Baby on a Budget: How I saved over $100 on our car seat and stroller (and got my stroller for practically nothing!)

When I was pregnant I spent a lot of time researching car seats, strollers and travel systems (ie buying a car seat and stroller together in one package). We didn't have a ton of mulla to spend but I still wanted to make sure we were getting something fairly good for our money. In the end, thanks to some money-saving tricks, we ended up getting a travel system for about the same price as it would have been to get the car seat on its own.  That's right, we got a car seat AND a stroller for the price of just the car seat.  

So how did we do it?

First off: We started our hunt early. I am a planner. When I was in high school I was already looking at possible graduate programs to attend. When I got pregnant there was so much to plan and research, baby gear suddenly became my life. And when I say when I got pregnant I mean when I got pregnant. Like first trimester. As in I slept, forced a handful of Cheerios down my throat, threw up and read and watched stroller reviews. While maybe I started my search a little freakishly early, in the end I know it saved us money. It gave us time to really weigh our options and look for good deals, coupons and promotions, saving us about $100.    

Second: We bought a travel system. Although buying a travel system can limit the variety of strollers you can get (for example, most high-end strollers aren't available in a travel system), it can also save you quite a bit of money.  We ended up getting a Chicco Neuvo Compact Travel System (more about that later).  If we would have bought the car seat and stroller separately (without coupons, promotions, etc) it would have cost about $360 ($190 for the Chicco Keyfit 30, $170 for the Neuvo Compact Stroller). Buying them packaged together in a travel system  (without coupons, promotions, etc) costs $280 -- saving you about $80 right off the bat. Another nice convenience and money saver -- with a travel system you can usually click your car seat right into the stroller (great with a sleepy newborn) WITHOUT paying an extra chunk of change for a car seat adaptor.  Now I'm not saying you absolutely MUST buy a travel system, just know you'll likely end up paying a bit more if you don't. 

Third: We settled for a mid-range stroller. After drooling over amazing strollers I couldn't afford (a BOB Revolution, a City Select, heck even a City Mini was a little too much for us when you add on extra costs like a car seat adaptor) we decided a Chicco was probably our best bet -- not too expensive but still fairly good quality.  I'd heard really great things about their KeyFit 30 car seat, too. Other more affordable brands include Britax, Graco,  BabyTrend, EvenFlo and Safety 1st.

Fourth: Coupons, coupons, coupons.  Never, ever, ever buy a car seat, stroller or travel system for full price. When I was pregnant I discovered I could get coupons for 20% off one item fairly easily. Both Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby accept coupons from Babies R Us, Toys R Us, Buy Buy Baby or Bed Bath and Beyond (and probably other retailers, too). I'd get Bed Bath and Beyond coupons in the mail regularly and once I'd registered, Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us sent coupons every now and then, too. You can also get 20% off coupons from Buy Buy Baby just for joining their email list.  They'll give you one for joining their SMS list, too. Although 20% off never seems like much when I'm buying a sweater (they call that a sale?!?!), when you're spending hundreds of dollars on baby gear 20% can save you a lot of money. In our case, it saved us $56. Unfortunately, these coupons often exclude some of the higher-end stroller brands (don't forget to read the fine print!) but they can put a nice dent in your final purchase price for a lot of the more budget-friendly brands.

Fifth: I signed up for the Chicco Club: Once you decide which brands you're interested in, see if they have some kind of rewards program or a promotional club. Once I decided we'd probably get a Chicco, I signed up for their Chicco Club, a free program where Chicco regularly offers members free promotions on some of their products.  I knew it was a long shot but I thought maybe, just maybe, they'd offer a travel system promotion at some point before my baby was born. Their first few deals didn't really apply to me but eventually (remember, I started my hunt early) my dreams came true.  They were offering a promotion for their (then) new Neuvo Travel System. If you purchased the Neuvo Travel System within their two-month time-frame, filled out a form and sent in your proof of purchase they'd send you a $50 Visa Gift Card in return.  

We'd been going back and forth between whether we wanted the Chicco Cortina Keyfit 30 Travel System or the Chicco Neuvo Compact Travel System (we thought there were pros and cons for each), but this sealed the deal for us. We drove down to Babies R Us and bought our first travel system!  We ended up spending $239.33 (with tax) and received our $50 Visa Gift Card in the mail a couple months later. That means including the $50 gift card, we only spent $189.33 in total, saving over $100 and paying less than what the Chicco KeyFit30 car seat alone ($190 w/o tax) would have cost.

Okay, okay, so what if you can't get a smoking good deal like a $50 gift card? I go back to my first point -- start early and keep hunting.  Look for sales, collect coupons, consider buying last year's model, check out garage sales for strollers (it's strongly advised NOT to buy a used car seat but a used stroller is fine), and make sure to shop around.  I follow deals bloggers on Facebook, too (some of my favorites are Baby Cheapskate, Freebies2Deals and FabuLESSly Frugal), just in case one of them shares a deal I'm interested in. Sometimes it takes some research time and a bit of luck but there are deals out there.

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