How to Shop as a New Mommy

Getting out of the house these days takes a good two hours of planning to make sure we have everything we need, are dressed, fed, changed, burped, rechanged, possibly fed again, napped, and ready to go. By the time the three of us head out, I have a small window of about an hour and a half before we must start our feeding, changing, etc. process all over again. I still love to take the littles out, but when I need to shop and actually take time to browse and THINK, I resort to online shopping. In the same hour and a half, I can sit on my couch watching TV and have a much more productive shopping session than pushing a double stroller and a basket through a store with two (possibly screaming) babies.

Also, as I'm pretty sure every new parent can attest, babies are expensive!! Times that by two, and our budget is constantly being stretched. When I shop for gifts, diapers, wipes, formula, clothes, toys, etc., I want the best deal possible. I discovered Ebates a few months ago from another mommy blog, and it has made my online shopping 100 times better. Through Ebates, you earn cash back on purchases made through their website at over 1600 stores! They literally send you a check in the mail every so often with money that you have earned just by clicking on your stores through their website first. How easy is that?! AND they have some great deals and coupons to use online for so many stores on there.

Here's an example of my recent purchase and savings at Kohl's (all completed during one round of naps).

Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Basketball Set

Regular at Kohl's: $59.99

Sale at Kohl's: $29.99

Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Learning Camera

Regular at Kohl's: $15.99

Sale at Kohl's: $7.99

Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Say Please Tea Set

Regular at Kohl's: $29.99

Sale at Kohl's: $14.99

A gift for my husband that I can't show on here because he reads my blog, but it was regular price of $20 and on sale for $10. 

Just by shopping the sale for these four items, I saved $63. Then, I found a coupon code on Ebates that let me save an additional 15% off of my entire order. This saved me another $9.45. I spent over $50 even including these discounts, so that qualified me for free shipping AND $15 Kohl's cash that I can use on a future purchase. Then, because I shopped through the Ebates link, I earned $4.28 from them that I will receive a check for in a couple of months, along with the money from all of my other Ebates purchases. 

Let's review that quickly: 

Total price (without tax or shipping) of the 4 items with no discounts - $125.97

Total price (without tax but with shipping) - $53.52

PLUS I have $15 of cash to spend at Kohl's and $4.28 cash to spend whereever

SO that's really like spending $34.24 for 4 presents worth over $125. Impressive, right?!

Ebates has other ways for you to earn money too by referring people (like I am doing here) and by capitalizing on their daily double deals. If you EVER purchase anything online, though, you are silly to not use it! It is free money that they send you in the mail for doing shopping that you are already going to do anyways! It saves me time, money, and lots of stress and effort of hauling around two little munchkins. Check it out, especially before Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday season sales are up!

I thought it only appropriate to end this post with a pic of the twinsies out shopping with me one day. They were totally giving me the "Mom, let's go!" look.