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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Babies and Savings (sort of stolen from GP)
I read a post over there that got me thinking. Plenty of people have a certain amount they want to save before having a baby. Do/did you? What is/was the amount?
Is this in addition to the money you currently save (your e-fund, for example)? Or is it just a total amount you want to have? Do you have a completely separate savings account for baby?
Re: Babies and Savings (sort of stolen from GP)
I guess I'll answer my own question. We currently have 6 months' expenses in the e-fund. We aren't planning on TTC for at least another year or so, so hopefully our e-fund will double by then.
We don't have a separate account for a baby.
We have 3 requirements.
1) At least 6 months expenses in e-fund
2) 10K to cover baby costs (not efund or general savings)
3) My student loans paid off (26K)
Technically we have completed 1 and have stashed away almost half of the balance of my SLs to pay off when they come due in January.
Regardless, all will be accomplished by May. We aren't planning on TTC for another 18 months.
We have a very very small e-fund
But my goal is to have 6 months of expenses in it...right now we have maybe 2 months worth...so its a start.
As for baby money goals. I need to have at least 3 months of MY half of the bills in savings as I do not get any sort of maternity leave from work..so i need to be able to cover that. Its in a seperate savings. I put X amount in each month
We plan to start trying in May of 2010!!!!
My kids were all unplanned! Doh!
But hooray for saving for kids, they are so darn expensive!
Here is my random advice--when you're preggo and happen to be at the store--buy a box of diapers or a package of wipes each time you go! It may seem like a lot, but you will be amazed at how you go through diapers! Buy whatever size, though they go a lot at the beginning. You will be thanking your lucky stars when the package is empty at 3am and you just have to reach down and open another one. That and you won't have quite as much diaper sticker shock!
Okay let's try this again
DH's requirements are:
-6 months of savings in Emergency Fund
- 20K in savings for baby fund
- no debt (including Credit Cards, Student Loans, Car payments- excluding a mortgage).
We're on our way there
We want to have at least 10K in the bank when we have a baby hoping for 15K though. We have a separate account at a separate bank for our baby savings just to make it more difficult to borrow any money. I also already have a Upromise account and will change it over to a 529 account once we have a baby.
We also depleted our efund for our move out here so we are working on replenishing that. Want to have at least 15K in that as well
Just a word of caution about the diaper buying...
Don't buy TOO many in one size. Some babies barely get through one box of newborns. Isabella was in newborns for like 3 months (or more). But it seemed like she was in size 1's for like a month, and she's almost out of size 1-2's after going through one box.
Also, you may discover you prefer one brand over the other, or that the baby has a reaction to one brand over the other, and then you are stuck with a bunch of diapers you don't care for.
Definitely keep receipts (I would tape them to the box), and buy them from places that have reasonable exchange/return policies.
I did get a TON of diapers at my baby shower. My mom set up a raffle where she had different prizes than the game gifts (these were in the neighborhood of $15 - $20 or more value). Everyone got one raffle ticket just for coming, and you got extra tickets if you brought a box of diapers, bought at least one thing off the registry, and/or brought a children's book that you signed in place of a card. Seriously, I think everyone brought a package of diapers, and we have had to buy very few diapers for Bella so far (and even had to give some away because we had so many in one size). I think we have one package left in size 2 that we still haven't used. It was awesome!
So, it was definitely nice to be able to just go up to her closet to get diapers. But if you are buying them yourself, make sure you keep receipts and only buy from places where you will be able to return or exchange them like 6 months down the road. Otherwise, you may end up giving them to friends if you don't use them.
Skittle, you make some great points about the diapers. It'd be pretty bad to have bought a ton of diapers and find out that your baby has a bad reaction to them.
We did the raffle thing at the shower I threw for my SIL. But we specifically asked that people bring different sizes of diapers, not all newborn. I don't think her baby was in newborns for long anyway. And I don't think she had to buy diapers until he was almost 1!
And to answer the question regarding savings, we didn't have a magic number in mind, but it was important that we had no debt (besides mortgage and car). We had paid off the credit card about a year before we started trying though, so we were in good shape.
As far as savings, we were just putting as much aside as we could. Some months that was $1000, some months it was $100. Since I was taking one year off from work, we wanted to have money we could draw from in case we needed it. So far, we haven't had to touch it, but we also haven't really been able to add too much to it either. That money was also supposed to be for baby stuff that we needed, but my mom ended up pitching in about half for the crib and dresser, and we seriously got a LOT at our shower, so in the end, we were able to pay for everything we needed out of our normal paychecks and didn't need to touch savings. We were really lucky (one of those situations where divorced and remarried parents = LOTS of kind and generous family, plus lots of very kind and generous friends).
I think we currently have a little over $10,000 in regular savings. Plus about $15,000 in savings bonds (for years, Ray has been using $100 per paycheck to buy a savings bond). We stopped doing that recently becuase the fixed interest on them is currently about zero, and we are now looking into other options with a financial planner. But our goal is to put that savings bonds money towards college for Isabella and any future kids, in addition to whatever new form of savings we start doing.