Bean on a budget

Since our bean was a surprise, it wasn't as though we had been financially planning for an addition to our family. We have been overwhelmingly thankful to all that have lent us things, given us their hand-me-downs and showered us with gifts. We feel pretty ready for the bean's arrival as a result. Here's the nest that we've feathered: We were thrilled to be able to borrow this crib from Our coworker. Though the bean's dad participated in taking it apart, but we had to call in the big guns (the bean's granddad) to put it back together. The suitcase if full of clothes for when the bean gets bigger. It's vintage and was owned by my grandparents. We got the glider and change table/dresser from Craigslist for $100 (including delivery). I may spend the money to get a new cushion made for it, but we'll see. We were incredibly lucky to get a lot of clothes as hand-me-downs or as gifts. We used some of the money that family and friends gifted us to fill in the gaps for newborn winter wear. The diaper pail was a shower gift. We bought the cloth diapers and the diaper sprayer. Wish us luck as we enter the realm of cloth diapering. I wanted to buy these new, so after careful research, I wound up spending about $450 on 18 BumGenius cloth diapers and a sprayer. Here's hoping that they were a worthwhile investment. We got a BabyBjorn and a Snuggli from Craigslist for $50. The sleep sacks were shower gifts. Here is the view from the Bean's room at dawn. The room faces south, so it gets lots of natural light. The Slinky on the window sill was mine from childhood. The sheep was a gift to me from a friend. We bought the bean an energy saving LED nightlight that comes on at dusk and goes out at dawn. That was $8 well spent at Canadian Tire. We repurposed a bookshelf and lamp from downstairs to hold all the bean's books. Most of the picture books are from my school collection. The baby board books were shower gifts and the cloth books I bought at Winners for $6 each. The donkey puppet and finger puppets were shower gifts for the bean, if they can be wrestled away from me. The receiving blankets and the bin of toys were given to us by a variety of folks. Grandma supplied the noise-machine and the baby monitor.