Trying-to-be-Frugal Friday

Buying things for babies can we overwhelming. This is just so much out there! So many options, so many things you jut HAVE to have for the safety, development, comfort, learning, fun...etc. etc. etc. of your brand new child. You want to make the best decision but also not spend an arm and a leg. I don't want to spend all of my limited free time trying to be frugal, yet I know there are deals out there.

Which brings me to the next thing on our "need to have" list - is a bigger carseat. Little guy is about to outgrow (length-wise) his infant car-seat. Even when he was just a couple months old his super long legs threatend to dangle over the edge!

So, the next thing on my list of important buys is a convertible carseat. After hours, and hours, and hours of safety and size research, I settled on a Combi Coccoro.

In trying to be environmentally friendly - we've ended up with two smallish cars (a prius and a civic) - so the larger convertible seats jut won't fit (or would make the person in the passenger seat have to sit as far up as possible).

So here I am trying to be my most frugal self.

This is what I have learned from a wonderful group of much-more-frugal-than-me moms (thank you!):

1. Join a group of people experiencing the same thing as you (in my case - other mother's of 6 month olds). Word of mouth is the best deal out there. I appreciate those that find much better deals than I can. In return, I try to share when I find good deals as well. What goes around comes around.

2. Sign up for amazon mom and ebates. Amazon mom gives you free 2-day shipping and you only have to be a "caregiver," and ebates gives you a percentage back by going through their website. Unfortunately, these are mutually exclusive. You can't use ebates on amazon. I try not to think about what strange things ebates is doing with my information and just be happy that I get money back on most purchases!

3. Wait for big sales - other's tend to drop prices to match. When one company is having a sale (ie Target/Kohl's are having sale's on carseat now), look for sale's on other on-line retailer's sites too.

4. Search for discount codes (retailmenot or couponcabin seem to often have reliable codes). Often get 10-20%

The end result?

Thanks to tips from my mommy community, I was able to find it on babycatalog.com (last week, this week only strawberry shake is available and I don't like pink!) for $178 (regularly 239.99). On top of that I found a 10% off coupon and got 3% back from ebates. So after all that I got is for $155 - basically 35% off the original price! To be truthful, in my previous less-than-frugal life, I probably would have just ordered it off amazon, due to how easy it is. But the cheapest non-pink coccoro is still $199.99 on amazon. So it was definitely worth it.

Thanks to those inspiring me to be more frugal!