Maine Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Saving on (non-food) groceries
I'm looking for some tips on how to save money on things like, diapers (DH refuses to cloth diaper so thats out for now) TP, paper towels, laundry detergent, cosmetics, deodorant, shampoo, etc What do you do to save? Coupon? Make your own? Have you found better deals at Sams Club, Amazon etc?
Re: Saving on (non-food) groceries
We buy our diapers off amazon and do the subscribe and save and each case is about $30 and its about 200 diapers (we get a shipment every 2 months)
I don't wear makeup hardly at all so I don't have to buy much
I buy the other things in bulk at Sams club
We buy in bulk at Sams Club. TP, paper towels, dishwasher soap, laundry detergent and such is still cheaper even if you combine coupons with sales at other stores.
Things I can't buy at Sams Club I try to coupon. I buy 3 newspapers on Sundays. Combine coupons with sales. Target lets you stack store coupons with mfg coupons on top of sales.
We make our own dishwashing machine soap (i.e. not the liquid detergent that we use for our pots 'n pans), our own laundry detergent (costs us $0.03/load), and we use rags and old dishtowels instead of paper towels, so that we're still working through the package of paper towels that we bought at BJs over a year ago.
The other thing I do, is I shop at Alice.com (free shipping and they offer coupons on items). From Alice.com, I buy things like flushable wipes-- and that helps us cut down on TP because, well, let's just say we eat a TON of fiber in our house (1 wet wipe usually does the work of many squares of TP)! The TP we buy in bulk from BJs with coupons.
Ditto the subscribe and save on Amazon. Target brand is good and cheap, but not as cheap as Pampers this way. Also I heard that buying diapers through Walmart.com and doing Site to Store is cheap, too, though I've never tried that technique.
Paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Coupons will really be your friend here. I know Walgreens offers some awesome sales for this stuff. Don't forget to check there against all the other stores as well. They run a lot of weekly sales. What about going in on stuff with a friend? I have a friend who is into all the couponing, bulk store buying stuff and she will often share deals with me. We just split it in half.
I forgot another tool-- but it only works if you have a smart phone.
There is an app called "scanner" which allows you to scan the UPC barcode of a product and it will tell you prices for the same object all over the place-- online, locally, etc.
Another helpful app is called "GeoQpons" which gives you all sorts of local deals and coupons available-- for everything from clothes to car services/parts to hardware stores, etc. It also includes Groupon deals.
Like others, I shop in bulk. I get all my pampers, wipes, TP, paper towels, etc. at Sams club.
I would like to start couponing for other things, but I can admit....I'm to lazy.
We don't use them, but a lot of people do the subscribe and save on Amazon for diapers. For toiletries I coupon and hit CVS. Rite Aid and Walgreens are great too, but we don't have a Walgreens nearby and I hate our Rite Aid.
I manage to get a lot of stuff for practically nothing from CVS though, between sales, coupons and extra bucks
We make our own laundry powder, it's wicked cheap for the ingredients and you don't use a lot so it lasts forever. We also use white vinegar in place of fabric softener, as well as wool dryer balls (made by JessP.) The year I started doing laundry this way I think we figured out it cost $40 for the whole year for 4 people, and that was including buying the dryer balls.
I'm going to look into the subscribe and save for amazon diapers, but I couldn't until now because as we were going through newborn-size 2 I was never sure how long we'd be in a particular size. DH wasn't on board with cloth either. We found target brand diapers to be comparable to pampers but way cheaper, even with coupons. Also in this category, we've been using coupons to buy wipes in bulk.
You didn't mention this, but we've bought a few baby products at consignment shops and from amazon. There were a few things we couldn't find second hand, and that Grammy wanted to buy for Christmas and found that it was almost always cheaper to get it from amazon than in a store, especially with amazon mom (prime shipping). I always look there first.
Now that I'm thinking about it, we buy a lot from amazon. My free shipping runs out in October so I'm taking advantage.
ETA: We also use a lot of store brand products (tissues, paper towels, shampoo/conditioner, dish soap... I'm sure there is more. Target usually lists right on the product which name brand it's comparable to so you can have a better guess if you'll like it.
I follow a ton of facebook pages that alert you to good deals... and jump on them! I have used Subscribe & Save and then either cancelled the subscription or delayed it til a later time. At BJs, you can use their coupons plus your own coupons and I have definitely saved on papertowels and toilet paper that way.
ETA:
I should get a basic price for the items I use on a regular basis but I tend to look the prices up and do the math while i'm at the store to see what would be a better deal. Having a smartphone definitely makes it easier to do that.