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I'm sure many of you have heard people say that if you wait to have children until you are financially ready you will never have them.
What are your opinions? I feel like I have been hearing this very often lately and since I am a big planner I am a little hesitant to make a life changing decision without having everything in place first. Was anyone not financially ready and had a baby anyways?
DH is self employed and his business was doing rather well especially at the beginning of the yr and we started discussing the idea of having kids. His business is not as profitable right now as we would need it to be so I have suggested putting the idea of having a child on hold. He is rather upset and keeps saying that if we wait until we are finacially ready we will never have a child.
Well of course it's a major concern. We had our daughter when we weren't ready (and in debt) and it was a long process trying to overcome it. But we did make it through, and I believe anyone can if they decide to make sacrifices.
I don't know... my income has increased over the years, and I have found I adjust my spending accordingly. My husband is all about financial savings, but i feel like he would need a million dollars in the savings. I think its hard because it seems the money you spend on kids is very subjective, there are the basic needs but beyond that I feel as if each kid has a different price tag. While I would reccomend having a kid if you are living paycheck to paycheck, I would suggest defining financially able, would be very difficult.
Despite 6 degrees between us, neither of us have managed to find full time jobs yet, and at 31 / 33 time isn't exactly on our side anymore. The global economic crisis isn't helping and if we wait for things to completely improve, there's a high chance we'll be leaving it too late for children.
I think it's a matter of predicting how financially stable you THINK you'll be in the future. I'd like to think that when things improve, we'll have good chances of establishing careers so i'd be willing to start trying soon, regardless of our current situation. If however, I thought the chances of becoming financially stable were slim, i'd probably hold it off as long as possible to see what happens.
DH and I were ready financially to have a child ( mentally? IDK!!). It just makes life a little easier. We are able to provide all necessities and extras for DD and ourselves, our lifestyle has not changed-obviously we don't go out on the town so we are cutting back there, but the basics are covered and then some. I'm not saying I prance her around in a Bugaboo wearing Neiman Marcus Baby or anything, but we're in a really nice place.
Do I wish we had more money sometimes? Sure. I don't think that ever goes away for anyone. There is money in our savings in case of a huge emergency and we do not have to depend on anyone for anything. If we had her 5 years ago it would have been more of a struggle and probably we would lose some of the fun we are having now due to stresses of finances (which many many people overcome like KatyElle said)
You DH is right -you are never financiall "ready" but there are different levels of "not being ready" and the more secure you are and less debt you have, well, it just makes it a little easier.
The end result though, is tha we all love and enjoy our kids regardless of our financial situations. It's just stressful to have a baby and if you can do everything in your power to alleviate any outside stressors, why not? Even taking a year to pay off credit cards before kids can help!
It makes it a whole heck of a lot easier... my first child was unplanned and we were unprepared. Although sacrifices are made to meet their needs (priorities) regardless, it is a much different experience when you don't have to struggle to pay the basics.
@Claire2010- Due to self employement it's up and down so I would like to have more money in savings. I could see us being better off in the future, but how do you find the faith to move forward if you just think and do not know.
I think it just depends on what kind of experiences you want to give your kid. Personally I want the 'best' vacations, schools, extracurriculars, etc that are possible. I want to pay for college, grad schools, and weddings if I can. But all these 'extras' are certainly not necessary to raise good kids.
I also dont want to have to significantly downgrade my lifestyle when I have kids. Ideally, I would be able to maintain my shopping, grooming, and healthy food habits. I dont want to have kids and not be able to go to Whole Foods or something cause we just can't afford it.
I grew up extremely low income and it was very tough. In addition,my mom often passed on her guilt to me. For example. if someone have me 20 bucks for my birthday and I wanted to spend it on myself, she would complain and call me ungrateful for not giving the money to her. I dont want my kids taking on that burden.
Didn't have the money, but managed anyway. (Read Birth Control failed x2-we were wanting to wait until we had money :-s ). My kids are now grown and are amazing people! You don't need all the stuff. We managed to have the basics but few extras.
DH and I are waiting until we are financially ready as well. Right now we are renting a one bedroom condo and going to school. I would like to wait until we are both done with school (He has two years, I have 5). But I definitely want to be able to have a condo/house and have some money in savings (2-3k) so I can provide the baby with everything they need. But if it happens, we will work with it.
We own a house, have no debt besides our mortgage. We will probably need a larger car (2 dogs + car seat). I am willing to make any sacrafices needed. My parents were really young when they had me and my brother and didn't have alot but I don't remember wanting for anything. We didn't have luxury items but we had what was important. I guess I just worry that on a bad month we will struggle for basic nessecities.
We waited. I think DH and I are financially ready to have a baby, however, like a PP said it's all relative...if you make more, you spend more. We are 29 and 30 and only have the debt of our home so I think now is as good a time as any.
I think it was more important for me that we waited for maturity, not money. Less money makes things tougher but you will always get through it...besides who NEEDS a pickle bottom diaper bag? Less maturity means a fight can turn into the end of a relationship and is so unhealthy for a baby to experience IMO.
We are still on the fence about having kids but we do know that we would like to be in a better place financially before we even discuss having a kid. We do pretty well, but right now I am only working part-time, so we aren't doing as well as we could be. DH and I want me to be working full-time, reduce our debt significantly (cut it in half at the very least, if not completely pay everything off), and have savings in the bank (about 4 months to live off of). I want our lifestyle to not change too much by having a kid, meaning not giving up our vacations, our shopping habits, etc.
with our first no, we didn't wait until we were financially stable. Things were tight and it did suck from time to time, but it worked in the end.
this time around, yes we are waiting until we are financially comfortable -- we're stable right now, but some days a little less comfortable than we'd like due to home expenses (renovations etc), but if it happened we would survive.
I'm in grad school now, and we don't think that we can realistically afford babies until we're dual income (I work two part time jobs, but they are barely more than minimum wage).
So we're planning on waiting until I'm actually started in my career. I will have a considerable amount in student loans by that point, and we need to make sure that we can afford that monthly expense in addition to child-related expenses.
I think every situation is different. When we had our first, we were financially comfortable, but if we had waited 5 or so years to start a family, we would probably be in an even better position. However, in the larger picture beyond just finances, now was the right time for us to have kids. We'd be better off financially if we had waited, but it'd be a lot harder in other aspects of our lives (career-wise, etc...). So it worked for us. I guess there's just a lot more to the equation for me than just finances. Financially comfortable was enough for me, considering we were ready in other areas.
That's what we're doing right now. :/ Well, technically waiting for after the wedding AND finances, but finances are a bigger deal to us (we've been together a good many years, lol). I've wanted babies since before I can remember. He's a little older than I am and is ready as well.
However, we just bought our first house (cash, so no mortgage) but there is so much we want to DO to it before we have kids. We want to remodel the kitchen, get new floors (I despise carpet, even if it's nice) and update the bathrooms, put a fence in the backyard for the dogs. Stuff like that. So in a way, yeah, it's finances. We don't want to be remodeling with a newborn, ya know?
I do somewhat agree that you're never perfectly ready for a baby.
For us, being financially stable is crucial and we wouldn’t willingly TTC without being in that position. We know a lot of new parents who are nowhere close to being as stable as we currently are (which, for the record, is still not stable enough to have a child) and they’re popping out kid after kid. Sure, they’re happy and all but some of them can’t even afford to put food on the table let alone have a night out or treat themselves to a new… whatever.
As a “DINK” (dual income, no kids), that does not sound at all appealing to me. When we choose to have children, we want to be in the best place financially for not only our own sanity but also for the well being of the child. I see how difficult it is for these new parents and that is not a position that I ever want to be in. Worrying about money is hard enough when you just have to take care of yourselves but add in a little human who is going to suck you dry, I imagine the stress quadruples.
I’m sure anyone can “make it work” but I guess I just don’t see why you would want to put yourself through that. If it was an unplanned pregnancy then ok, it was a surprise but those who TTC while knowing that they’re not in a position to have a child aren’t really doing themselves any favors. They say that “all you need is love” but love isn’t going to pay your mortgage or put food on the table, stability will.
It's hard to say that we are 100%, without a doubt financially ready for children because it just seems like there are so many unknowns. But we feel as though we are financially ready. We have a lot of savings, our day-to-day living expenses are completely covered by my husband's salary with room to spare (my little baby salary is for "fun stuff" that I can hopefully live without when I become a SAHM), we own both our cars outright, student loans paid off, etc. So I think we're in an ok place.
Some people say you can make it work no matter what and my parents are a testament to that, but my husband and I personally wanted to wait until we felt ready both emotionally and financially.
Finances are not everything. I think we are financially ready for a child but in order to sustain that we are not ready to have a child as we both work long hours and have little time to devote to a child. We live below our means and are investing for a future so theat we will both have $ and time to raise a child.
I hate to be the annoying person who asks your age but that is what i am. putting off having kids is a luxury only women under 30 have. once you reach your 30s you still have time but it's important not to take your fertlity for granted either. i mean, i am 34 and my husband and i are waiting until a month before my 35th birthday to start trying. i wish we could try now but he wants to close a few loose ends first. the compromise is that we are gonna try to do that as best we can but come May it is go time no matter what the circumstances are. it's hard for me to think that my dream may not be realized because as far as i can see there is never a good time to have kids. this is not to say you should do it willy nilly. having a plan is VERY important but make sure that you are weighing all the variables and that the value of the prepartion outweighs the risks.
if you are in your 20s and dont have any premature menopause or issues in your family i think you can afford to wait so long as you would be okay with it taking severals months or even years to concieve.
Our only reason for waiting is money. We have been saving a lot for a house, so if I were to get pregnant now, we'd be okay finacially to support the child, but we'd have to put our dreams of owning a house on hold. I'd rather wait until we're all settled and have built back up a nest egg before fertilizing my eggs. ;-)
I had NO money when I had my kids. I started out very very young. It was a struggle, but the kids definitley made my life fuller. It was hard, but when you are used to having no money, you know no different.
If I had no children now, of course I would want to have money saved up. I couldn't do it now, and we both work, lol........... Yes daycare is expensive. Sometimes you can work in a daycare and get a discount on your child care.....
Right now, we're nowhere near being financially prepared. But we're also nowhere near being emotionally or physically prepared either. I'm hoping the three will evolve together...
I disagree that waiting until your are "financially ready and stable" means that you'll never actually have children.
DH and I are 24 and 25 and we are financially ready to have children RIGHT NOW if we both wanted to continue working. Since we both want me to be able to be a SAHM, we are waiting a few more years to TTC but again a few years is all it should take for us to be financially ready for me to leave the workforce and stay at home with children.
You don't have to have millions in savings or anything to be financially ready and stable. But minimizing debt and having a cushion for emergencies doesn't take most people past baby-making ages.
Thank you everyone for sharing! It's great to hear all of the different opions especially since it seems as though DH and I differ in opinion a little.
We are both 100% emotionally ready which makes it a little harder to want to wait for finances to fall into place. We are also in out late 20's, but I have underlying fertility issues so it may take a while.
We didn't necessarily wait until we were financially ready to start TTC - we've been lucky and never really had money issues since we've been together. Ours was more of a timing (hello biological clock!) and being prepared to have a significant shift in our lives (more diapers, less nights out on the town).
I can see both yours and DH's perspectives. You'd like more money saved up before you start, to make the leaner times with his business not so scary. He might be thinking that there will always be ups and downs with his business and you might be caught in this "lets do it, lets wait" cycle forever. If you are emotionally ready and it's something you want soon, and you don't have a lot of debt that might eat into that savings, I say go for it. By the time the baby gets here, you'll have had an additional 9 months to pad the nest egg.
But, if you think trying now would just end up with you as a big ball of stress, find out what would make you comfortable. Is it adding an additional $5000 to the savings account? Maybe if DH has a tangible goal that you need to reach to feel more comfortable, he'll be open to waiting a little longer.
@Goldilocks- Are you my husband? LOL You sound exactly like him. He has stated that he would be willing to get a second job and do whatever it takes, but I just stress easily and don't want to have that stress for 9 months. Already off the pill and have the green light to start TTC in November so you can see why he isn't wanting yo change his thought process.
I think overall it does really depend on the couple and your lifestyle.
For my husband and I the reasons we were waiting was because there were certain aspirations we wanted to accomplish prior to having kids. In terms of finances I really don't see any huge pay increase happening in the near future (read 5years+) so we were not going to wait that long. For us we are going to be as financially ready as we ever will be, in my opinion.
Turn of life events made us realize that having a family to us was WAY more important than those aspirations that we thought we wanted prior to having kids. For me it was licensure which can still happen for me as mom. And for my husband a new job that cna happen whenever as well.
Well, we thought we had lots of money, then I got pregnant and we kind of freaked out about living in our townhouse and decided to buy another house. So there went all of our money :(
We do struggle with things. It would be a lot easier if we had more money and we didn't have to worry about every little dime we spent. We're lucky b/c if we needed to my parents would give us some money, but we don't want to have to resort to that. If I had to pick between waiting to have my baby and having more money now, I'd pick having my baby. It's worth the sacrifices!
I do think it's important to have a plan for how you are going to manage your money once baby comes. But it sounds like you're already thinking along those lines, so you sound prepared. I also think it's really easy to always put off having kids b/c something isn't ideal -- be it finances, wanting to put in more time at work for a promotion first, etc, etc. It's hard to just wake up one day and say "I'm really ready to have a child". At some point you ultimately have to just dive in and know that you will figure out how to make it work when the time comes.
We're waiting because of finances and school. Aside from that, DH and I will have been together for 10 years on our first wedding anniversary and are defintiely emotionally ready. We both want children young (I'm 24 and DH is 26) and would like to have had two by the time I'm 30, leaving room for a possible third before I'm 35.
For school, DH is done but I'm deciding between an MD, DO, or PhD program and trying to make sure I pick a field that will allow me to actually see my children. Given that graduate school is going to run us about $360,000 in student loans, I need to make sure I make the right decision the first time lol. I'm really struggling with this decision but am working in the meantime.
For finances, I am the bread winner right now and will be even more so once I finish school. DH works in sports television and almost everyone in his field is an independent contractor. There's a lot of insecurity in his job and just yesterday he lost a package because the network cut a pre/post game show he worked on. There is no way I would feel comfortable having a child on his salary so I feel like we need a LOT of money saved up first. Since we live in Los angeles, an acceptable amount of savings means at least six digits and we likely won't be able to afford a house for a long, long time. A one bedroom, one bath condo in a semi-shady area goes for 500,000+ here and we'd ideally love a little house with a backyard in a good neighborhood.
We're also waiting until we're in a better financial position. By that I mean we want all of our student debt paid and a small nest egg. None of this should be difficult in the next two years. We're also thinking about not having our own children and adopting a sibling group. We'd wait a little longer to do that as it would buy us some time.
I think there are many stages of "financially ready". Similar to @Aubergold, I don't want my lifestyle to change very much once we have kids...I don't want to worry about cutting out coupons or thinking that I need to give up getting coffee from Starbucks every so often. That's me, though--I like having my little luxuries. Other people don't mind so much. My sister, for instance, shops mainly at Walmart, Goodwill and Salvation Army for clothes, not because she needs to but because she doesn't really care about clothes and would rather save that money for the kids/fixing up her house, etc. I just know that I wouldn't be like that, so I want to be able to continue living my life roughly the way I live it now (of course, I might feel differently once I have kids).
I also think it's hard to say that you need to have a certain amount of money saved up...I mean I think you should have something, because kids are expensive and what if, god forbid, they have some sort of serious medical condition that requires who knows what. So I think you should have some sort of a cushion. But I think it's true that if you wait to be really "Ready", in every sense of the word, you'll never have kids, because you could ALWAYS have more money/savings. At some point, you just gotta go for it!
My husband and I make good money, but we're definetly not swimming in it. And while we are certainly comfortable, we are also really uncertain about our future since we are in construction in FL (aka total shit economy). But we are 28, have been married for almost 3 years, and felt we just didn't want to put our lives on hold any longer because of the unknown. We know we are smart enough, and work hard enough that we can get through anything. I'm due in April, and feel like all I can do it put it out in the universe that we really really need to sell our piece of lake property. :)
DH and I are not TTC yet, but this is something that worries me because once we have children I want to cut down to part time so I don't have to pay for full time daycare. We are about 1-2 years out from TTC so I'm going to try and save as much as I can now, but if we WERE ready now I don't think I would let the $ issue stop me. My best friend says if you think about things too much you'll never have kids. You just have to do it, and things will work out because they have too. Best of luck!
what does financially ready even mean? is it a certain amount of dollars in your savings account? a certain annual income between both partners? owning a house? a college degree?
Hubby and I are preggers, and I would say we are "financially ready," even though at this point in our lives we can't afford college and braces and private violin lessons. However, I think all of these things are far enough away that everything will work out in the long run. We are ready to be parents and are trusting that God put is in this situation for a reason...everything will work! We are both in positions that have upcoming promotions, we own a home, have no debt (other than cars and student loans) and have great supportive families (free daycare). To us, that is "financially ready" enough.
I grew up in a family with 5 kids. we were all homeschooled, grew all of our veggies, got all of our eggs from the chicken coop in the backyard, and we were probably broke. my mom never worked, but i had the best childhood ever! there was so much love and so much happiness, i would never have it any other way!
Edit: I might add that neither hubby nor myself have a lifestyle to give up. we are pretty frugal, don't go out to eat much, and i do a lot of thrifting and DIY stuff around the house.
My husband is the only one working at the moment, but we are financially comfortable and ready for a child. I would feel better if I start working again, but for now my husband and I feel it is best for me to focus on school (attending full-time), and getting past this point of being exhausted non-stop. We recently made a budget for everything, and it helped us immensely! We found that now that we are more aware of how much we used to spend on groceries (we spent $125-150 a week...insane), it wasn't necessary in the slightest and now we are spending about $75-90. A little bit of savings goes a long way over time.
I can't help but to get a little envious though on my previous employers (I'm a former nanny....oh, how I miss it!). They recently bought a 4 million dollar mansion. While I do not care to ever live in a mansion as I like having an average size home, it must be so nice to have the income they do!
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