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[quote=Anonymous]hi, OP. 
I'm 28. I had a baby last year with my then-boyfriend (technically fiancé, but, we got pregnant like, literally the day we got engaged). I also was not one for marriage/wedding, but it was important to my boyfriend, who I was already planning on being with forever, so, whatever. like a previous poster said, it is (legally) good for our family for us to be (legally) married. 
so, got pregnant unexpectedly. we were living pretty close to paycheck-to-paycheck. I am athe saver, so I was putting like $200 in savings a month, but the rest was going to food and bills. once I got pregnant, I ramped it up to $500 a month straight into savings, because my maternity leave was going to be unpaid. over the course of the pregnancy, I saved enough for 4 months of maternity leave, while also getting us accustomed to spending far less than we had been. 
by the time I went back to work (service job), it took a month to realize that basically I was bringing home like $10 a month - which, to some people, is still worth it if they love their careers, need that time away, can't leave the workforce without screwing up their professional opportunities - but I was selling coffee, and that was really not worth handing over my paycheck for someone else to spend time with my baby. (I also have spent a lot of time in childcare, and loved it). 
so now I'm home with my son and my husband brings home about $2200/mo. we're fine. are we saving? not much. are we living paycheck to paycheck? yes. are we suffering? not one bit. we have a 10k emergency fund should something happen, families who would be willing to help us out in a bad situation, and we haven't yet cut all our lifelines (I.e. we still rent in dc, we still shop at the farmers market, we still can buy some organics, we still use smartphones...all stuff we could drop in a heartbeat to save some more cash. and, I plan to find work this year now that my son is a toddler and daycare will be easier to find/less expensive).

all of this is just to say, it's doable. if we had waited to DECIDE to have a child, we would not have one now. but accidents happen, we ended up pregnant, and we're making it work. and we are SO happy. [/quote]

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