My lovely daughter just turned 16 months old.
And I just paid for my first box of baby wipes.
Yes, you read that correctly, in 16 months, I haven’t paid for a single baby wipe. I haven’t made any late-night runs to the pharmacy because we’re running low, and I certainly haven’t had to pick any up during a routine Sam’s Club trip. I managed to get myself a year of free baby wipes!
What I did do was strategically utilize sales, coupons, Amazon, and gift cards to obtain 12 months of baby wipes – all for free!
Before I get into strategy, I would like to do a little math just to show you how much this one little act of finagling free wipes can save you over the first year of a baby’s life.
On average, we went through one case of wipes per month. This was a little more when she was a newborn, and a little less as she got older, but it averaged out to a case of wipes every month, or 12 cases in total.
At Sam’s Club, cases of wipes containing 648 wipes are approximately $17.00. You can compare this to Amazon, with their regular price listed at $14.99
So, in total, a year of baby wipes would have cost us $204.
How did I do it?
My strategy was three-fold, and I’m warning you, it’s not simple
Step 1: Determine what price was acceptable for wipes – i.e. the lowest price that wipes would get to on Amazon.
Step 2: Make a little bit of extra Amazon “cash” in the form of gift cards from sites like Opinion Outpost, Swagbucks, or Bing Rewards.
Step 3: Find the absolutely lowest price (including free shipping) on wipes on Amazon and redeem your gift cards for them.
This is a very simplified method for getting free wipes, but bear with me, and I’ll explain.
Step 1: Determine the lowest possible price for wipes on Amazon.
I’ve been couponing for quite a while now – all in moderation, of course – which means that I already knew the lowest price that wipes would drop to on Amazon. If you’re not familiar with rock bottom prices, though, this part could be really tricky!
Let me save you some trouble and just tell you: It’s $0.01 per wipe.
$0.02 per wipe is pretty common – you can find this price most weeks, and it’s better than no sale – but if you want to get the best “bang for your buck” with your Amazon gift cards, then you need to hold out for $0.01 per wipe.
Step 2: Earn some Amazon gift cards
How do you do this?
One of the amazing thing about Amazon gift cards, is that almost every survey and search engine reward site that allows you to make a little bit of cash from home allows you to easily redeem your points or credits for Amazon gift cards. These sites won’t make your rich, but as you can see, they managed to save me a couple hundred dollars in 2014.
3 Ways to Earn Amazon Gift Cards:
1. Use Bing Rewards – My workplace blocks Swagbucks, so at work I use Bing as my search engine. It’s simple! For each 2 searches, you earn 1 point, no matter what. Points can be cashed out for merchandise or gift cards. For example, you can receive a $5.00 Amazon gift card for 475 points.* Amount Earned/Year: $75.00
2. Search with Swagbucks.com – Swagbucks.com rewards you for using their search engine. You can also earn by shopping through their cash-back store, or completing surveys, but I like it as a search engine. Plus, if you sign up with this link, Swagbucks & I will reward you with 100 Swagbucks to get you started! And yes, the results are almost exactly the same as Google. 450 points = $5.00 amazon Gift Card Amount Earned/Year: $240.00
3. Opinion Outpost – This survey site is one of the best-paying that I’ve found. Like Amazon Mechanical Turk, you won’t get rich on Opinion Outpost, but over the course of the year I’ve made $300 while sitting on my couch and taking surveys while watching TV! Click here to learn more about Opinion Outpost. Amount Earned/Year: $300.00
Pick one, or all three and get to work – you’ll be surprised at how fast the rewards add up!
Step 3: Get Notified when Prices on Amazon hit rock bottom
By now, you’ve done the work. The hard work, that is. You’ve determined the best possible price for wipes on Amazon ($0.01 in case you’ve forgotten), and you’ve earned gift cards to pay for them.
Now, sign up for the Amazon deals email from Ten Minute Savings. Once a week, you’ll get an email from me (I run Ten Minute Savings) listing the best deals of the week, including when wipe prices drop to $0.01 each!
In those weekly emails I’ll let you know what the price per wipe is, if there are any Amazon coupons available, as well as specific instructions for how to order them at the lowest possible price.
Once the price drops, the rest is up to you! Make sure to add those gift cards you worked so hard for to your account before ordering, and just follow the instructions given in the email.
How easy is that?
Ok, maybe it’s not simple, but saving even a couple hundred dollars on wipes is nothing to scoff at! Even if you don’t want to scope out a year’s worth of free baby wipes, you could completely cover the cost of those full-price baby wipes by selling all of your baby’s used clothes!
How have you managed to save on wipes? How about other baby costs??
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