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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.
Paying down debt before TTC
Sooo apparently DH doesn't want to hear about my cycles or talking about kids/getting pregnant/my friends getting pg until AFTER we're out of debt. He wants us to be financially ready (I've heard from those w/ kids that you can never me) before we even begin about TTC.
So I'm bummed b/c I've had baby fever for awhile - I know it gets annoying when discussing w/ DH. So I'm finding other things to be interested in - in the meantime. Hopefully, at the rate we're paying off debt, we'll be able to discuss TTC at the end of the year.
People have said "Oh take a trip to Europe or do some more traveling".....yeah we're paying off debt, not looking to vacation in Hawaii this year. Maybe a weekend trip to Naples.
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Re: Paying down debt before TTC
Well I have put tons of thought into that issue (and was hideously flamed for it once, apparently I was not aware that babies werent free and didnt come out of the womb with a check for a million) and I have come up with the following. You are NEVER going to be in a "perfect" place to start a family. Plus if you are totally ok financailly today, who's to say there wont be something tomorrow that will screw all of that up. Pluse like my brother in law said when we first got married "you have 9 months to get money" lol. Dont get me wrong, you shouldnt have kids if you arent somewhat stable and out of debt, but it will never be perfect, ya know.
Plus, you can still chart and do all that so that when you ARE ready to TTC, you know your cycles etc..
DH and I are not out of debt and are not perfectly well financially, but we will be in time. But we do both have jobs, health insurance, a house and a room for a baby, we can pay our bills and still have some fun here and there. It is tight, but we make it work.
ON top of that with our recent infertility issues, i dotn know when we are going to actually have a kid and I wish we had started earlier ya know. But we held off because of money.
Good luck!!
Well, i may be the exception here but i have always known since HS that i wanted to be a sahm...so once i graduated from college and got a "real" job (lol) i would put a little bit of money away for when the time came (i hadn't even met DH yet) My co workers used to make fun of me for this all the time..
Anyway, with that being said i don't think we are completely financially stable...I am not sure anyone ever is...The thought of having another mouth to feed and someone to clothe scares me sometimes...BUT my desire to have children is stronger then my fears...
I think you need to do what is right for you and your dh...we are much more ready now (financially and emotionally) to have a baby then we have ever been but thats b/c it has taken us so long...we wouldnt have been as ready had we have had our first baby BUT that doesn't mean we wouldn't have loved him or her any less..we would have just found a way to make it happen..
I can't stress enough though that you both have to be ready and on the same page...GL
I think there are definitely varying degrees of 'ready'. Everyone above has very valid points. I don't believe there is a magic number to indicate your readiness or stability, but one could say that about any life changing event...buying a house, a car, moving, etc.
The one thing that we made sure of was to know exactly what our static monthly expenses were long before we even TTC. We figured out how much we would need for me to take a 12 week maternity leave and made sure we had that amount of cash tucked away in our bank account to cover our mortgage, car payments, etc. We spent every single penny of it while I was out of work.
We knew that without seriously compromising our lifestyle....and trust me, it is NOT even remotely close to champagne and caviar.... I would have to return to work. That affords us the ability to go out to dinner a couple times a month if we choose to or buy a couple new pairs of jeans without a discussion...not glamorous! LOL We crunched every number to figure out a way for me to stay home, but money would be so tight that one bad month of an unexpected expense could be disaster. FWIW, that is all cash forward...we have no debts outside of our mortgage and car loans.
That being said, daycare expense reduce my bring home pay by 40% every month and bare baby necessitites ( diapers and formula) take at least another 20%, so there is 60% of my pay that is spent before I even see it. The remainder covers my personal CC ( minimal expenses) , my car payment ( DH and I keep separate by choice), a small allowance for me and the rest goes into our household fund. Sometimes I feel like I work for free.
I think that at the very least, just being aware of what your expenses are before you TTC puts you one step ahead and in the best position to weigh your options.
if people waited until they were 100% financially ready to have kids, most NEVER would! Now I'm not saying go run out and get pg if you have no where to live or will end up on welfare, BUT I am saying that if it's feasable, do it!
In this economy, no one should be having kids, yet here we (me included) all are popping them out!
Good luck working on the hubby, get him around babies and or small children, that is how I got DH to move up TTC with our first!