At the time that my husband was laid off we had a two month old son.  As many of you know, taking care of an infant can be costly.  We have learned a few tricks along the way to help keep our costs down.

Breastfeeding.  This was and is still our biggest saving grace in keeping our costs down.  We have been fortunate in that I am still able to nurse our son.

Formula.  Check with your local Family Services to see if you qualify for WIC, a government aid program that helps with the cost of nutrition. Ask for samples at your pediatrician's office. Otherwise I have noticed that the best places to look for coupons are on the manufacturer sites and the Sunday paper.  Walmart and Target have had the lowest prices that I've noticed.  When they have sales, use your coupons and stock up. 

Cereal.  I put off giving our son cereal until he was five months old.  At four months I started looking around for coupons for cereal on the manufacturer web sites and signing up for free samples (they often come with coupons).

Vegetables.  Once we started vegetables, instead of buying pre-made jar food, we made our own.  I keep an eye on the local grocery sales and stock up on different veggies when they lower to about one dollar a bag.  I also hoard Birdseye and Green Giant coupons, as these tend to go on sale in our area.  We usually pay about 50 cents for a 12 oz bag.  We have also used canned vegetables, when we are out of frozen.  Make sure to rinse them well to help remove salt. We have been able to get canned basic vegetables at Aldi for around 50 cents a can. 

Fruit.  Same concept as the vegetables.  Fresh fruit can be very expensive and depending on your budget you may want to consider using canned or frozen fruit.  I clip coupons for both. Walmart tends to have their frozen fruit at very reasonable prices.  With canned fruit, I try to find the light syrup and wash it well before use.

To Prepare Vegetables and Fruit. Place vegetables or fruit (thaw first) into the blender and add enough water to cover, puree until a smooth texture is achieved, pour into ice cube trays, place in the freezer until frozen, and put into a dated, zippered freezer bag to store in the freezer until use.  To save time in the morning I make up a days worth of feedings by placing the veggie cubes into condiment storage containers. (At seven months, I use three cubes and mix in two tablespoons of cereal and a bit of water when he is ready to eat.)  I already had the Rubbermaid small food containers, but you can also use sterilized baby food jars.

Meat. Keep an eye out for sales at your local grocery.  We have found that Save-a-Lot in the Midwest has the best prices on meat.  Walmart usually has good prices on frozen chicken breasts.  I have yet to find many coupons for chicken, pork or beef.

To Prepare Beef, Pork or Chicken.  Cook/boil the meat, remove the meat from the liquid, set aside to cool, save the broth. Once cooled, chop the meat into 1 inch pieces.  Place meat into the blender and puree until meat forms a powdery texture.  Slowly add the broth or water until the desired consistency is achieved.  This mixture can also be put into cubes and frozen.

Meals.  Combine meat and vegetable cubes in a container, thaw.

Finger Foods. Save General Mills coupons for Cheerios.  Walgreens often alternates sales between General Mills and Kellogs cereals. Check your local stores for sales, stock up.  We have also found that Target has lower prices on cereals than other stores.  We also like their store brand cereals.

Diapers.  This is topic that makes us cringe the most.  Thankfully there have been quite a few coupons in the paper or online recently for Huggies and Pampers.  We were buying Kirkland diapers (Costco), but we have found several sales on diapers that, when combined with coupons, are cheaper than the store brands.  When searching for the best deal, we also check out diapers.com.

Toys.  The high cost of toys even for infants, astonished us and made us even more thankful for the gifts our son received from family at Christmas.  For other toys, we make our own things.  Here are a few ideas that we've had: a water bottle with a little bit of water for him to splash and roll; an empty drink bottle with rocks or beans to make a rattle; metal measuring cups; spoons; pots and pans; a piece of fabric stuffed with a plastic grocery bag or cellophane, tied with curling ribbon; a jingle bell tied with curling ribbon to hang onto his gym/stroller/carrier/play yard; a small mirror or dressing mirror set on the floor; and magazine pages or sheets of paper with fun pictures.

These are things that have helped us, we hope they work for you too!