Buy Nothing Update: A Minimalist March

I hope everybody had a Happy Easter / Passover / April Fools / National One Cent Day or whatever holiday you chose to celebrate this weekend.  

Spring is in full bloom here in Southern California. And because it’s a new month, it’s time to fill you in on our “buy nothing challenge” for the month of March.

So how did we do?

We spent a total of less than $1,500

Yes, March was our most frugal month so far. Much better than last month.

“But babies are expensive, how could you spend less than $1,500?”

Yes, babies can be expensive. According to this article on Investopedia, the upfront cost of having a baby is more than $2,000. The article estimates that buying baby stuff (car seat, stroller, etc.) could be well over $1,000 and the cost of medical bills is around $1,200 (the average co-pay for a mother with insurance).

Fortunately, my employer provides both my wife and I (and children under 25 years old) medical insurance with excellent coverage. We paid $0 for our five day hospital stay in L&D and postpartum.

With respect to baby stuff, my wife wanted to stay true to our minimalist goals and values. We had planned on only buying (or receiving as a gift) what is absolutely necessary for our baby, and not much more. Not only were we trying to be minimalists, but we were also trying to be sensibly frugal and not wasteful. We certainly didn’t want to overspend on items that our baby will quickly outgrow or lose interest in, especially if it’s not necessary.

The baby stuff

We received all of the necessary baby items through our family baby shower and a shower that my wife had at her work. These necessities included a safe car seat, stroller, diapers, swaddle blankets, sleep lounger, and clothes. As minimalists, we listed very few items in our baby registry. Consequently, we ended up receiving more gifts than we asked for, including monetary gifts. We received around $1200 in the form of cash and Amazon gift cards.

Friends and family were also willing to donate things such as baby clothes that their child has outgrown, as well as things that their child no longer uses (such as baby carrier, diaper changing table, bouncers, and swings). We gratefully accepted these second hand gems.

We used the monetary gift to buy a few newborn onesies and a nice camera so that we can take quality photos and videos of our baby. In addition to capturing the everyday moments of our baby girl, we wanted a better camera to document our future travels and maybe even create video blog content on YouTube. We decided to purchase the Canon PowerShot G7x Mark II because it has rave reviews and because several influential YouTube video bloggers use it.

Ongoing baby expenses

In addition to upfront costs, there are also potential ongoing expenses related to having a baby, which mainly include child care, food, clothes, and diapers.

Fortunately for us, we don’t need to pay for child care. My wife’s employer has a generous maternity leave that allows her to take fourteen months off (some of which is partially paid leave). And because we do not depend on her income for our lifestyle and living expenses, we can afford having her take extended time off.

Food also costs us nothing because our baby is exclusively breast feeding. Free baby food!

At some point, we will have to buy our daughter new clothes. But because family members (especially grandparents) love to buy baby girls new outfits, we may not have to! Plus, my wife has several friends who have baby girls a few months older than our daughter. It’s possible that we will continue to receive donated second hand clothes!

Diapers

As far as diapers are concerned, we are opting to use reusable organic cloth diapers. We received most of them from my wife’s coworkers as a registry gift. Not only are they less expensive in the long run compared to disposable diapers, cloth diapers are also friendlier to the environment. We certainly do not want to contribute even more to the landfills, which already contain tons of disposable diapers. Additionally, organic cloth diapers will likely be more beneficial to baby’s health (less incidence of diaper rash and lower exposure toxic chemicals near baby’s bottom).

Diaper cost breakdown

We have a total of 25 organic reusable cloth diapers and each costs about $20 all in (including pre-fold with cover wrap).

So the total cost of reusable diapers is 25 x $20 = $500.

Disposable diapers, on the other hand, are expensive. It is estimated that the average baby will use around 2,700 diapers in their first year alone. The cost of disposable diapers ranges between 25 to 30 cents each depending on quality, brand, and whether they are bought in bulk or with coupons. For this calculation, I’ll be conservative (and frugal) and assume a cost of 25 cents per diaper.

Therefore, the cost of disposable diapers is 2,700 x $0.25 = $625 (on the first year alone). This already surpasses the cost of reusable diapers.

Cost Comparison

Kerry from Squawkfox performed an in-depth analysis comparing the costs of disposable diapers versus reusable cloth diapers and the results are startling. She estimates that a family can save $1,799 by using cloth diapers instead of the disposable type.

Her calculations are based on an average of 7,354 diaper changes during a 30 month period. The calculations also include the cost of cleaning the reusable diapers, such as water use and laundry detergent. She also assumes a good resale value on cloth diapers. Below is a summary picture from her site.

Saving $1,799 is a lot of money. It’s not chump change. And with a second or third child, the savings would be even more because the upfront cost of buying the diapers has been already done.

So what did we actually spend on?

• Maintenance of Certification of Anesthesiology (MOCA 2.0) – $310.  I had to pay an extra $100 due to maintaining my status of being double boarded in pain management. It’s kind of silly that we have to pay so much to maintain certification. Sometimes I think MOC is nothing more than a money making racket. I think Physician on Fire would agree.
• Registration fee for FinCon 2018 in Orlando – $299.  It was at a discounted price for early bird registration and it will be a great opportunity to meet some of the amazing bloggers in-person that I have interacted with online. Based on multiple accounts, last year’s FinCon at Dallas was a lot of fun and it seems like it’ll be even bigger and better this year. I’m also planning to take my wife and daughter to Disney World where we will meet up with my best friend and his family. It will be a fun-filled adventure!
• Newborn photography – $375. This is something we really wanted for our baby girl. In addition to professional photography, we are taking as many pictures and videos as we can before she becomes all grown up!
• Gasoline – $160. I decided to include gas this month because our expenses were so darn low.
• Groceries – $230. Spent on our usual vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and grains. Mostly organic, always fresh.
• Restaurants – $110. We only went out to eat a total of four times. Two times for pizza, once at a vegetarian restaurant, and once for ice cream (non dairy of course).

Disclosures…

A big reason why our expenses were so low is because of the birth of our child. Almost all of our spending happened in the first two weeks of March. When my wife’s “water broke” on the night of St. Patrick’s Day, we went to the hospital and stayed there for a whole five days. While we were in the hospital, we spent absolutely nothing.

After we were discharged and left the hospital, all we did was stay at home for the rest of March so that my wife could recover. Because we didn’t go anywhere, we spent nothing on gas for the remainder of March. And when I finally receive my Tesla in a few days, gas expenses should be zilch.

Our food expenses are ordinarily very low (~$500 a month). In addition to eating five day’s worth of hospital food (which, by the way, was pretty good), my wife’s mom has been bringing a lot of homemade food for us. In fact, she brings more food than we can even finish! I count the food that she brings as a gift (rather than an expense).

Ready for some food pics?

To continue the tradition, I will showcase some of the beautiful foods that we have been eating this month.

My wife and I have always been very healthy eaters. But when she became pregnant, we committed ourselves to eating EXTREMELY healthy. We increased our intake of green leafy vegetables and legumes as well as other foods that contained naturally-occuring folate and vitamin K.

On March 14, (Pi day), we celebrated my wife’s last day of work by eating a pizza pie!  The pizza is from one of our favorite “make your now pizza” restaurants and it was delicious. We loaded it up with a lot of vegetables and non-dairy Daiya “cheese”.

We also splurged on some gourmet, hand-crafted, artisan, non-dairy ice cream. It was light, refreshing, and delicious!

This is one of the dishes that I ate while at the hospital. A whole foods, plant-based dish with broccoli, cauliflower, basmati rice, edamame, and seasoned baked potato slices.

Since we have been staying at home so that my wife can recover, her mom has brought us a variety of yummy dishes. This is one of many!

Final thoughts

I was amazed at how little we spent this month, especially given the fact that we had a baby. And if I didn’t include the fees associated with MOCA certification and FinCon registration, our total expenses would have been less than $1,000!

While the frugality of this month was not entirely intentional, we are trying to be mindful of our spending. The reduced expenses will definitely help make the unpaid portion of my wife’s maternity leave even more affordable.