People often complain, “Babies are expensive!”  but I haven’t found that to be the case…yet. I foresee having school-age and (eek!) college-age children much more expensive. For now, I’ve saved money by purchasing diapers online through Amazon Mom, breastfeeding, making baby food, and having very generous friends and family who seriously hooked me up at my baby shower.

I also love a bargain. Carter’s sends me coupons pretty much every day and I have taken advantage of double-stamp Tuesdays for a few $10 certificates. Etsy is a wonderful spot for handmade clothes and toys but the prices aren’t always the cheapest. Still, I’d rather spend an extra few dollars and support an individual than buy another mass-produced, Made in China item at Buy Buy Baby.

Now that the holidays are around the corner HERE, advertisements for beautiful baby goodies abound. Some items make zero sense to me.

This is a baby sweater from J.Crew. It’s $125. And it’s cashmere. I think I find the material more offensive than the price. I don’t know if you know this about babies, but they spit up and drool about a gallon a day. They also have this cool trick where they poop up their backs (or is that just Nolan?). For fear of handing over my paycheck to the dry cleaner, I have had to temporarily “retire” all my wool sweaters so I certainly am not putting one on my baby. But then I try to imagine myself rich. Would it be normal to send my infant’s clothes to the dry cleaner? Would it bother me when my son poop-sploded up his back and into the fine Italian cashmere fibers of this sweater?

And then there is this layette set from Mabo.

It’s $62 which I KNOW is silly. But did you see that little knot hat? And the cute little butt?

It’s details like that that make me want to do crazy things! Like buy baby clothes for $62!

And did I mention they come in stripes?

Etsy is highly addicting (and overwhelming) and I have purchased a few cute mini-splurges for Nolan on there. This flag banner from Sweetbug Studio hangs above Nolan’s crib.

This owl hat from Jojos “Boo”tique is ridiculously cute. It was made to order so it took about a month to receive but it was worth the wait.

With the weather (finally) getting cold, the fleece-y booties from Bison Booties I bought are coming in handy. The seller carries booties in a ton of really adorable fabrics. They arrived pretty quickly so they make a great gift!

We bought this picture to hang in Nolan’s room. I love the old-fashioned style taxi. It reminds me of old New York movies like An Affair to Remember.

Little Alouette makes wooden teethers that are eco and baby friendly. Yes to fewer plastic toys! Fingers crossed Nolan doesn’t read my blog because he has two of these in his stocking.