save up in preparation? well I saved money for the adoption process.... and also took out a loan. and I saved money during the adoption process so I could take unpaid maternity leave. It was much easier to save before actually having a child. now I save almost nothing.

Anonymous wrote:I'd make sure your savings account has AT least 6 months of living expenses in it. That means everything could be paid and you can still eat. That way you have a pretty nice cushion if things are more expensive than you thought.

I was expecting daycare to be $1500+ in this area. I'm in Arlington, found a great in-home daycare and I'm paying $1100 a month, which is on the cheaper end it seems.

+1 (but in DC). We had the funds to cover baby items and the monthly income to cover daycare but made sure all of our savings accounts were good to go, assuming we weren't going to save much extra in those early years.

About $5,000 to cover unpaid leave time. I think we also spent about $500-600 to buy a crib, crib mattress, carseat, and stroller. Probably about $300 for maternity clothes and $100 for nursing bras. We both have big families who bought us everything we had registered for and a ton of clothes, so that helped a lot. We're also very lucky to have great health insurance so had very little in out of pocket costs for that.

Try to figure what your monthly child care costs would be and save that amount until the baby's here so you get used to budgeting for that.

I'd make sure your savings account has AT least 6 months of living expenses in it. That means everything could be paid and you can still eat. That way you have a pretty nice cushion if things are more expensive than you thought.

I was expecting daycare to be $1500+ in this area. I'm in Arlington, found a great in-home daycare and I'm paying $1100 a month, which is on the cheaper end it seems.

We both bought life insurance for a big amount (can cover mortgage in full plus spouses' salaries for 10 years), plus we maxed out our emergency fund for 12 months.

We waited 6 years to have the kids after we finished grad school, though (started at 30) so we both have lots in retirement already and had paid off all debt plus saved for a DP. HHI about $180K when we had our first.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me: no matter what, it wouldn't be enough. childcare is killing me.

This city sucks for childcare, plain and simple.

I should say, I'd been saving leave for 8 years (I'm a fed) so between leave without pay and all my saved up leave, I took about 6 months off. but still, childcare eats up 75% of MY take home pay and I earn more than my husband. That said, he is due to get promoted in the fall. Not sure if I'll keep working after that.

75%!?! I thought we had it bad, and we're only paying about $29K a year for childcare (which is about 1/3 of my salary after taxes, so it still hurts).

Can you find a cheaper solution that still works? Au pair? Live-in? In-home?

$0.Stayed home throughout pregnancy until he turned 6 months old.
We don't spend much and our expenses are manageable by 1 person (he makes ca 95k). Went back to work at night to get a break from being at home 24/7, and for some extra money.

none

Anonymous wrote:For me: no matter what, it wouldn't be enough. childcare is killing me.

This city sucks for childcare, plain and simple.

I should say, I'd been saving leave for 8 years (I'm a fed) so between leave without pay and all my saved up leave, I took about 6 months off. but still, childcare eats up 75% of MY take home pay and I earn more than my husband. That said, he is due to get promoted in the fall. Not sure if I'll keep working after that.

well, we were moving up the GS scale; so we just waited until we were setting aside a healthy amount each month. (enough to cover childcare each month in theory). since we spent nearly 2 years TTC, we had a lot set aside (although not specifically for kid expenses, just sitting in CDs mostly).

None, because we were focused on paying off the wedding, paying off credit cards, saving for a house . . . Sure, it would be ideal to have children when all of that is taken care of, but that wasn't in the cards for us.

I didn't find that babies / toddlers cost too much. The cost of diapers, breast pump, formula, gear, etc. is somewhat offset by what you save by changing your lifestyle (like going out less). Daycare is expensive though - nearly $2,000 per month.

Because of daycare and preschool, it has been really tight financially but we know that there will be some relief when the kids enter public school.

For me: no matter what, it wouldn't be enough. childcare is killing me.

This city sucks for childcare, plain and simple.

We started funding an college fund right away, ($500 per month), saved up so that my husband could take unpaid paternity leave ($6K) and put aside extra funds so that we could afford a nanny share instead of daycare the first year ($300 per month). It was actually a bit hit to our discretionary income (We had a very comfortable DINK lifestyle), but we got used to living more frugally and it made the transition to having the new expenses of parenthood more manageable.

I probably saved about $20K so I could stay home with new baby for at least 6mo+. But I was an independent consultant so I had zero paid maternity leave.

Anonymous wrote: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.).

Don't forget formula and diapers. $$.