Money Matters
tobysnuggles
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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.
how to save with a baby
So pre-baby we were saving about $1000 a month from our paychecks. We paid off most debt and are only left with my student loan and the mortgage. We had a savings account and were able to manage if any situations arose that we didn't anticipate (ie: new tires). Since having the baby 80% of that money we used to save is now all funneled into daycare, the remaining 20% is basically eaten up by baby costs and most the savings we had went to what I'll call "baby start up" and of course medical bills. So current situation is we are only saving a small amount of what we used to and our savings account I'd say was 75% wiped out. Any tips on helping to build it back up? Recently we needed both heating units replaced, new tires and new breaks which has eaten up that remaining in savings so I feel like we are starting all over. We want to try for baby #2 in the fall but unless we can start saving now to pay for that future cost it's going to be a stretch and I'm feeling overwhelmed! I'm just starting this process and the first thing we have done is stop overpaying our mortgage which will net us an additional $200 a month to put in savings, along with our tax refund.
Re: how to save with a baby
Good luck!
If you post your monthly budget, people on this board are really good at giving suggestions about ways to cut back. Based on just what you posted, $200/month on baby stuff seems like a lot to me. I didn't use formula or disposable diapers, so maybe that's what makes the difference. We bought pretty much every piece of clothing and toy (other than Christmas) at a consignment or thrift shop, and we welcomed every offer of free stuff from other people with kids.
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I'm not sure where you live and as others suggested a better view of where your $6200 is going would help. We only make around $3500 a month and are able to put $500 of that into savings, $300 to retirement, so that's a total of $800 for future purposes, granted we don't have kids... but still I'm not able to see why you can't save $1000 a month...
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"Be the Lego Lady"
All you have to do is have the money come out automatically and make sure that you budget for medical, etc.
Try Amazon Subscribe and Save. We get Pampers cheaper than Target brand.
That's cool!! I agree, because if we do spend money as a family on the weekend, it just feels so much better knowing we haven't been "wasteful" during the week.
Make a written budget that includes a line item for savings. Buy an automatic coffee maker with a timer - will save you alot - little things add up! Stop the bleeding. Sometimes plugging the money leaks takes some effort - but well worth it!
In our situation, for example, we totally splurge by having a cleaning person come to our house every other week. It frees up so much of my time and makes my life so much better, that we have decided that is a splurge that is worth it for us. On the other hand, I probably get 2 new pieces of clothing a year, we eat out maybe once a month, we don't have cable, we still have cheapie flip phones, etc. Those are things we have decided to cut back on in order to afford the necessities (food, mortgage, retirement, etc.) and the splurges that are important to us.
The key is to just make sure you are living on a written budget every month that you follow and keep track of expenses. Because otherwise your basically just guessing where the money is and how much you have. So you need to tell it where to go and know exactly how much you have to work with.
Othere then that I'd take a serious look at every debt you have, every dollar you have in savings and where every dollar is going each month. And then sit down with your husband and decide what to do with that based on your families needs. If I were you I would keep a small amount in savings for emergencies but past that i'd look at getting the student loan paid off so you have less going out each month. Take the money you were putting extra at the mortgage and put that at the Student loan because chances are thats smaller and easier to pay off.