Diapers. Oh diapers.
They are expensive…but they don’t have to be.
(I don’t use cloth diapers. I explain here.)
My goal, as with everything, is to pay as little as possible…and this rings especially true with diapers…as I buy them often.
I watch the drugstore circulars and the grocery store circulars to see if there are any great deals to be had.
(I use Huggies jumbo size pack as the example because that’s what I use!)
Here’s what to look for…
- Sale price – Look for a sale of $9 or less
- Coupons – Print or clip coupons
- Register Reward or Extra Care Buck – Pair the sale price with coupon and RR/ECB deal
- Upromise deposit – Sign up for Upromise and activate “e-coupons” on your store loyalty cards (CVS and Kroger in my area…participating stores vary by area.) E-coupon values are deposited back into a Upromise college savings account.
Combine each of these items together and pay very little for a package of diapers!
My goal price per Jumbo pack is $6 after sale, coupon, RR/ECB, Upromise deposit!
What other ways to save on diapers do you know?!?
Melissa says
You can use cloth at home though. I totally was turned off then I tried it and the savings is incredible. The average cost for disposable dipes is $2000 for each child from birth to potty training. Cloth dipes cost about $200 you can use them over and over and with add’l kids too. For about $200 you use them from birth-potty training.
Stacey says
I don’t know how many diapers are in those huggies jumbo packs – if you can add it in, what are you spending per diaper when you find your $6 or less w/ coupons/ECB/RR deals?
Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom says
@Stacey,
Number per pack varies by size…the larger the diaper size, the fewer in the pack…so it ranges. Size 2 contains 42 diapers. Size 4 contains 31. Those are the 2 I know off the top of my head!
Comes out to $.14-$.20/diaper for those sizes.
Erin
Stacey says
@Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom, Thanks! We buy a different brand so I wasn’t sure how big those packs were. Good price! 🙂
Crystal & Co says
@Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom, Have you noticed that depending on the store, you get more diapers in the bigger pkgs.
I’ve noticed at Target and Kroger I may get ___ diapers in the jumbo size 5 pkg, but when I go to Babies R Us, the price is the same and the box standardly has 10 or more diapers in it.
Jen A. says
Short answer? Potty Train! Don’t miss those days when I’d go and buy diapers, formula and maybe 3-4 other things and I’d be shelling out $80! Some of the store brand diapers are really not bad, I used to buy Sam’s Club’s brand and they were as good as Huggies I thought. Got the job done anyway!
Jessica says
We use cloth diapers. When I was pregnant with my 4th child, my 3rd was still in diapers. I started weighing my options, and because my children tend to have very sensitive skin, and most brands of disposables would cause irritation, I decided to consider Cloth. I did a lot of research and found out that between baby wipes and diapers from birth to potty training (considering some kids dont potty train until 4 years old) a family can spend upwards of $3,000 on ONE kid.
After researching my diaper options I decided on BumGenius 3.0 one size adjustable diapers, I bought some gently used ones for about $10-$12 each. I found a work at home mom offering free shipping on orders over a certain amount and a new customer coupon code for 10% off and purchased the rest of the diapers we needed new from her. I spent $400-$500 and started using them immediately on my older daughter until she was potty trained, and still use the same diapers on the baby who is almost a year old. Most of our diapers are in perfectly good condition and in another year or so when the baby is done with them, I can re-sell them and get about half of my money back!
Jen says
When I was pregnant, with my daughter, I stockpiled 80% of the diapers I was going to need. I had time on my side so I could wait for the sales. I was able to hold out for the ‘great’ deals and not have to settle for the ‘good’ We aren’t brand specific which allows us flexibility. It is also great to be able to go to the third story, instead of the store, to get a pack of diapers. 😉
Jenni says
I buy them in bulk. I get the Walmart brand. A size 2 box has 92 diapers in it and costs $15, that’s about $.17 per diaper.
Megan says
Have you ever considered trying Target brand diapers? I used to use the Huggie Supreme until I tried the Target on day. I loved them! I’ve switched to cloth now that w found out were having another one and I didn’t want to have to pay for 2 in diapers. Without a coupon or sale a box of size 4(72 per box) was costing me about $14.
Also, at what age did you potty train your boys? I thought your middle one was around 2 and am surprised that I don’t see you buying 2 sizes? If you have any tips please do share! Thanks Erin, LOVE your site.
Allison says
I buy the Target brand, in the largest pack that I can. You save when buying larger quantities, and the Target brand is much less expensive that the other brands. Plus, they sometimes have coupons for a little extra savings.
Alicia says
I love getting them FREE. Yes, I can sometimes get free diapers or very cheap. a few weeks ago, i was albe to get them for 1.67 at Walgreens, and this week free on Tuesday. You have to work the system. this week:
Rite Aid
Jumbo pack was 11.99 – 10% (tuesdays use your Rite aid card and get 10% off anything not already on sale)
Jumbo pack of Pull ups 11.99 – 10%
5.49 for Veet
this hit the 20 and ifyou watch the video’2s you can get 5.00 off a 20.00 purchase. I think the diapers ended up being 10.80 each, I also had a 2 off 25.00
so, 10.80*2= 21.60 (i think)
-5.00 for the 5 off 20
-10.80 (had a voucher for free Jumbo pack)
-2.00 MQ for pull ups
-2.00 Video coupon from Rite Aid on pull ups
-2.00 Video coupon from rite aid on huggies
-3.00 veet coupon printab le online
I had to buy the veet since there would be overage…and veet has a 3.00 rebate, so a profit of .51. I think OOP was about 3.29 and I will get 3.00 back from the Veet SCR and 1.00 back for the Huggies…so I beleive a profit of .71 for 2 packs of diapers.
I know I had a free pack of huggies, but one can work the system and make it work ususally.
Miracle Pending says
I buy in bulk and stockpile. I hate running out of diapers and making a bunch of trips. I use Diapers.com and try to get referral money. Your first order is especially fantastic because they give you a $10 credit in addition to coupons you can send in and they will price match for you.
I had Pampers Swaddlers price matched to Sam’s Club price of 32.99. From this, I used my $10 credit making a case of 216 diapers 22.99. I wanted to get free shipping so I bought other things I needed to get from 32.99 to $49. (This is easy since they have baby food, clothing, bottles, etc.)
After the $10 credit my price per diaper was less than 11 cents. You get $5 per referral as a credit for their site. Buying in bulk allows me to buy a case every month or so.
Abigail says
It’s never too late to switch to cloth diapers!
We are a hybrid diaper family. I primarly use cloth (BumGenius 3.0 OS & FLIPS) but on days when i can’t get around to the washing (ex. traveling) we have Pampers as back ups. I don’t like the smell of pampers and much prefer the cloth. but things just got to be right for cloth to work out some days.
Sara says
My goal is $5.00 or less per jumbo but I like to try and stay around $4.00. I buy Huggies because they seem to release more coupons than Pampers. I typically can’t get store brand for that low of a price and I’ve not had good experiences with the store brands that I’ve tried. In addition to the strategies that you listed, I also combine CVS $5/off $20 purchase (or similar) coupons along with CVS and Walgreens coupons (the coupons that print out at the bottom of your CVS receipt or when you scan your loyalty card at the price scanner or at Walgreens the Huggies coupon from the activitiy book.
I have to admit that I’ve never even explored the option of cloth diapers. The thought of it just grosses me out! LOL Having 3 kids and another on the way, the convenience of disposables is worth it to me.
Julie says
My Walgreens has stopped letting me use coupons and register rewards together. The register actually would not scan the coupon once the cashier had scanned the register reward. For a while, I was able to get Huggies around $3/pack using both, sometimes even less. The manager at the store I frequent also said they are going to stop accepting internet coupons. Has this been your experience or have you heard that they may stop accepting interenet printed coupons?
Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom says
@Julie,
Julie, you can’t use 2 coupons for the 1 product at Walgreens. So if you are trying to buy 1 pack of diapers and you want to use a RR and a manu coupon, you can’t use both. You’d have to use a “filler” item, like an inexpensive piece of candy to use both coupons.
B says
i have nothing against generic diapers and will buy them, but sometimes the deals on huggies are actually A LOT cheaper than what people expect so definitely do the math first to see if it’s worth it. for example, last week i got a box of huggies at CVS – they were on sale for $20-$2 manu Q (printable) – $4 CVS coupon – $4 EB = $10 for 82 diapers which made it .12 cents per diaper.
i also check my local grocery store in the back clearance area and have gotten generic jumbos for $4.
i watch babycheapskate.com on sundays since she posts the best diaper deals of the week and stock up when possible.
lynn @ Maven of Savin says
I ALWAYS get them for FREE or pretty close – usually at Rite Aid, but sometimes Walgreens or CVS have deals! I am not brand specific, but Huggies are usually the better deal (more coupons), but I just got 3 pampers for profit at Rite Aid by buying (over $200 )of other stuff as well
http://www.mavenofsavin.com/2010/03/my-rite-aid-trips.html
Christina says
I got an awesome deal on diapers at Rite Aid today. Using some excellent coupons we had for Pampers, a free pack of Huggies coupon (earned earlier from Rite Aid by buying multiple packs) and a $5 off coupon from Rite Aid Video Values, we bought 4 packs and some Glide floss for $10.47. We will be getting a $10 card back for spending $30 on P&G so our total will be .47 cents for 1 pack of Huggies, 3 of Pampers and one Glide floss.
Crystal says
I really loved when we were using 95% cloth because then I could wait for the really awesome diaper deals. Now that we don’t really use cloth so much (they just can’t hold my super duper wetter’s floods anymore), I often find the best deals on Huggies at Target between awesome drug store deals. It helps that there are often Target coupons that I use in addition to manufacturer coupons. I keep saying I’ll try the Target brand when I need some and there isn’t a better deal. So far, that time hasn’t come. I generally shoot for around $.17 or less per diaper for size 3s, but I know it will change when we have to go up a size.
Dolli-Mama says
I love Target diapers! At 13.97 a box, they are a great deal and work just as good as Huggies in my opinion. At size five, they cost me $.13 each. I never found Huggies cheeper than that. Now that we are pregnant with twins, we are going to try cloth diapering to cut back on the expense, but I will still buy Target brand for outings and travel! Also, there training pants are much cheeper than Pull-Ups and work really well!
Angi says
I am trying to be better at using coupons to save, but I am saving on diapers by using amazon. We use Seventh Generation diapers and they are only available at babiesrus for $11 a package, which is very inconvenient. So we have ours set up to have a case delivered every month from Amazon ($0.33/diaper) with free shipping and because we have it set up automatically we get some kind of a discount, 10% I think. Not as impressive as some of your deals, but I have never had to run out and get diapers. One less errand I need to run. I also have wipes set up the same way.
Rebekkah Simon says
I also shop a lot at BJ’s and stack their coupon with manufactored coupons and wait for sells and get 156 diapers sometimes for as low as $25.00
My child wear size 5 which a normal pack has 27 in them, in which I would have to buy almost 6 packs to equal same number and most of the time cheaper
solarra says
I’m so glad I’m over those days:) One monster child is enough for me lol:)
Sarah Cassill says
Add me to the “I love Target brand” chorus! They’re cheap to start with and occaisionally they have coupons too! I also like the Walgreens brand disposable training pants. (I think the pull up type things are WORTHLESS for potty training, but if you’re wrestling a little boy determined to stay naked it’s easier to pull up than fasten a diaper!) Also once I realized Isaac would go either in his pants or in his potty but no where else, I started taking his pants off and letting him run aroun half naked at home!!! Even when he had the stomach flu last month he made it to the pottty when he was awake!! WAY better than diapers!
Kathy says
I always check the end racks of aisles for clearance items at Target and I have found packs of diapers that had a rip in the packaging or were being discontinued, marked way down. Sometimes they were name brand that I had a coupon for and other times they were the store brand but either way it saved me alot. Sometimes they are in wierd places, mixed in with cat grooming supplies and picture frames but I always scan the end aisles for things I need anyway.