Sticker Shock

When Leon and Michael were born, we suddenly had three kids under the age of three.  As we were getting ready for Natalia's arrival, I found myself thinking, "four under the age of five isn't nearly as bad as three under three."  And I was believing this, really I was, until it occurred to me that we would still have three kids under the age of three and we would have a big sister too. 

Aside from the daily insanity that just goes with combination of children, one of the biggest challenges is the cost of diapers.  I know we spend a lot of money, but I don't think about it on a daily basis.  The money just goes out the door, and with Ree we certainly discovered that potty training does not make life cheaper.  As soon as we got her potty trained, she started preschool, and tuition is a whole lot more expensive than a couple of boxes of diapers a month.

While I was home on maternity leave with Natalia, I had time to do silly things like look at stores' weekly ads and read their coupon policies.  As a result, I got better at budgeting our diaper money.  I thought I was doing great when I headed to Target yesterday.  I bought diapers when I could get a gift card for buying two boxes at a time, and I used both manufacturer's coupons and Target coupons for each box.  (You don't know how excited I was to realize I could use two coupons for everything I buy there!  I am such a coupon dork.)  But it was later that afternoon when I was contemplating the receipt that it hit me.  I may have gotten a "good deal", but I just shelled out $70 on diapers, and that's not even quite enough to last us a month.  We will need at least one more $20 case.  Yikes.  I can think of a lot of ways I would like to spend seventy bucks, even if I spend it on the kids, and I don't want to spend it cleaning their poo.  There has to be a better way.

So I set a goal of breaking our disposable diaper habit by June 30th.  I'll let you know how this goes!