Savings

[weewdy]

How much are you planning on saving before baby arrives to cover when you are on mat leave? How much more expensive is a 2nd child?

Also those that plan to save every month for their childs future (college,car,house deposit) how much are you planning on saving?

 

[butterflywolf]

I'm already a stay at home mom and will be until our youngest is in school. (one kid now and one on the way that will be it). We already been saving for the 6,000 dollars we'll need for just the hospital bills and have that pretty much covered. I don't plan on putting money away for my child's future since I want my children to learn to save their money. My daughter gets 150 for Christmas (in cash) and another x amount for her b-day. She's been around for 17 months almost and has 850 dollars in her name in a savings account so far. It was not my money we put in there but money from gifts to her to put in there.

For expense wise for this 2nd child I can't see it being a lot more. My daughter eats 'normal' food now (eats what we eat). She'll be close to start potty training in another few months (just starting to show some signs). So all I can see is formula and diapers again. But I am able to get diapers fairly cheap with the way I shop. A 100 count diapers I can get for 10-15 dollars. I plan on setting 500 dollars a side per month for this baby to use towards baby food/diapers etc. If I only use 300 that month the 200 will just carry over to help me get back up to 500 the next month.

 

[atx614]

I am a sahm too and we not have too much extra so we are thrifty!

With dd I was working so we had more to spend so I am learning as I go with being frugal to save!

I have been buying boy clothes 2nd hand since finding out gender. I buy my dd's clothes this way too now. Nice clothes for 50 cents-$1! I cloth diaper st home, but do use disposables while out. I buy diapers with coupons and at target because they always have gift card offers. I will breastfeed this baby as well. Really won't cost too much!

I budget 75 a month for dd and whatever is not used goes into her account. I also put any gift money in there like butterfly wolf.

 

[kajastarlight]

The cost difference from DS1 and DS2 ramped up for me quickly as I was a single mom and had to work. Daycare.... crazy expensive!!! $1200 per month for two.... BUT if you take out the daycare part the cost difference goes up a little slower and it depends on if you breastfeed, cloth diaper, if your first child is toilet trained or how soon after #2 your first toilet trains....
As far as saving up - we hope to have our bills paid 3 months in advance when baby comes so we won't have to worry too much. So far we are almost half way there.

 

[george83]

I found ds2 much cheaper than ds1. We didn't need to buy anything massive as we already had things from before. Our two most expensive purchases (a double pushchair and a isofix base) were things I wanted rather than needed. Day to day things such as baby milk and nappies were all just as expensive as before and by then ds1 didn't need either. Savings wise I saved up slightly more than before but that was for me wanting money to live off without relying on my oh giving me pocket money. This little bump was actually a much sooner than planned surprise so our savings will be ridiculously low this time and I'll have two needing nappies etc, I'm actually pretty worried about how we'll cope

 

[SoBlessedMama]

We have two little boys--so, thankfully we had basically everything we needed with the second one. The hospital costs were slightly higher, but that is because my insurance through work isn't as good as it was 5 years ago.

We have about $5,000 saved in an annuity, and we add $150 a month. The idea is that this fund will be for our sons after they graduate--to get them started in college, or the work force they choose. (Lol although by the time they reach that age, college is sure to be outrageously expensive, so who knows how far that will go!)

We have a separate "emergency" savings account that has had to be pulled from a couple of times (water heater needed repair, AC unit needed replaced, etc.) so that is only around $1500 at the moment.

It can be super overwhelming when you start thinking about adding everything up for the future!!

 

[atx614]

The cost difference from DS1 and DS2 ramped up for me quickly as I was a single mom and had to work. Daycare.... crazy expensive!!! $1200 per month for two.... BUT if you take out the daycare part the cost difference goes up a little slower and it depends on if you breastfeed, cloth diaper, if your first child is toilet trained or how soon after #2 your first toilet trains....
As far as saving up - we hope to have our bills paid 3 months in advance when baby comes so we won't have to worry too much. So far we are almost half way there.

This is why I decided to stay home. After child care cost, it just wasn't worth it for me to work! It is sooo expensive!

 

[wanting2010]

We are saving $2000 for medical bills which we already have and then we plan on saving enough to cover our house payment and car payment for the time I am off, which will be about $1600. I'll be paid for at least 8 weeks of maternity leave, hopefully more depending on if I can save up enough PTO and sick time.

We have a savings account for DS and we put $100 a month in it. Will do the same for baby #2 as well. We have $50 transferred directly to DS's savings account each time DH gets paid.

 

[pansorie]

OMG, that is all we do is save. Hubby and I are frugalites, but not extreme. We use to keep 6k in savings for emergency when it was just us and my son. While ttc we increased it by quite a bit. We have 1k for car repairs, and then we also save fun money for each of us: me, Hubby, 15 year old son. I have not started fun money for the baby, yet.
We have been reading a lot on staying frugal with baby. Right now our plans are to increase our cost of living by $200/month when baby comes for the first two years. After that, we will have to re-evaluate. Like I said, we are frequent readers of frugal blogs, and have actually read of people surviving with baby on much less.
We are going to take a bit of a financial hit. I am going part time, and will be losing the bulk of my income. The good thing is that my income was only used to build our savings (hubby's income pays our expenses). Hubby will have his doctorate within two years, and then his income will increase, and hopefully we will be able to return to saving more.

For the record, I don't think our lifestyle works and is possible for most people. Like I said, we are extreme savers and aspire to be as frugal as possible. I also realize that even the best laid plans can come undone, so although this is our plan I know a lot of things can come up to change them.


To sum it up, how much we saved before baby: 8k in emergency savings, 1k for car repairs. Hoping to get emergency savings up to 10k by LO's birth.
How much more expensive will second child be: hoping to increase it no more than $200/month.

 

[hairftsher]

Nothing really. I get paid maternity leave for a year and free health care. I suppose it's always wise to save money specifically for baby though. But we haven't.

 

[MrsMandy]

When I read about having to save up hospital bills to have a baby it makes me shiver and so glad that we have the NHS in the UK! I dont know how we would ever be able to have as child otherwise!!
Savings wise we have tried to save in the few months before TTC and now during pregnancy, but this was money to get stuff to set up for when baby is here. Again, we are so fortunate to have government paid maternity leave for 9months! Its not as much as I would be paid full time at work, (about a 50% of what i would be earning normally but I have only been paying in that much to the joint account for years so in theory we are used to living off that each month anyway and I have been cutting down my personal outgoings since we were TTC so by the time baby arrives I only have my phone contract to pay each month which we have discussed hubby paying for anyway! My biggest concern is returning to work afterwards - we couldn't survive on me not working, but also we would have to pay for childcare as we have no family that could that could take care of baby regulary, which would probably take up most of my earnings anyway!! I guess that's something we'll get sorted after baby arrives! (Maybe I'll pay my mil to childcare instead of her going to work - it'd probably be cheaper to pay her what she would earn for a mornings work than it would be to pay a half day in childcare!!! )

 

[Future-Sailor]

My biggest concern is returning to work afterwards - we couldn't survive on me not working, but also we would have to pay for childcare as we have no family that could that could take care of baby regulary, which would probably take up most of my earnings anyway!! I guess that's something we'll get sorted after baby arrives! (Maybe I'll pay my mil to childcare instead of her going to work - it'd probably be cheaper to pay her what she would earn for a mornings work than it would be to pay a half day in childcare!!! )

I'm the same - more worried about coping when I have to return to work and pay for childcare. My daughter will be at school but still need to pay for after school club.

I hope that your MIL agrees....mine refused to look after our children