5 Ways to Save Money on Diapers

Having a baby can be expensive.  There are tons of articles showing the cost of raising a child with STAGGERING sums.  But I’m here today to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way!   With some extra effort and careful planning, there are plenty of ways to save money.  Diapers, in particular, are one of the largest daily expenses outside of daycare.  We are two months into having a baby and now have some experience in the diaper purchasing game.  So today, I’ll show you 5 easy ways that my wife and I save money on diapers.

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How Patience, Persistence, and Luck Helped Me Save Over $400 on Parking

I have found myself in a situation where I am paying for parking for work daily.   It has been years since I paid for parking.  My old employer covered our parking downtown and my other recent employer was in the suburbs.  In both situations, parking was an expense I didn’t have to worry about.   Situations and life changes quickly though.  With this new expense on the horizon, I set out to minimize it.  After all, as a Dividend Diplomat, we always try to make every dollar count.  Finding parking took a few weeks and was frustrating, but after a while, I found a heck of a deal.  The title of the article summarizes what happened.  But here is the story about how I was able to save over $400 a year on parking.

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How 20 Minutes of Price Shopping Saved Me $360 on Our New Couch

My wife and I moved into our house at the beginning of September.  Finally, nearly three months later, we were able to solve the most controversial purchase and topic of discussion….our new couch.  I cannot explain why, but we visited an insane number of furniture stores, sat on hundreds of couches, and could never find one that we both loved.  Finally, though, after these three very long months, we found “the one.”  I wanted to share the story about how a few simple tricks saved me almost $375 on our new could. The best part, it took less than a half hour to save some serious cash.

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Cancelling Our Gym Membership

With the purchase of our first home, my wife and I are looking to find any monthly expenses that we can cut back on in order to offset the impact of our new mortgage, tax, and insurance payment.  There isn’t a one size fits all answer or one expense that will magically offset this impact; however, we are going to do everything we can to collect a series of small victories to lessen the blow.  We found one piece of low hanging fruit, our gym membership, and decided to take a look at whether the expense was necessary or a luxury.

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My Annoying $100 Loss

Over the last few weeks, my wife and I have been dealing with a slightly annoying situation at our home that in total, has put us about $100 in the hole.  Usually on this site, our non-stock annoyances are a result from the expenses of owning a car or some service provider unexpectedly increase their bill.  Not this time though and unfortunately, my wife and I had to bite a $100 bullet and accept the loss.

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Bert’s September Dividend Income Summary

3 quarters down….1 quarter to go.  Fresh off my recent 2016 goals review, I am inspired and looking forward to an exciting finish to 2016.   The 3rd month of the quarter always brings an exciting dividend income summary because of the mutual fund payouts.  And I can’t wait to show you the progress I have made in just 12 months.  Let’s dive in and take a look at my September dividend income summary.

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My Not-So-Glorious Cable & Internet Battle

Having cable is a hot topic in the personal finance community.  There is one camp that consists of people who have been able to cut the cord and slash their cable, ditching traditional cable, and subscribing to a streaming service like Netflix.   And the other camp, which I find myself in, have been unable to cut the cord because they like their traditional package and live sports too much!  Well, last month, my cable contract expired and my rates were set to jump.  I was torn in both directions and this was the closest I have ever come to cutting the cord.   I wanted to share this experience with all of you…check out my last battle with my cable and internet provider.

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