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Presented by Pabbot and THE BABY GEAR GAME PLAN

Shownotes

In this episode of BRB, Kevin and Paris discuss their top five baby registry hacks that every expecting parent should know. They dive deep into the complexities and strategies around maximizing completion discounts from various retailers and share personal experiences and insights on how to get the best deals on baby products.

Key Points:

1. Completion Discounts:

   • Many retailers offer completion discounts, but they often come with restrictions. Kevin and Paris emphasize the importance of understanding the terms and conditions of these discounts.

   • They note that discounts may not apply to big-ticket items or certain brands, and sometimes the discounts are one-time use only.

   • They suggest planning and adding items to your registry in advance to ensure you can take full advantage of the discounts.

2. Timing and Strategy:

   • Consider the timing of your baby’s birth and upcoming holidays. Avoid registering for seasonal items that the baby might not need immediately.

   • Kevin shares a practical hack from his mom about taking photos of the baby in holiday-themed clothes as soon as they fit, which can be given as precious gifts later.

3. Clothing Tips:

   • Paris advises against registering for too many newborn clothes since babies outgrow them quickly. Instead, focus on clothes for 6-9 months and beyond.

   • They also discuss the benefits of keeping the baby’s gender a secret to avoid receiving gender-specific clothing items that may not align with the parents' preferences.

4. Personalizing Your Registry:

   • Personalizing your registry by adding categories and sharing your style preferences can help friends and family choose gifts that are more aligned with your needs and tastes.

   • They suggest asking for advice from other parents and considering their recommendations, but also caution against over-relying on others’ experiences, especially with items like sleep aids.

5. Special Items and Financial Considerations:

   • Kevin and Paris highlight the importance of checking if certain baby items are eligible for purchase with FSA or HSA funds.

   • They recommend the Babylist Bottle Box as a significant registry hack to avoid overbuying bottles. This box allows parents to try different brands and find what works best for their baby without committing to one brand initially.

Additional Tips:

• Registry Categories: Organize your registry into categories to make it easier for people to find and purchase items.

• Postpartum Care Items: Check if postpartum care items are covered under your FSA/HSA and avoid adding them to the registry as people may not prefer buying these items as gifts.

• Practical Gifts: Focus on practical items like diaper rash cream over less essential products like Frida Baby Windis.

Kevin and Paris wrap up the episode by reminding listeners to stay updated with the terms and conditions of completion discounts and to personalize their registries to reflect their unique needs and preferences. For more detailed guidance, they recommend signing up for their Baby Registry Basics course.

Thank you for tuning in! Be sure to check out next week's episode for more valuable tips and insights.

Highlights

• [00:04:30]: "If you're trying to get completion discounts on your diaper, rash cream, it could be a little bit tedious and tricky."

• [00:05:30]: "Don't forget anything when you go to make that purchase, because now that discount's not going to be available."

• [00:06:45]: "You might not want to register for items that they might be needing around then."

• [00:08:15]: "What are we going to do this wheelbarrow of clothes that looks super cute."

• [00:09:45]: "My hack for getting gender neutral clothing is to keep the gender of the baby a secret."

• [00:11:30]: "Use this hack. Put your items into categories, and this will help you stay organized."

• [00:12:45]: "Consider your friends and your family, possibly your coworkers. These are people who are going to be buying you things for your new baby."

• [00:13:45]: "If you're talking about some of these things with your friends, family, and colleagues beforehand."

• [00:16:45]: "You can buy those items pre-tax whereas someone buying it off your registry that you can't use those funds for gifts."

• [00:17:45]: "So many first time parents, they overbuy bottles."

• [00:18:45]: "Our recommendation is get the bottle box. See what they like."

• [00:19:45]: "You can't do anything with used bottles."

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Paris: Welcome to another episode of baby registry breakdown. I'm your host Paris. Scott. And this is my husband, Kevin.

Kevin: Hello?

We're matching. We're talking about. Uh, our top five. I think they are a top five baby registry hacks.

The first one I'm going to give is check for completion discounts. This can help determine the strategy by which you register. If this is your first time making a baby registry, the idea behind the completion discount. Is that you're creating this registry, obviously other people are buying these items for you. Your shower happens now there's items that are on the registry. Yeah. Uh, that you want to purchase and the completion discount gives you an opportunity to buy those items at some sort of discount. A lot of times I think it's around 15%. It just depends on the retailer.

They put a lot of terms and conditions around those in terms of timeline, a certain amount of time before or after your due date. Yeah. [00:01:00] Typically. There could be other terms that apply.

But one thing I'm going to say right off the bat, just. From experience. I would never choose like the primary registry platform I use the retailer I choose to register with on the basis of a completion discount.

Paris: No. I would not either.

Kevin: You agree with that?

Paris: I absolutely agree.

Kevin: W what's your reason?

Paris: They're not straightforward usually with, um, the completion discount. So like the discounts don't apply to a lot of things that you will need, oftentimes it does not.

Kevin: A lot of times the completion discounts. Won't apply to even big ticket items.

Paris: Yeah. Yeah. Especially.

Kevin: Big ticket items. Like

Paris: it. Wouldn't apply to like a.

Yeah. Like big, big brands often. Usually they don't apply to, Postpartum items that you'd need. You can't apply the discount to those generally.

Kevin: On Amazon. It has to be, I think basically purchased through your registry

you can't use click to buy.

Paris: Feature.

It has to be [00:02:00] something that already existed prior to you having your baby. So if it's an item that you put on your registry later, or you didn't even put it on there at all, but like, you're like, oh, I really need this.

And the baby's already born so I'm just going to put it on my registry. Well, no, because they you've already told them your due date

Kevin: They're typically going to be capped. that gives you, another strategy, which I don't think it's really how the completion discount was meant for, but you have a registry on that platform that has certain items that you know, that you want to purchase. You have those items already on your registry so that when you purchase them, you can purchase them at a discount. Yeah. So you can be very strategic about it and plan, but you have to make sure that if you're going to go through all the work of creating that registry, adding those items.

Then you're very intentional that you're following the terms and conditions in the steps that you need to actually get that discount. And that's the really tricky part. So make sure you read those in advance. Read the fine print. If you're working with us, we can work through you with that.

This is [00:03:00] not financial or legal advice. Just go read the terms where you're registering. And, and make sure that you had checked off every one of those things to get that completion discount, because, you know, you hate to put in all that work, you could spend several hours building a registry For that purpose and then not be able to get any of the discounts, which is a waste.

Paris:

Sometimes it's just not even worth it. To worry about.

Kevin: Yeah. Sometimes it's not worth it. And you have to be aware too, because not all retailers have that policy.

Paris: Some of them, they tell you that you have a completion discount like Amazon, you. Oh, look forward to, you know, your completion discount and it isn't until, you know, after your baby is born and you try and use it that you find out, oh, pretty much nothing applies.

Kevin: We were talking about with the baby list shop.

Paris: Yeah.

Kevin: They have a completion discount, but it's just for the baby list shop. And then what you were saying is, yeah, that's fine. But often you'll see those items available other retailers for less than what it would be with the completion discount applied.

Paris: Or it'll be the same price [00:04:00] as from somewhere else with a completion discount applied.

So is it worth it? I mean,

Kevin: it's a lot of work for nothing. If you planned it right, and you went with the right retailers, Amazon target probably would be the ones.

Paris: Yeah.

You could probably sync up some different registries into my registry. If you were looking at more of the pottery barn kids, and some of their partners, look at what their actual completion discounts are or if they have them, but that might be a good way for. Especially with big ticket items. Because with big ticket items, you know, it's not like you're spending all this time adding these things cause it's usually, you're just going to be three or four things.

Kevin: If you're trying to get completion discounts on your diaper, rash cream, it could be a little bit tedious and tricky. And you might find it's, it's not valuable if you're, if you're getting a hefty completion discount on, on a crib or on a stroller, then that makes a difference.

Paris: Yeah.

Kevin: The other thing you have to really watch for too, with the completion discounts is, sometimes they're one-time use. Don't forget [00:05:00] anything when you go to make that purchase, because now that discount's not going to be available.

The other thing with completion discounts in these policies, they're constantly changing. So just make sure when that you know what the terms and conditions are going in because if you're listening to this podcast two weeks from now, it could be different.

Don't necessarily go by what we're saying here. Go look for yourself. That's really important. Make sure you're hitting all the steps in order to get that completion discount.

Paris: I've got another hack.

, I think I've already told you about it. I

Kevin: did go for it.

Paris: Consider when, when your baby is born and how many months until that holiday. You might not want to register for items, that they might be needing around then. Not too many, but. A few, you know, you could leave off.

Kevin: That actually reminds me of the, uh, holiday Christmas hack that my mom had. So you sometimes you'll get clothes that are holiday themed, but, and you'll get them early. And you're like, oh wow.

My baby fits in these now October, November. I don't [00:06:00] know if they're going to fit in them at the end of December. One of the hacks we got from mom was to put them in those clothes, as soon as they fit them. Take those pictures, save them and then show them to the relative that gave them to you at a holiday time.

Paris: Or better yet, a gift.

Kevin: Or, oh, yes, yes, we did that.

Yeah.

Paris: This giant

Kevin: and give it as a gift. Yeah. It's a great hack because you'll stress out. You'd be like, oh, they're not going to fit these for the holidays. Don't worry about it. Just take a picture, go get some other ones. Give that to them as a gift, a framed photo or something is pretty good.

You want to consider items seasonally. So basically, think of your due date. It's part of the reason we don't really recommend registering for clothes anyways.

Paris: Well, you know, what, if you are going to register for clothes, register for things that are maybe, um, six to nine months in onward. Um, Or nine to 12.

Kevin: Why do you say that? What's the reasoning

Paris: because [00:07:00] everyone's going to get you not, maybe not. We'll get a lot of new

Kevin: born clothes.

Paris: Um, a few newborn clothes and fit mostly zero to three. It's going to be utilized. You're going to have zero to three months coming out your ears. You're going to have like, probably enough. Um, three to six month clothes, but beyond that, you'll maybe have an outfit. If you're lucky. So,

Kevin: yeah.

Paris: I'd say, if you're going to read your register for something like that. Um, register for, um, six to nine month and onward.

Kevin: So here's a question.

Would you register to like, clothing to like, kind of just give people an idea, of your style, or

Paris: yeah, I would.

Kevin: You would, or do you think they'll just like, be like not paying attention to that? I mean,

Paris: I tried and, um, because you know, We were having a boy and a girl at the time, I was like, Dead set on no pink for our baby girl. She was not ever gonna wear pink. She wasn't gonna wear purple. She was just gonna, you know, it was going to be cute. Like green. I love green. Yeah. I [00:08:00] mean that failed miserably. She lives in. Like

Kevin: a wheelbarrow full of pink clothes.

Yeah. Then we put them on her and it's just like, oh, she's so adorable. What can we do? She looks great in pink. So what are you going to do?

Paris: I couldn't. I was like, oh,

Kevin: What are we going to do this wheelbarrow of clothes that looks super cute.

Paris: I guess you're going to be wearing pink.

She just like, it just, oh, she just looks so cute in pink and so that's what she wears primarily. But at the time I was pretty dead set on her, not wearing pink. So I wanted people to know our, our style. So what I did was I put. Um, I think it was a. Six month. Six to nine month, I think, um, outfits for both our baby boy and baby girl. In the styles that I wanted, we didn't end up getting those, but,

Kevin: That was my point.

Like you tried to do that, but it didn't work. People just get what they want to get.

Paris: Well, they did get the hint that there was zero, there was zero pink.

Kevin: Yeah

Paris: things. So we really did not get a lot of pink [00:09:00] things.

Kevin: We're like getting away from the top five hacks we wrote, we wrote down, but these are really good because do you want to talk about your hack that you have for not getting.

Paris: So my hack for getting gender neutral clothing. Is to keep the gender of the baby, a secret. So you have to think of this in advance and also note that this might make it so that you don't get as many clothes. You might want that. Yeah, or you might not.

Kevin: There's no guarantee you're not going to get clothes, but if you're trying not to get a bunch of clothes that you're not going to use, certainly if you're not trying to get clothes that are blue and pink. Then don't tell anyone that gender until. Until

Paris: after the shower. You could even, reveal the gender at the shower if you wanted to, but don't tell anyone before then, because otherwise you're going to get gendered things. That's just how it is.

Kevin: Use this hack. Put your items into categories, and this will help you stay organized. It'll also help, people who maybe want to buy a certain item, get through the list faster and find [00:10:00] the thing that they want to get for you. Now baby list is, is nice. It's kind of a double-edged sword.

It's nice. And it's also a little bit annoying because they have preset categories. That always show up the same way. And the nice thing about that. You don't have to make your own categories. You don't have to understand and think about these categories. They're just there. The problem is they're not necessarily the categories that we would use. And their categories always suggest what the item is in terms of like, just being good for organization, especially their baby gear category.

Paris: Oh, yeah.

Kevin: It's so expansive. Like kind of traverses several other categories.

Paris: Yeah. It's it needs to be like three different things. Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin: Other ones, like my registry will allow you to make, create your own categories, which again is a double-edged sword, because , you have to know what those categories should be and if you've never done it before, that can be a bit challenging. The nice thing is if you do know what categories to use then you can just [00:11:00] put those in and then fill in those items. And if you want to know what the categories should be. Then just go , get our free baby registry basics course because it's all in there and we go by each category. It'll even help you get a start in researching the items for those categories without having to overthink it.

Paris: Yep.

Kevin: Absolutely.

You want to help your family and friends. That's a key thing. When it comes to building a baby registry, you can do that with building categories. Another way you can do that is by personalizing your registry. Yes. And the nice thing about personalizing your registry is that can let them in and what they're really there to do for you.

They're not just there to get you to get through there to support you and support this new member of the community. Your baby.

Like we see it with our twins. They're a part of the community, maybe in a bigger way than what we are as toddlers, you know? So, so that's the, that's the reality. And I think personalizing your registry helps with that.

Paris: When making your registry, don't like go about it in the way that, Oh, I'm just putting stuff on a list and that, you know, [00:12:00] A list for people to, to buy things like people That's impersonal. If you think about. Who's going to be buying. From your registry.

If you actually think about who that is, that will help you a lot. Consider your friends and your family, possibly your coworkers. These are people who are going to be buying you things for your new baby. Yeah. So think of them as you're adding things to your registry,

Kevin: That goes back to another hack that we have on here. And it's, that's ask for advice.

When it comes to asking for advice, if you're talking about some of these things with your friends, family, and colleagues beforehand, And they're like, oh, you have to, this is, this product is amazing. And it's going to help you so much. And we had such a good experience and you're like, "yeah, okay that sounds good." Then when you register for that item, they're going to be more likely to take a closer look at that because they want you to [00:13:00] have an experience a lot, like what their experience was and be aided by having a product that works so well for them. So asking for advice actually, before you start your registry into in talking to your friends who are already parents, or who've gone through this recently can be really helpful to.

Paris: There are some situations where people will give you advice, um, about, oh, you must register for this thing. Um, because our child had this ailment.

Kevin: Oh, okay.

Sure.

Paris: And there, and then people are like, oh no, I definitely need to get that.

Yes. Um, don't cause often those are like products that are fairly inexpensive, that you can easily get just like. I'm not even in the middle of the night. Uh,

Kevin: or, or, or the opposite, the place I see the biggest disconnect between parents communicating to each other is sleep. Yes.

Like some babies sleep really well. Some babies don't sleep well and especially parents we have only had one [00:14:00] baby. Even in our case, we're I think the twins were pretty similar in terms of how they slept, which was good.

Paris: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: Like it's, it's hard to relate to a parent whose baby's having really real sleep problems and vice versa.

If you're getting a recommendation on a Snoo. On maybe some sort of like specific sleep training program. I would definitely take that with a grain of salt and think about that because you may have a completely different experience with you with how your baby sleeps versus what they had.

Paris: Yeah. I mean, every baby really is different. Um, Just like every person is different. Everybody is going to be different. So you want to find out, have your baby remember the things that people are telling me,

Kevin: if you run into that issue.

Yeah.

Paris: But don't maybe don't run to your registry.

Kevin: Right.

Paris: Unless it's a book or something like that, then maybe you can check out the book.

Some people's babies have gas. Um, that doesn't mean that your baby will, that doesn't mean that your baby won't. Um, but it's not something that [00:15:00] like, Count on, you know, it.

They could, they might not.

Kevin: Yeah.

Paris: Um, I wouldn't go all in on a bunch of, Frida baby windis. You would much rather have something like diaper rash cream than a bunch of windis sitting there. Um, yeah. If somebody's going to choose something like that, then you want them to choose the thing like

Kevin: right. Way more practical.

And I don't know if this is a hack as much, but I think it's something that people don't pay attention to, especially when it comes to those personal care items. Is that. If you have. You know, Fs, FSA, HSA, flex spending accounts. Maybe you have a hard time using it from year to year. Or, you know, I don't know, maybe in a year that you have a baby, you know, that you're going to use it.

I don't know, but either way.

You can buy those items. Pre-tax whereas someone buying it off your registry that you can't use those, you can't use those funds for gifts.

Paris: No.

Kevin: So the only way to get that pre-tax is to purchase it yourself. [00:16:00] So that's something to think about. Again, this is not financial or legal advice.

Look into what the terms of your own. You know, Flexible spending accounts,

If there's an item that you want to take off the list, it might fall into one of those categories and you can go and check and see which ones are FSA or HSA eligible.

Paris: Well, that said also, um, Often, um, postpartum care items, some of them at least are covered

Kevin: yeah.

Paris: In there. So check on those. Again, please. Don't put them on your registry. Uh, people don't want to get you like disposable underwear. Or breast pads.

Kevin: So one of the biggest registry, hacks I would say like hands down. Is, especially if you're registered for, from baby list is to do the bottle box.

Paris: Oh, yes.

Kevin: That's, that's a huge hack because. So many first time parents, they overbuy bottles. We did that.

Paris: Yeah.

Kevin: You think, oh, this bottle is the best everyone's talking about it.

Paris: Research. And they

Kevin: don't like it.

Paris: Yeah. To you, you just can't even know your baby chooses.

Kevin: And you [00:17:00] can't do anything with used bottles?

Our recommendation is get the bottle box. See what they like. Yeah. The nipples. They're all going to be different. The flow rates on those nipples, even if they're like in the same categories 0 1, 2, they're going to be different. Um, the anti colic systems are going to be different, how they clean are going to be different.

And then between you and your baby, you're going to find the one that you liked the most. You can still use maybe a couple of those. Like we did, like, we were like, we don't mind these two or three bottles. And then when you go to buy your eight ounce bottles, which you'll be doing not too long from then.

Because they're going to outgrow that four ounce,

Paris: I think only in about like a month or so long. Maybe two months,

Kevin: right.

Paris: Ish.

Kevin: Then, buy the eight ounce bottle. And you can always, you can use your eight ounce bottles earlier, too.

If you just really like a bottle.

Yeah, they're going to come with a faster flow rate. But you could buy the nipple in a slower flow rate and just keep using it. And the nipple is going to be [00:18:00] cheaper than the bottle. Although bottles are relatively inexpensive.

Paris: Yeah. You could switch out the nipple to. Any other bottles?

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and put the four ounce and an eight.

So bottle box is a good way to go, otherwise just go get a few different bottles and then just leave bottles off the registry.

Paris: I mean, honestly, it's. Cheaper to just get the bottle box.

Cause it's like or something like that. It's.

Kevin: You know, how many bottles,

Paris: five. Of the top brand bottles.

In the U S at least it's the most popular bottles, five of them. Right. And they, they do update them. It's they're not the same ones that were the top bottles when we were, when we had our babies two years ago.

Kevin: Make sure to check us out. Again next week.

If you were starting your baby registry, go and sign up for our baby registry basics course. Um, putting your email and then we'll go ahead and email you the first lesson right away.

It is such a good resource to have. Uh, so definitely go get that. Thanks so much for watching. Take [00:19:00] care.