How much did you save when deciding to have new baby?

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are planing for our first baby. When you decided to have a child how much did you save up in preparation?

[Anonymous]

Zippo! Zilch! Nada!

To be fair, we were working very hard to pay off grad school and not have debt, and to save up for a house. I don't think we spent much "extra" on our kids, but we are crazy frugal. I think it all depends on your lifestyle pre-kids.

[Anonymous]

Zero. Curious, what would you save for exactly? Obviously, it takes an income to raise a child, but are you talking about having enough money to pay your doctor bills? Cover all expenses for the first year of life?

We just worked and saved what we could but not necessarily specifically to have a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Zero. Curious, what would you save for exactly? Obviously, it takes an income to raise a child, but are you talking about having enough money to pay your doctor bills? Cover all expenses for the first year of life?

We just worked and saved what we could but not necessarily specifically to have a child.

I'm the first pp and maybe they are considering childcare costs. This is something I found a way to cover when dd was born (took a semester off of grad school, moved all my classes to nights, had my mother come help for awhile). If you figure out how much you need to cover for that, plus you have insurance/medical costs covered, you are good to go. Baby supplies, clothes, diapers, etc., I'd say we spent less that $2000 total that first year, also considering we did not need or use formula.

[Anonymous]

None...

[Anonymous]

I guess we are thinking of saving to cover medical costs or any new baby costs (i.e. crib, breast pump, blankets, a head start on childcare costs, etc.).

[Anonymous]

We set as a goal to have a six-month emergency fund (which isn't really baby-related per se, just something we figured we should have anyway--but goal was to have it pre-baby since we figured we wouldn't save much once baby was on the scene, which has proven to be true!)

[Anonymous]

zero!

[Anonymous]

None. Banking as much money as you can is always a good idea, though. If you can, do.

[Anonymous]

We did the math on child care costs and when we moved to a larger place, we made sure our rent + child care fit into our monthly budget. We also figured we would get more take out and convenience foods the first year, would need to start having a cleaning service come, and would need a lawn service to do the mowing - basically "what can we outsource while we adjust to a new baby in our schedule?"

[Anonymous]

We didn't save anything just for our child, but did take $10,000 from our taxable savings to start his college fund, so it would grow faster.

[Anonymous]

Nothing. I had been saving TONS for retirement before having a baby. I had to reduce that significantly to pay for day care.

If you don't have savings or don't have much, I'd try to get a six month emergency fund together before baby is born.

Unexpected baby expenses can sometimes include:

Doctor and hospital bills
Unexpected time off from work
Need for special formula
Day care needs that cost more than budgeted (for example, I budgeted $13,000 a year, which was the going rate in my area. Moved to MoCo for a job, and average daycare jumped to $20,000 his first year).

Those things can get expensive. GL

[Anonymous]

No matter how much you save it will not be enough.

[Anonymous]

Nothing extra, just continued on the same saving/spending path that we were on.

[Anonymous]

We continued saving as usual, but also dipped into our savings/investment fund to put an addition onto our house. Overall, we SPENT money in preparation for having a kid.