Question for the May Mommas

spalko · April 2014

Did you and your H start saving prior to having children? Meaning, did you have a set amount in your mind that you wanted saved before having kids? I ask because H & I are talking TTC in July/August and we have a set amount of money we want saved prior to trying. I'm just wondering, if you did save, how did you come up with your desired amount? I want enough money to cover two months of bills plus a little extra. Thanks to Uncle Sam, I have really great insurance plus supplemental insurance with Aflac through my work. I'm wondering if we need to increase our amount, obviously we'll save whatever we can but I like to have set amounts in mind, or if we'd be good where we're at (we're $400 shy of our current goal!).

I've seen a lot of articles on Pinterest and such that suggest stocking up on as much as you can prior to baby. Did anyone do this? This to mean seems like the obvious choice but again, I don't have kids so I don't know how practical this would be. I have one friend who has two kids and every time I mention planning for kids she always comes back with, "When it comes to kids, you can't plan!" Well, I get that but I feel that you can plan to an extent. Like maybe she should have planned to not have two kids without insurance!! So give me all the advice that you ladies can, I want to hear it all!! Thanks Ladies, you guys rock!!!

court115 · April 2014

We didn't have a set plan per say but we definitely wanted to be in a better place financially. We had a good nest egg in our savings and had paid off a lot of our debt. Before I started managing H's finances, he was a hot mess and when we got together, he had a lot of stupid consumer debt. There was no way that we could have afforded a baby (or even a dinner out ...) with that hanging over our heads so we paid it off and saved a lot. I had to take an unpaid maternity leave so it was really important to us that we save as much as we could to make up for my lack of paycheck.

We're also really lucky when it comes to insurance. H has wonderful health insurance through work that we don't pay anything out of pocket for other than small co-pays. That being said, we're also really lucky in that T is very healthy. If he wasn't healthy and we had worse insurance, it would definitely be harder.

Even with the baby and all of his expenses (daycare, diapers, food, clothes, etc.), we're still saving a decent amount each month.

Honestly, selling our condo when it was underwater hit us harder financially than having the baby did. I know it's annoying when people say you can't really plan for a baby and that things tend to work out but it's pretty true. I think as long as you have a good head on your shoulders (as you obviously do) and you're as prepared as possible, it'll all work out.

geojam224 · May 2014

H and I are squirreling away money for a lot of different things, but I think the most important savings account we are building up, which will probably come in handy for when we do have kids, is our emergency fund. We started with an emergency fund of $1000, then we built it to $5K, and now we are building it to whatever 6 months of expenses looks like (H had that number in his head, I really don't know what it is) and I guess we aren't too far off from that. The idea behind that is in case one of us gets an unexpected lay off or something, we have a comfortable savings period to find another job before we need to hit the panic button

JoyBaby5 · May 2014

We saved before having him. We agreed on 5k. I had just over 1 month of paid maternity leave, and two months unpaid. We had Leo in DH's off season for work, and right before he had to pay taxes (self employed, so he has to pay in a lot). Even with all of that against us, we're doing fine. The first couple months of diapers, wipes, etc have been covered with gifts form bridal showers and what not.
I'd advise not stocking up on those things, because you never know if baby will fit right in certain diapers or have an allergic reaction. Some babies are in newborn diapers for awhile, some are never in them. A tip I thought was helpful, instead of stocking up on those, keep adding money to a gift card to the store you'd buy those at, then once you know what works best for baby, then buy.
Also, make a huge a stockpile of frozen crockpot meals for when baby is here. That has been so nice to have!

mildlymailyn · May 2014

We didn't decide on an amount but we currently have 3000.00 in savings. I am not sure if I am getting paid for maternity leave when the time comes or not, that is a conversation I will have to have with my bosses, so I know I need to have enough to cover the mortgage for the time I am off. H already covers all the bills and food so we are covered with that.

With my salary, I am able to pay the mortgage, my car payment and still save around $500 per month. It has been more difficult to save because, as a new homeowner, there are a number of things we need that we didn't have before. I am hoping things will level out soon and we can get back to saving more.

kushie77 · May 2014

that's a tough question.

We are looking at shelling out anywhere from 20-50K for IVF/adoption. So we have that cost plus I don't sleep well at night unless I have at least 6 months salary in the savings account, I try to keep a year but don't let it go below 6 months. But, we also own our own home and don't have a mortgage to pay, just taxes and the borough where we live doesn't have local taxes due to an agreement with the landfill. So our cost of living is very low with only school and county tax. Our hope is that I can go part time when/if baby comes.

As for stocking up, we have a few packs of each size diaper and some essentials such as onsies and bottles that we picked up on sale with coupons and they are tucked away. I like the idea of putting money on a gift card for a baby store so you can still have for the essentials.

mancila60 · May 2014

We already had our money saved (thanks to MIL's life insurance) we did however want to make sure that we had enough in savings to cover what we would need to pay out of pocket for delivery. Also we wanted to make sure that once we added Ethan to our insurance we had enough to cover the first payment because it is more expensive than the normal monthly amount.

Even though H didn't get paid for time off I did so we at least still had money coming in. We did however stock up on diapers and wipes. We use disposables and I already knew what brand I wanted we bought different sizes every time we went to Sam's so that we would have plenty. My baby shower also did a raffle where people brought us diapers and were entered to win.

We took back the brands we didn't want or when he needed to move to the next size we took the smaller ones to the stores and got gift cards for that store. We didn't buy diapers until just recently. I will also say I have found that Babies R Us is cheaper for diapers than Sam's. We buy pampers swaddlers and we buy the big box which is around $40 for 150+ and you can use coupons and they always have sales. At Sam's it's around $45-$50 for a box of 150+ and you can't use coupons.

Even if you stock up and then realize oh these don't work for my baby you can take them to Walmart and get a gift card to put towards buying a new brand. Same goes for Target.

I will also say I agree with @amcourt09 you honestly won't know until baby comes. Every baby is different expense wise. For us the biggest expense has been clothes. Ethan has grown so fast and people bought us great clothes for 0-6 months, now he is in 9 months and I feel like we had to buy a whole new wardrobe. We also don't do daycare so we save money there. Every baby is different and until your baby is here it's hard to plan. You do your best and do what makes you most comfortable but also know some of those things you do could make no difference once baby is here.

toothpastechica · May 2014

We didn't "save" anything for baby per say...but we did wait until we both had steady work meaning I would get mat leave benefits and the we knew DH wouldn't be on unemployment anytime soon (he was doing lots of contract stuff before). We also waited until we had one of my student loans paid off so I only have to try and manage one on a less income.

As far as stocking up. Not really. Sure if I happened to see something on sale that would be needed I would get it, but I wasn't out looking for formula or washcloths or anything. The only thing I did "stock up" on was cloth diapers after we decided we were going to cloth diaper, so I could find good deals (I have probably close to $600or more worth of diapers if I bought all new and I spent about $200 through craigslists/buysell and sales). From my experience with kids before and friends, every kid is so individual in thier needs (some have sensitive skin, some have reflux, etc) that theres no way of knowing what brands of stuff are going to work for you. Also with clothes, my NP actually told me not to buy much and I am glad I listened to her, so many people end up giving you clothes (either gifts or clothes their kids have grown out of...even if you think no one will..people you would never expect to do!), and our not even huge kid (8.2lbs) never fit newborn clothes...so just get a few smaller sizes, you can always get more after if you need them.

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