As someone who is dedicated to reducing debt, and preventing any new debt from happening, money is top of mind for me when I think about having a baby. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t just thrown my birth-control pills away and started trying this minute.
My family, having three full incomes, has been able to pay off a significant amout of extra debt over the past year and a half–more than $20,000 over the minimum amounts. Ordinarily I would just say we’re going to put that extra money toward baby savings once I got pregnant, and we’d have at least $10,000 saved in nine months. However, AS is facing a layoff (last day is next Friday), and when she goes on unemployment, there won’t be a whole lot of extra money floating around. So should I start saving whatever I can right away?
I do want to go through with our next vacation (Vegas in March), but I wouldn’t mind stopping extravagant (for us) vacations after that. So once I’ve saved enough for that vacation (by January, I think), we should have about $550 per month extra in the budget that I would ordinarily be putting in a vacation fund. If I saved that once I got pregnant, I would have $4950 in nine months. (That’s assuming AS’s health care doesn’t cost more than $400 per month. It’s also assuming she doesn’t get a job that pays more than the unemployment check during that nine months, which would up our saving power considerably.)
Adding in the $1000 I already have saved, would $5950 be enough savings to safely bring a baby into this world? That’s the question I now have to ponder. I need to check my health care and find out exactly what they cover. I have to see what the maternity-leave policy is for my job (and NT’s; since he’s my husband legally, can he take paid paternal leave?) I have to start a comprehensive list of things I need to buy (my baby starter kit) and figure out how much that will cost.
In my scenario, once I have the $5950 and the baby, I also still have the extra $550 coming in each month. Is that enough for baby expenses, reasonably? (If AS is still unemployed, we won’t need child-care money. If she is employed, we’ll have plenty of money for child care.)
This is all assuming, of course, that at least two of us will be gainfully employed at all times. I realize that in this economy that’s not as much of a given as I’d like. Some risks you just have to close your eyes to, realizing that you’ll do whatever it takes when the time comes.
This is really rambling and disjointed. Everyone just tells me you can never be fully prepared, but isn’t there some kind of benchmark of preparedness you can strive for? I work best with goals, but I’m just not sure what they’re supposed to be for this new adventure. I feel like I’m starting from some kind of unknown location, trying to get to another location that I also don’t know how to get to, even if I did know where I was starting from!
(I actually wrote this a couple days ago, but just realized I posted it as a separate page instead of a new post. Duh! I’m still learning how this blog works.)
