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You do not need to give a specific number (although helpful), but we will be TTC in about 3 months and I was curious if any of you had a specific savings for baby, or how much you had in savings in general...or did you just wing it? I'm overly organized and prepared but can't afford to have thousands and thousands in savings, just looking into what others situations were and how they turned out :)
Please do not say we can not afford a baby bc we do not have thousands set aside right this moment, we are hoping to get there eventually! Thanks ladies.
I would say to go to Walmart, Babies R' Us, Target, etc and start writing down how much everything is such as a crib, accessories, breast pumps, etc. Then from there you can determine about how much you would want to save :)
We want to have a year's salary in emergency savings before TTC. That's our comfort level in general for savings (outside of retirement, of course). We have that right now, but will be putting it towards buying a home, then rebuild the savings, then TTC.
We have about 25,000 in savings, but in Aus you also get a $5000 bonus when you give birth.
We are planning on TTC in the next year.
I also have amazing maternity leave as I work for government, and will have about 6 mths paid time off.
I love Australia for these reasons- we have it pretty good with this stuff.
We have about $20k left after the wedding but want to pay the house off over the next year or two before TTC.
@MrsOliveBird: You get $5k when you give birth!!?!? I think I need to move to Austrailia!
@yrret107: Yes, and if you have twins you get 10,000 and triplets 15,000.... we have a very generous social security system here.
I had my babies quite a awhile ago, but my first husband and I didn't have anything in saving when we started having babies. He was in the military though, so most of the medical was covered. We just had to come up with the essentials and I breast fed, so we didn't have to purchase formula.
A few years ago my husband came up with the number of 10k for every year I was going to stay home from work. This is totally not going to happen. We never saved before I was pregnant. We started saving in January and we have about $4,500 saved. (We have spent about $500 of this so far on baby stuff though...like crib, etc..)
We will probably have about 5k in savings when baby arrives. I wish we had more but it really is true what they say "You will never feel ready for a baby and you will never feel like you have enough money" :-) But some how people find a way to make it work. I'm trying to just have faith.
I am planning to stay home for awhile and we don't really make a lot of money. My husband is self-employed and so am I. We have to pay outta pocket for insurance. ($$$$!!!) Things will be tight but we will just have to figure things out as we go.
I think it's good to save as much as you can...but when it comes down to it, you will find a way to make it work
we have 10k in savings for the baby - the only reason we have that much is because we bought a home last year and held onto more than half of the 8k tax refund. aside from the supplies you'll need for the baby, the biggest expenses will be childcare and health insurance and since those are ongoing expenses we chose based on what we can afford month to month aside from our savings.
We had nothing in savings when we got pregnant, since it was a surprise. We started trying to save when we found out, we are kinda in a tough situation living/working right now, but you should know that it's nice to have some money in savings, but like my mom told me "You love (the baby) and that's all that really matters." The other stuff you can work out!
We are trying to save 6 months of my salary since I'm the primary breadwinner at the moment and plan to cut back to 75% time working after I have a baby. This would be for "unexpected costs" and to cover my salary cut. Trying to also save separate $ for pre-baby stuff - like furniture etc.
We have about 3 months of my salary saved. Not pregnant yet, but we should be able to meet that goal within the next 6 months. I get 2 months paid leave plus can take an additional 4 months off (for a total of 6 months). I would definitely take some unpaid leave, but how much unpaid leave will depend on how much *more* than the 6 months salary saved.
we bought a house when i was 8 months preggo, so there went all of our money. we have a good support system though. if anything happens my parents will help us out.
I got pregnant at 18 while I was half way through my senior year of high school. I had no money saved because we never planned to have a baby... My son has always had everything he needs and more. If I could do it being a single mommy I think anyone can do it =D money saved or not.
We'll have $10k saved up. That's to pay for everything that insurance doesn't cover (we have crappy insurance), to supplement my income while I'm on maternity leave (again, crappy insurance won't pay for more than 1 month off), and then the rest is actually for baby stuff.
I am a planner and I went through all of the "lists" of things you need for a baby, and the total came to about $2,600 for furniture, bottles, toys, etc. Most of the stuff you need you will get from showers so that will cut down the cost dramatically :-)
Probably about $2k now. Used a lot to buy furniture,etc. It's not specifically for baby, but use it for that. We have another, but that is the real emergency fund and we don't touch that one. I teach Ga Pre-K at a daycare and get my baby there for half price, so that's good. Our home is paid for, so that's one big thing. No matter if we lose jobs, long as we pay our property taxes, we have somewhere to live. That makes me feel good about the meager savings for baby. :)
Baby Center has this lovely little tool, if you want to estimate how much the baby will cost.
http://www.babycenter.com/baby-cost-calculator
We have quite a bit of savings. We're trying to have about $10k saved and then we also have some CDs and other things that have quite a bit more in them. We're trying not to tap into them, though, unless we have to.
ooh, can you add a poll? That would be great. I like hearing the numbers--we want to start trying next year and I have 15k in my head as a number I would like (and thinkwe could reach).
Since I saved stuff from my 1st baby I don't plan to save any money for my 2nd. I'll use the things I had and go from there for baby 2. lol
For us, I had a 3 month salary saved up in the bank. That is just good practice even if you aren't planning on a family.
Additionally, we figured about $2,000 is kid expenses (thats just the big ticket items and a little left over). We didn't want to rely on family to buy us things like the crib and car seat (fi they did great, but we wanted to know we could afford it if they didn't). We figured things like diapers going forward would fit into our budget.
The next biggest expense is the medical expense of an actual pregnancy and birth. This number is totally going to depend on your insurance. Our covers 80% up until I pay $2,500 for myself. I think we will end up paying close to that $2,500 amount before things start getting covered 100%.
This is really interesting! I am not planning on having kids for a bit, but I always wondered how much money you needed.
I am curious, anyone think you need more if you live in a major city and how much more?
@yrret107: You know we also get a bonus for having babies in the US too, right? It comes during tax time when you file. (And we get it every year, not just the year the child is born)!
We saved 6 months worth of mortgage and expenses prior to ttc. We were pretty conservative in wanting to know if something happened (NICU, lost job, whatever), that we could make it for a while with neither of us working. Now we save a certain amount each month to give her when she goes to college. We don't even miss it because it gets taken out before we see our wages.
I had 0 wit hboth of my pregnancies. I have a 13 year old who I raised on my own and I am pregnant now. It was a surprise baby both times. So it can easily be done with nothing in the bank. And this time around I am having a small wedding beforehand so there really is no money saved up...lol.
We honestly didnt have hardly anything in our savings.. Our baby was a lovely surprise :)
We have apx 10K in savings for the baby. However, since I don't get any paid maternity leave- much of it is designated for the time I will be off after having the baby.
30k is our magic number. I think that way we could tackle anything that comes our way.
Neither one of us has paid maternity/paternity leave though so that's a huge bummer and we live far from families to help us out. Daycare is $$$ in the city. Just thinking about raising a baby with our schedules and living in the city makes me cringe. We so aren't ready.
Nothing both times. It's pretty interesting how it all works out!
Good for you all for trying to be prepared. :)
We wanted to have our 3 months pay saved up for our rainy day fund. Plus we wanted to have $3000 or so saved up for paying for misc baby things.
Things I was going to look into and increase our savings based on what I found out, but we got pregnant too fast (not that I'm complaining--I'm so grateful for a healthy baby on the way-- but I just thought there would be a couple of months of NTNT to nail this stuff down):
It's definitely all within what we can handle financially, but it's not what we were expecting either. Essentially, we were putting away a little under 1/4 of our income into savings pre-pregnancy. Now, we're putting in WAY less than that, on a good month. I'm planning to go back to school, but once I'm done, that's when we'll start saving for college fund(s).
That said-- I'm definitely in "you make it work" camp. As long as you and your spouse are responsible people (and I assume you are), you'll find a way to provide for your family.
@Mrs. DG: And there are some years that it really helps to get me through too! Being a single mom was not easy and it helped me get caught up on bills when the EIC came in.
Per child every year, yes we do :) Helps me pay for my son's private school.
Right now we're really struggling, but it's our own fault. Dh decided last year to join the Natl' Guard and it's taking a toll on our finances, since he has to lay off for 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks out of the year actually 3 weeks in June and 2 in July. We're now trying to play catch up from over a month of no paychecks from him, we've dipped into our savings. When he's working full time and not laying off (railroad) he makes good $$ I work full time in insurance and I don't make very much.
If you don't have anything it still works out. Trust me, and I've done the single mommy thing. Having a very supportive family helps tremendously :)
Oh wow hubby and I didn't have anything saved so you ladies with 25, 30k saved...that's amazing. I suggest people save for daycare/preschool. That's when things REALLY start to get expensive
Hmm... I linked to the tax credit but it didn't post... Take 2:http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106182,00.html
We try to keep several months worth of expenses in savings, having both been unemployed and living off credit cards in the past, we try to be extra careful now.
Right now since we are saving for a down payment on a car we will have about 5k in savings when done with the car stuff.
When I was pregnant with my daughter we were not engaged yet, and I was still in school. SO my parents offered to have me move back in if I worked FT and went to school, rent free. I ended up saving about 9,000 before FI and I moved back in together (I was 7 months preggers) Good thing, because 3 days after I gave birth FI was laid off (not kidding) Thank goodness he got a job before my Short term dis. was over, but it did dent our savings.
With my second we didnt have nearly as much saved, but we had all the big stuff still, and FI was doing better, so we did okay with out the extra.
I loved hearing all of your responses, and would love to hear more!
Hot damn! I am blown away by how many have 10k+ saved up. I don't see how we will ever do that. All of our savings now are pretty much going to the wedding, although we will have some leftover. However, we both want to pursue Master's degrees AND buy a house - so any savings will go to paying back loans or for a down payment on a house. I'm 28 and hoping to get pregnant around 30, so there is no way for us to save that much for a baby on top of Master's degrees and buying a house. Makes me a little sad :( The good thing is that neither of us has any other sort of debt - no current school or car loans or credit card debt - so at least we are good with that. I would love to have some savings for baby but I'll be lucky if it's a thousand dollars. :-/
How do ya'll do it? You must make a ton of money! I didn't think FI and I did bad at all but when you calculate twenty to thirty thousand for a down payment on a house.....which for me is a prereq to having a baby...it doesn't leave any leftover savings.
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