How did you and your SO financially prepare for a baby?

Question

Were there any goals you wanted to meet before hand? Were you blindsided by anything? And what expenses did you wish someone would have told you about?

Answer

We made sure we owned our home, had two reliable vehicles, could provide healthcare, and provide for the child without the government. Savings being a give in.

Answer

We paid off all our debt except the house. Started saving enough to cover my income for maternity leave and also the first couple months of daycare before I would start getting a steady paycheck again. So like 5 months of savings.

Answer

A surprise to me was the cost of daycare: over 20k per year for one child around here. It does vary greatly by area though.

Answer

Before we started trying for our son we had a saving account that 100 dollars went into every Friday and that just kept adding up until we got some money out for hospital bills and doctor bills. All that was in 2017 and now we have enough in the bank for baby number 2 (which I'm pregnant with now) and we will have extra after all the bills come out. We also put all of out tax returns back into savings and that helped out alot.

Answer

we didn’t really plan or budget for anything. 
we moved in with my mom, so we could save up for a house and have some extra hands after the baby was born. 
both of our cars are paid off, so i’m using the money i was paying for them to pay off credit cards and putting some of it in savings.  the money we used to pay in rent has gone towards other monthly bills we have (phone, car insurance) 
you’re never really 100% ready, financially or otherwise for baby, you kinda just go with the flow. at least we went with the flow. 
after she was born, i created a savings account for her and im depositing $25 every week. it’s not much but it’s something

Answer

Kids are expensive. But they aren't nearly as expensive as people make them. We hit sales and coupons and got EVERYTHING for baby for less than $1000. For the first 6 months both my SO and I put 10% of our income into a savings account for emergency. We got unexpectedly hit was a baby that was a month early and emergency transported to another hospital for a 2 week NICU stay. You can plan as much as possible but something is always going to happen so a little emergency savings is great to have so you arent scraping around if something pops up.

How did you and your SO financially prepare for a baby?

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