Financially Preparing for Baby {An Update}

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My financially preparing for baby post has been repinned quite a bit on Pinterest.  I did a little digging into my analytics and realized how popular this post has been.  I’m not talking viral or anything, but for my little blog it’s a lot.  

 

financially preparing for baby, an update on how to prepare for baby, how to prepare for baby

An update on my post financially preparing for baby.  Let me say you can never fully prepare for a new baby, just as another one’s comment mentioned on Pinterest.  She’s so right!  It’s impossible.  However, our goal was to have money set aside for those things we weren’t planning on.  We didn’t know how our little guy was going to come 3 weeks early, which meant 3 weeks less work for me.  Luckily I had a plan for work while I was on maternity leave, but it wasn’t supposed to start 3 weeks early.  

We didn’t know he would end up in the NICU, which meant more medical bills.  We also had a serious issue with our medical insurance, which finally got resolved after our son was 18 months old and with three contacts with our state insurance commissioner.   It was a nightmare. 

We also didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed and would have to purchase formula for the first 12 months, which mean a much greater expense to our monthly budget.

If I would have known those things I would have been squirreling away more money.  However, we had a good foundation.  We treated our insurance deductible as a sinking fund so we could more easily put money aside.  We used our Sinking Funds Spreadsheet that helped us know exactly how much to put back each month, which categories we need to be focused on and how close we are to reaching our goals.

Having that foundation us cover our medical deductibles without any worry, even while fighting the insurance company.  Having money set aside helped us.  In the end we actually saved money on our medical bills by being able to pay them in full.  

We lucked out by having a baby that can tolerate most formulas.  We’ve heard stories of special formula costing families close to $100 a week and that was for a newborn!  Our little guy could tolerate most brands without any problems so we were able to go with what was on sale or had coupons for.  Our pediatrician told us baby formula has to go through such a rigorous test and qualifications most of them are going to be so similar.  So find one he likes and stick with it, but don’t be afraid to buy in bulk or on sale.

I like to be transparent so I’m going to talk about the smallest additional cost with having a baby.  Now this next cost didn’t change our budgeting or our spending habits.  But I like to be open.

One of the other costs we didn’t consider was water.  A jug of water costs $0.88 for us.  We are buying 3 every 2 weeks.  Which is less than $100 a year, but it’s still an additional cost we weren’t prepared for.  

With purchasing gallons of water we’ve had to give our little guy fluoride tablets since he’s not getting it from city water.  Again, we’re lucky because insurance covers the cost of his prescription.  

I was able to find a sitter who charged less than the local daycare did.  She is smaller, which I like.  She has a few children as opposed to 10-15 like the daycare has (I know they have multiple caregivers, but it’s still crowded).  My son adores her and loves going to Mrs. Karen’s each morning.  While we were preparing for our son to get here we started saving the amount each week I thought daycare was going to cost us.  We ended up being able to use the savings to help with our medical costs I mentioned above.  It was great.

 



Overall our preparedness worked great.  Now whenever we want to add something to our budget or splurge, we still use our tricks I talked about:

  1. Make an educated estimate of the cost of the new expense.
  2. Figure it into your monthly or weekly budget at least 6 months before the expense will start.
  3. Physically transfer the money from your checking account into a separate savings account.  We transfer ours into our emergency fund.  

Instead of preparing for our baby’s birth, we’re preparing for summer trips and fun things as a family of three!

 

 

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Meredith Rines, MBA, CFP®, a budget and financial strategist helping families pay off debt and live the life they've always wanted.

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