living on my (very low) income. Clearly, we were not in what we thought was an ideal financial situation to be having a baby. Now here we are many months later as family- a college-graduate and bread winner dad, stay-at-home-mom, and a precious little one year old.

It didn’t take us long after her birth to figure out that she was going to cost us quite a bit of money. Money that we didn’t necessarily have. But we thought, surely there has to be a way to cut these costs while still taking proper care of our daughter. I had read that the average cost of a baby in the first year is $9000. Whoa. What were we going to do?

So over the course of the past year, I have been able to find some ways to save lots of money. It hasn’t always been the easiest way, but it has saved us hundreds, if not thousands.

Here are five of the biggest ways I have found to save money on baby costs:

1. Ask the hospital (and pediatrician) to give a discount for paying medical bills quickly.
We were able to save 25% off each medical bill from Sadie’s care at the hospital by paying within 15 days of receiving the bill. (We were also able to save 25% off my medical bills after insurance as well!)

2. Breastfeed. Or buy store brand formula.
Nursing is obviously cheaper, but for many moms, nursing may not be possible or desired for variety of reasons.

3. Buy baby clothes second hand.
Babies can go through multiple outfits a day and very quickly get some nasty stains on their clothes!

4. Stockpile diapers and wipes when they go on super sale or clearance.
I have never bought diapers in bulk from supercenter warehouse type stores that claim to be the cheapest around. Instead, I watch the sale ads, stash coupons, sign up for diaper company mailing lists to receive
deals, and keep an eye out on diaper clearance racks.

5. Shop yard sales for baby gear and toys, or swap with friends.
We recently were in need of a new stroller for Sadie. We looked around at all our options. We saw beautiful jogging strollers priced at hundreds of dollars. But we weighed our options, decided to buy only what we could afford and minimally needed rather that what baby culture dictates, and ending up buying a wonderful little stroller from a friend’s moving sale for less than $10.

I recommend checking item recall lists if a second hand item is in doubt. And take special care if you decide to buy a car seat second hand.

Have any other money saving on baby costs tips? Leave me a comment!

Dana can be found sharing more tips on her blog!