I am not a mother yet, but my husband and I are itching to get started! My question is....did you and your spouse have any type of savings/money goal to reach before you started your family?

People always say there is no perfect time to have a baby, but I'd like to know kind of what is "average."

thank you so much for replies!

--Ann

Nope, I started my family the old fashioned way (totally accidental and unplanned, lol).

I DO however see the sense in planning and saving first, but I would be a liar if I said I did things that way. How much depends on a lot of factors - do you plan to go back to work or stay at home, etc. The figure would also depend on the cost of living in your area, and your own specific expenses.

Our son was unplanned, and although we are young parents (22 and 23), we are anxious to have another one, but we have made it our goal to get rid of all debt, and to have a decent savings before we do.

I agree, you need to figure out what the arrangements will be as far as childcare, will you both work, or will one stay home? Make sure to budget for loss of one income/child care, and go from there as far as what you are looking at financially, and how comfortable you are with it.

I am a full time student and don't work so we already are a one income family. We plan that I will continue to stay at home with our future children...... so at least with the two of us we know that we will make it financially. I am having trouble figuring out how much a child will cost in the first few years. there is tons of info about how much will one will cost over 18 years, but I would love to know how people's budgets changed

Thanks to everyone!

Your main expenses for the first year are diapers and formula, depending on whether you choose to breastfeed or not.


Here is a link to baby center, they have a first year calculator

First Year Cost of Having a Baby - BabyCenter

We planned our first one, but we never saved or really planned financially. It has always worked out for us.

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~Happiness is a large family~

I was still in college when we had our first dd. We were broke. We struggled for a while, but now we are caught up on everything. I wouldn't change a thing. I think people adjust their spending to the amount of money they make and for other needs as that arise.

We had nothing when ds was born. And I mean nothing. (Good thing we lived in Canada so labour and delivery was free as were the pre-natal classes because of our low / no income). We were students and had just finished our last semester and funds had run dry when ds was born. Someone sent us money for flights back to dh's parents where we lived for a year to get on our feet. SIL had twins the year before so we had lots of free hand me downs. It's crazy looking back on it now. If I were to do it again, I'd make sure we were able to make it on one income (and that we had one steady income) before having a baby.

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we actually waited because of this reason. We travelled and set ourselves up with a small mortgage, (which we are about to max out as we are building our next house), but we can afford it because of the collateral we have saved.
It was difficult as all our friends were having a family but we struggled along.
we do not regret it though as now we have the luxury of not having to count the pennies but we do still remain frugal and prioritise with our money.
I can also stay home with DD which is important to me.
we waited until I was 31.
Good luck with your decision.
as a pper said think about what's important to you, and what you want to give to your child in the way of education, travel, a SAHM/SAHD, etc. (by this comment I don't mean 'stuff' as in toys though.)
C

I think our one requirement was that we were capable of paying for the birth of our daughter. Our insurance did not have maternity. We figured everything else would fall into place after that. I'm not sure if that was logical but it was the route we took.