How to find cheap diapers

This is a guest post from SmartCityMoney, an amazing resource for personal finance, money tips, and budgeting advice. 

Living in New York City is expensive. Having a baby here is doubly so. Everything seems twice as costly; formula, groceries, our astronomically high rent for our comically small one-bedroom, which we now share with a not so sleepy 7-month old. And our salaries definitely did not increase when we had our daughter. In fact, after maternity leave was over, my wife was working fewer days to look after her, and I was delegating more and more important business trips and meetings. We needed to find ways to save money, whatever way we could.

First step was identifying where we were spending the most and how we could cut back. We were lucky in a lot of ways – we inherited a beautiful crib that had been in the family for ages (my wife actually slept on it as a baby) and we got a lot of necessities from family and friends. But it’s really the stuff you use day to day that adds up: diapers and wipes make us feel like we’re literally throwing money in the trash – er, diaper pail.

Of course, it’s not something you want to skimp on, you need a diaper that works well or else you’ll just be spending the money you save on laundry. You have to try a few different brands to see what works best for your baby. We tried and ultimately passed on Pampers, Huggies, even Honest brand (sorry, Jessica Alba), eventually settling on Luvs – they worked well for us and were not overly expensive. Baby and mom and dad were happy, but we still had another question: what is the best place  to buy diapers?

Living in the metro area, we do not have the luxury of a nearby Target or Walmart. We checked the corner CVS (where we sometimes still run for an emergency pack of diapers when needed) but the prices were crazy! Almost double what we ultimately ended up paying, and for a much smaller pack.

What is the cheapest place to buy diapers?

It was insanely convenient. We could order a jumbo pack (over a month supply) sent directly to our door, which meant no more midnight runs to the store, and it was considerably less expensive per diaper to buy in bulk, and it always hit the free shipping threshold. Of course, we’d used Amazon for plenty before, including electronics, household items, even video streaming, but now they firmly had our diaper business. Or so I thought.

One day my wife came home and told me to check Jet for the formula we had originally bought on Amazon. On Amazon, we could buy a 4 pack for just over $100 – on Jet, a 10 pack was just over $200, and even less per unit if we bought 20 at a time.

Even though it was a larger up-front investment, as anyone who has seen a baby in the midst of a growth spurt will understand, we WILL go through it in not so long a time. And it was substantially cheaper per unit, for the exact same thing. *Click*. Bought.

So I check diapers. Diapers (all brands) were already a few cents cheaper than Amazon. Jet also offers additional discounts if you waive free returns and buy multiple packs, both of which I opted to do. There was now no contest: Jet was SUBSTANTIALLY less expensive, for the same product.

We ordered on a Saturday. Everything arrived next day. That’s right, next day delivery on a Sunday . (Obviously, your mileage may vary. Impressive nonetheless.) Needless I say, they had pretty quickly earned our diaper business.

*Prices as of the time of publication, subject to change. All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement.

Normally we both despise companies gathering data on us, unavoidable though it often seems, but here it worked out to our advantage. Amazon and Jet, of course, both figured out from our purchasing history that we have a baby (good work, guys – was it the stroller that gave it away?); but Jet’s offers just seemed way… better.

Amazon sent us loads of deals, trying to squeeze every last dollar out of these exhausted, time-crunched parents that it knew weren’t going to drive out to College Point to buy diapers at Target. But they were rarely, if ever, much better than Amazon’s daily prices.

On the other hand, Jet sent us 15% off Pampers and Huggies within days of our first order. We opted not to redeem this, as Luvs was still cheaper even without a discount, and we were happy with their reliability thus far. The next week however, Jet sent us 20% off all Babyganics brand products – the only brand of baby wipes my wife will allow in the house.

Verdict: The best place to buy diapers

Try it out and see for yourself; we’re pretty confident you will find the best prices on diapers around.