Financially ready?

Question

When did you know you were financially ready to have a kid? Did you save up a lot of money? I’ll be 6 weeks tomorrow, it was a surprise and we’re currently really worried about that (my husband in particular, he doesn’t seem really excited)

Answer

I wasn’t financially ready for my first three but we made it work. Was hot baby 4-5. Not being ready made us grow up fast and get our shit together

Answer

We both have full time jobs with steady income, stable housing that we can afford, money in checking savings and investment accounts, retirement accounts from our employers, have health insurance

Answer

There’s never a perfect amount of money to prepare for a kid. 
There’s never a perfect time. 
We were stable when we started ttc. Both had good jobs. We just bought a house. Then I was put on strict bed rest at 16w. I had to stop working. My income was gone. My husband thankfully got a new job that same day (🙏🏻) that was a $20k pay increase, but it didn’t cover my lost salary. All of our savings went to the new house and then the unexpected medical expenses of our high risk pregnancy. 
But we made it! We were okay. I haven’t gone back to work since as my mental health improved drastically after leaving that job. We get by. Our daughter is 10.5m and thriving! In fact, we are pregnant with baby #2. 
Could we use more money? Yes.
Could we have better prepared for unexpected medical expenses? Sure.
Do we regret our timing? Absolutely not.
Would we have done anything differently in hindsight? Nope! We are very happy with how things are going even on a tight budget!

Answer

We didn’t save up any money to have our son. We knew we were ready and wanted kids so we had one. We were both working-me part time and my husband full time. We were not making huge amounts of money by any means but we both agreed that we would do things to save money so that having a baby wouldn’t cost us tons of extra money and that I could stay home with our son. We got all of his clothes gifted from family or free from FB groups, use cloth diapers and wipes, and bought everything second hand and only the absolute necessities. I planned meals around sales at the grocery store and only bought what we needed not extra snacks and treats aside from maybe a few dollar price snack items each week but never more then five dollars worth. Honestly having a child doesn’t have to be super expensive. They need way less than you think they do.

Answer

You will never be truly ready in any aspect regarding a baby, but you just go with the flow. You learn to adapt (work more, get a better paying job, budget yourself better etc.). You will figure it out as you go so don’t worry!! Congratulations by the way 🥰

Answer

There’s really not a “perfect” time. I’d recommend sitting down and discussing a budget for when baby comes. Think about expenses like daycare, diapers/wipes, possibly formula (if your not breastfeeding). It’s best to start following this new budget now, so your used to it by the time the baby comes (a plus, you can put this money in savings). 
Also, having good health insurance and a decent savings account is a plus. Giving birth can be REALLY expensive, even with insurance. 
Don’t try to stress too much. People adjust and figure out how to manage everything. You’ve got this!

Answer

We felt ready when we had a good amount of money tucked away in savings, started adding up the cost of what everything would be. In reality your monthly expenses with kids doesn’t go up as much as you’d think. So estimating that we’d add 300-400 on top of our current bills for a baby we felt comfortable. I have a really good job at a hospital that has a free family health clinic for employees so I knew all the first year visits would be covered and not an expense we’d have to worry about. I think everyone’s situation is so different so even if you don’t have all of that, it doesn’t mean you aren’t ready for a child. 🤷🏻‍♀️ to each their own.

Answer

It takes some people longer to show excitement, especially when it’s a surprise and they are worried about how they will provide. Even with having many positive tests it didn’t sink in for me for awhile and I’m at 22 weeks and due to an anterior placenta have yet to feel kicks. Sometimes it’s hard to feel it’s real, especially for the partners. 
We knew we could handle a baby financially for years now since we both are financially stable ( full time jobs, savings, investment accounts, retirements, and plenty left over that gets untouched every month) as well as a mortgage that’s easy for us to pay, car payments that are low and our monthly bills don’t leave us living paycheck to paycheck. 
Also important, we don’t have things we feel we want to do like big trips, expensive “things” , no objects or events that if we don’t do or have them now we will regret not being able to do them. 
So we are financially AND mentally ready for a child.

Financially ready?

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