How much saved?

[toffee87]

It's true,if we thought about the costs of child over 18 years, we'd never have any ha.

 

[pixie23]

My DH will be getting a bonus at work around the time we continue our TTC efforts. We're not trying to save any amount in particular, just want to be prepared for the added monthly expenses, we're hoping to breastfeed, but if it doesn't work out the expenses will be much higher. I don't work, I go to school full time, and I will be a SAHM, luckily we can already afford for me to stay home. We don't make a lot of money, but our expenses are covered and we live comfortably - life will be even better when our debt is payed off, freeing up more of the budget for baby to be!

 

[buttons1]

Babies can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. There are always cheap alternatives to most things and when a baby is first here if really doesn't cost much, I think the real significant expense is loss of earnings during maternity leave and mainly child Care costs, these are extortionate and a regular ongoing payment so this is what I would take into consideration and save a bit towards. I'd say have about £1000 aside for buying baby necessities then extra to accommodate maternity leave and further childcare depending on your own circumstances

 

[twickywabbit]

Well, we have 5000 saved up. So, I'd say 15,000.

 

[puppymom]

We started saving when we got married (back in August, after wiping out our individual savings to pay for our wedding and honeymoon ). We have $11k in there now, and we add to that every month. It's not marked specifically for baby stuff, but that's what we'd dip into for LO. Though I suspect family and friends will probably help out - especially grandparents. Plus I agree with previous posters that children can be as expensive or inexpensive as you make them. Sure, there are a few things I'll splurge on.. but mostly, love and cuddles are free - and that's all that they'll remember anyhow.

For ongoing costs like childcare, we'd just lessen what we put into savings to instead pay for those bills..and we don't have to worry about covering any maternity leave or anything like that.. I have plenty of vacation and sick leave to keep my paychecks coming in (and when I run out, DH has said he'd like to start in on his to spend a couple days a week at home with LO ).

I'm hoping to have around $25k in savings before LO is born, but that's mostly because I recognize that our family of 3 won't be able to put away as much as we do now.

Funny enough now that I think of it, my DH who is frugal as can be and super conservative when it comes to our finances, has never once brought up money as being a concern for WTT...

Wow, good for you! I couldn't imagine having that much money in our accounts right now. All of our "extra" money at the moment goes toward paying off our mortgage. Before that, it all went to our wedding and our house deposit, plus house renovations, and my car payments on top of that! I think when we decide to move from WTT to TTC, we'll slow down on the extra payments and keep the money in our account, but until then we'd like to pay the house off as quickly as possible!

 

[babyb54]

We started saving when we got married (back in August, after wiping out our individual savings to pay for our wedding and honeymoon ). We have $11k in there now, and we add to that every month. It's not marked specifically for baby stuff, but that's what we'd dip into for LO. Though I suspect family and friends will probably help out - especially grandparents. Plus I agree with previous posters that children can be as expensive or inexpensive as you make them. Sure, there are a few things I'll splurge on.. but mostly, love and cuddles are free - and that's all that they'll remember anyhow.

For ongoing costs like childcare, we'd just lessen what we put into savings to instead pay for those bills..and we don't have to worry about covering any maternity leave or anything like that.. I have plenty of vacation and sick leave to keep my paychecks coming in (and when I run out, DH has said he'd like to start in on his to spend a couple days a week at home with LO ).

I'm hoping to have around $25k in savings before LO is born, but that's mostly because I recognize that our family of 3 won't be able to put away as much as we do now.

Funny enough now that I think of it, my DH who is frugal as can be and super conservative when it comes to our finances, has never once brought up money as being a concern for WTT...

Wow, good for you! I couldn't imagine having that much money in our accounts right now. All of our "extra" money at the moment goes toward paying off our mortgage. Before that, it all went to our wedding and our house deposit, plus house renovations, and my car payments on top of that! I think when we decide to move from WTT to TTC, we'll slow down on the extra payments and keep the money in our account, but until then we'd like to pay the house off as quickly as possible!

We wanted to build up our emergency (aka very liquid) savings first. Our goal is that 25k mark, after that we'll shift to making extra payments on our cars and mortgage. We just feel safer with that buffer, is all! I know it's wrong, but personally I don't mind our debts as long as we can make our payments easily...I'd rather have the emergency fund. We don't have any credit card debt, just the cars and mortgage, and those are pretty low rates (3% on the cars, 4.25% on mortgage).

 

[puppymom]

We started saving when we got married (back in August, after wiping out our individual savings to pay for our wedding and honeymoon ). We have $11k in there now, and we add to that every month. It's not marked specifically for baby stuff, but that's what we'd dip into for LO. Though I suspect family and friends will probably help out - especially grandparents. Plus I agree with previous posters that children can be as expensive or inexpensive as you make them. Sure, there are a few things I'll splurge on.. but mostly, love and cuddles are free - and that's all that they'll remember anyhow.

For ongoing costs like childcare, we'd just lessen what we put into savings to instead pay for those bills..and we don't have to worry about covering any maternity leave or anything like that.. I have plenty of vacation and sick leave to keep my paychecks coming in (and when I run out, DH has said he'd like to start in on his to spend a couple days a week at home with LO ).

I'm hoping to have around $25k in savings before LO is born, but that's mostly because I recognize that our family of 3 won't be able to put away as much as we do now.

Funny enough now that I think of it, my DH who is frugal as can be and super conservative when it comes to our finances, has never once brought up money as being a concern for WTT...

Wow, good for you! I couldn't imagine having that much money in our accounts right now. All of our "extra" money at the moment goes toward paying off our mortgage. Before that, it all went to our wedding and our house deposit, plus house renovations, and my car payments on top of that! I think when we decide to move from WTT to TTC, we'll slow down on the extra payments and keep the money in our account, but until then we'd like to pay the house off as quickly as possible!

We wanted to build up our emergency (aka very liquid) savings first. Our goal is that 25k mark, after that we'll shift to making extra payments on our cars and mortgage. We just feel safer with that buffer, is all! I know it's wrong, but personally I don't mind our debts as long as we can make our payments easily...I'd rather have the emergency fund. We don't have any credit card debt, just the cars and mortgage, and those are pretty low rates (3% on the cars, 4.25% on mortgage).

Definitely nothing wrong with that! It's great actually - I sometimes think it'd be nice to do that too.. until DH tells me how much over the years we end up paying in mortgage interest (we are lucky to have a fairly low rate as well)... luckily no interest on the car, but I want to get that out of the way with!

 

[Beffy]

I want to stay as home as long as possible, which essentially means quitting my job that I have at the time. Which will most likely need savings, maybe. I have no idea what type of job my OH will have though so it depends on that really! If I don't need to save up for staying home though, I'd probably want around 3000$, though I'll probably get tons of stuff at my future baby shower. I dunno! I suck with finance stuff.

 

[rjm09]

We were lucky enough to have a a couple cousins,and a co-worker have boys before ours was born, so we got handed down baby stuff.Still have clothes stored for him til he's 5! We had to buy odds and end stuff, but we had everything we needed well before he was born. We did save during my pregnancy to cover the couple months i would be on leave, and it was a short 8 weeks. I did get disability on top of that, but it's not much. It still paid the bills.

We got our home as part of a living inheritance, still have taxes and utilities and such. Vehicle payments too, but we still manage to save a little bit each month now. I went back to work only on weekends, however 11 hour shifts. We don't have child care expenses because we're the only ones that watch him.

We plan on saving again, and know we're more than financially ready for another.

 

[AllisonH]

So, if you could choose how much money you got saved up before you started TTC your first, how much would you go for? What would you think you'd need to start life with a LO?

My DH is stressing about how much having a bubba will cost us, despite our savings, and I'd love to be able to have a more concrete answer about how much people generally think would be ideal...

MrsG xx

We've got about $45,000 in the bank. But it's all relative b/c each person earns a different salary on this thread and has different costs of living. We are saving for a house so this chunk is not JUST for a baby. We also want to be sure that if one of us loses our job, then we won't be homeless within 3 months!! In addition, I think it's REALLY important to not have any credit card debt. Get all of that out of the way be4 trying.

 

[M&S+Bump]

We didn't have any particular extra savings before baby, and we don't now - but our cost of living has not increased at all since having him (in fact it's probably gone down, because we don't buy as much wine and DVDs now that we've got no time for that sort of luxuries!). The only extra costs are my addiction to cloth nappies and my not bringing in a full wage - other than that nothing has really changed. We got most things from freecycle or gumtree when I was pregnant - if you write a list and ask around, you'll generally find that actually you really don't need THAT much stuff for a baby. I kitted out the nursery, his first year's worth of clothes, pram, toys etc for way less than £500.

 

[Mrs Cupcake]

I don't think its the cost of 'stuff' that worries people about having a baby I think it is the loss of income. At the moment mind and DH wages are quite similar so if i go on maternity we will be effectively losing half the household income but the bills (eg mortgage, heating, cars etc) will stay the same!

I think it will be a shock! Thats why we are tryign to save so much now to lessen the burden

we will be getting as much second hand etc as possible too!

 

[maybebaby87]

I'm WTT and have just started saving.... got £350 :/

Saying that, that money is really to save for a mortgage as i am renting atm. But if a baby should come, i guess the mortgage would wait!

I'm not to worried about the material things such as clothes, cots, toys etc but more along the lines of i earn alot more than my partner and he doesnt earn enough to really support us both. I suppose its the same for most people though, especially if its unplanned! But people find a way to cope most of the time.

 

[broodybelle]

My husband has saved about 13k in under a year but this is to go towards a house deposit at some point in the future. I'm quite lucky in that my salary isn't being used to pay rent, bills or living costs such as food (I've been paying off debt), so we know that when I go on maternity leave we'll be fine.

Ideally we wanted to buy a house first but have decided that we would rather wait until we can get a better mortgage deal and until we have enough deposit saved to buy a house that we really want in a location that we really want to live in. With mortgages as they are at the moment, we would need around 50-60k saved for this to be a reality, so we are going to start a family first.

We know people that have done it both ways and so are just going to relax about it all now. The only benefit to renting is that if anything breaks we don't have to fix it!

We have a loving, stable home in which to bring up a child and so anything else is a bonus really. Money can't buy you happiness but love, time and devotion definitely can. The best gift you can give a child is an education and that doesn't cost anything! When I look back on my childhood it was the time my parents spent with me teaching me to read, write, count etc before I started school that put in me in a great position for the rest of my life, not what toys I had! Your baby won't remember if it was pushed around in a designer pram but it will remember bedtime stories and cuddles.

 

[hwimmer]

So, way long ago when DH & I first got married we sat down and talked about how much we would want to save up before we started TTC, and we took into account a lot of different factors. The biggest one being that I want to at least have *the option* of being a SAHM after LO is born. We looked at DH's salary (& potential salary a few years down the road), our current expenses, and what a LO would add to our expenses, and figured out what number we would need in our nest egg to live comfortably (but not lavishly). For us, it came down to being able to get our housing expenses under control, which meant that we needed to have a big down payment on our house. We also wanted to have sacked away a large amount into retirement savings, since things will get tighter if I do become a SAHM someday. All those factors PLUS wanting to have 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund led us to a very large number ($100,000+).

We have been scrimping & saving & it has been tough but oh-so worth it, and we are just a few months shy of reaching our goal. I know we're on the extreme end of this conversation, but for us, this was the way to go. Neither of us wanted to be tied down to working our whole lives, which meant we had to buckle down early so we can reap the benefits later

 

[hwimmer]

So, way long ago when DH & I first got married we sat down and talked about how much we would want to save up before we started TTC, and we took into account a lot of different factors. The biggest one being that I want to at least have *the option* of being a SAHM after LO is born. We looked at DH's salary (& potential salary a few years down the road), our current expenses, and what a LO would add to our expenses, and figured out what number we would need in our nest egg to live comfortably (but not lavishly). For us, it came down to being able to get our housing expenses under control, which meant that we needed to have a big down payment on our house. We also wanted to have sacked away a large amount into retirement savings, since things will get tighter if I do become a SAHM someday. All those factors PLUS wanting to have 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund led us to a very large number ($100,000+).

We have been scrimping & saving & it has been tough but oh-so worth it, and we are just a few months shy of reaching our goal. I know we're on the extreme end of this conversation, but for us, this was the way to go. Neither of us wanted to be tied down to working our whole lives, which meant we had to buckle down early so we can reap the benefits later

I forgot to clarify, this is a Net Worth number, not an actual amount in our savings account - some is invested in our house, some in retirement!

 

[puppymom]

So, way long ago when DH & I first got married we sat down and talked about how much we would want to save up before we started TTC, and we took into account a lot of different factors. The biggest one being that I want to at least have *the option* of being a SAHM after LO is born. We looked at DH's salary (& potential salary a few years down the road), our current expenses, and what a LO would add to our expenses, and figured out what number we would need in our nest egg to live comfortably (but not lavishly). For us, it came down to being able to get our housing expenses under control, which meant that we needed to have a big down payment on our house. We also wanted to have sacked away a large amount into retirement savings, since things will get tighter if I do become a SAHM someday. All those factors PLUS wanting to have 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund led us to a very large number ($100,000+).

We have been scrimping & saving & it has been tough but oh-so worth it, and we are just a few months shy of reaching our goal. I know we're on the extreme end of this conversation, but for us, this was the way to go. Neither of us wanted to be tied down to working our whole lives, which meant we had to buckle down early so we can reap the benefits later

I forgot to clarify, this is a Net Worth number, not an actual amount in our savings account - some is invested in our house, some in retirement!

Ah, that clarification was good! I was going to say, if you have all that money in savings, get your house paid off and you'd be set for a while! Good job - sounds like you're on the right track.

 

[vaniilla]

I've pretty much chosen 80% of the things we're getting for the next baby, its whats helping me get through wtt and it all adds up to about £5000 and we'll need about £1k for OH to be able to get a good amount of time off work. it really depends though on what you're tastes are, babies can be like a pp said as expensive or inexpensive as you like

 

[Babeonthego]

Im not so much saving for baby No 2, Im trying to pay off debts and then save for a house deposit before baby number 2 arrives Thinking 2013 is a great year for us to have baby number 2 however u never know 2012 might be just as good a year.

 

[puppymom]

I've pretty much chosen 80% of the things we're getting for the next baby, its whats helping me get through wtt and it all adds up to about £5000 and we'll need about £1k for OH to be able to get a good amount of time off work. it really depends though on what you're tastes are, babies can be like a pp said as expensive or inexpensive as you like

Are you buying everything new again for baby #2? That seems like a lot - but perhaps not if you're not reusing! Just curious, as I don't even have #1 yet!