“HOW DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE READY TO HAVE A BABY?”
“DID YOU HAVE A BABY BUDGET?”
“WERE YOU STRESSED OUT ABOUT FINANCIALLY PREPARING FOR A CHILD?”
All valid questions. Unfortunately, there isn’t just one straightforward answer for each. I’ve learned in life that when humans are involved that living in the gray area is your safest bet, because nothing is truly black and white. BUT…I’m a planner, have been my entire life (my parents are laughing if they’re reading this right now because they have Type A Kirstin stories for days), so I’m going to capture some of the main things we thought about and did to prepare for this big change!
IF YOU DON’T ALREADY HAVE A BUDGET, CREATE ONE.
This is a great place to start if you want to get your finances in order before baby arrives. I actually recommend creating a household budget from the second you and your partner start sharing expenses, but if you haven’t done one in the past, it’s truly never too late! If you missed it – I did an entire post on how we setup our budget here. In that post is a basic budget spreadsheet you can use to get started.
START PUTTING MONEY TOWARD AN EMERGENCY FUND.
Shit happens and you want to have some cushion to deal with it, especially when you have another little human depending on you. We budgeted an emergency fund that would cover at least 2 months of bills, because we felt that would give us enough of a cushion to figure out a plan B if we did in fact have an emergency situation. Also, I want to be clear that this is money that we have access to, it’s not the money we’ve put aside for retirement or other savings. This is in our USAA savings account, so we wouldn’t be taxed or wouldn’t need to sign any paperwork to get our hands on these funds if we needed them. I highly recommend treating your savings account like an IRA.
DON’T TOUCH IT UNLESS YOU NEED IT.
And I mean, NEED. This isn’t an account we pull money out of for travel expenses or the semi-annual Nordstrom sale. If we can’t afford something without tapping into our emergency fund, then we can’t afford it and will have to work it into the budget for the upcoming month.
BUCKLE DOWN WHILE YOU’RE STILL JUST A FAMILY OF TWO AND START PAYING OFF DEBT YOU HAVE.
When we found out I was pregnant, we immediately adjusted our budget and started cutting back where we could. We did this mainly so we could boost up our emergency fund AND start hacking away at any debt we had. Our reasoning for this was not because we didn’t think we could afford this baby, but because we knew we wanted to start investing on behalf of this child immediately after she was born, which meant we needed to work that extra withdrawal coming out of our budget in ASAP. I’ve learned a lot of budgeting is a mind game, if you don’t think you have the money to spend or if you never see that money come into your account, you won’t try to spend it!
REGISTER AND LET PEOPLE SHOWER YOU.
Trust me when I say your loved WANT to love on you and shower you/baby with goodies in preparation! Load up your registry with all the necessities (if you aren’t sure where to start, check out this post) and the best part is, even if every single item doesn’t get purchased by a loved, most places offer a great completion discount so you can get anywhere from 10-15% off of the remaining goodies — huge help when it comes to making sure you’ve got everything you need and not breaking the bank while doing it!
BE FLEXIBLE!
Do not spend hundreds of dollars on things for the nursery or clothes for this child. Firs of all, they grow so fast! Second, if you’re military and going to PCS in the future – do you really want that expensive Pottery Barn Kids rocking chair you had to have being moved for you? Third, this is a child’s room, they’re messy from the moment they come out (trust and believe our changing table has seen more bodily fluids on it than a hospital bed at this point 😂). We purchased almost everything big (dresser, rocking chair, etc.) for the nursery from IKEA mostly because we don’t care what happens to it! When our daughter gets older, if she goes to town on her dresser with those pretty crayons we got her when we aren’t watching her like a hawk, I’m not going to be heartbroken over it.
At the end of the day, if I’ve learned anything is that trying to keep up with the Jones’ (AKA all of the beautiful social media pictures you see of nurseries, baby clothes, etc.) you will break your bank and drive yourself mad. Just remember, your newborn doesn’t know if they’re sleeping in a designer crib or not, what they do know is when you’re stressed and overwhelmed. Money is one of, if not the biggest stressor for most families. Create a budget, stick to it and celebrate that! You’d be surprised at how much of a weight is lifted when you set boundaries for your bank account. If you’re reading this and you’ve found a great way to save and plan for a newborn, please share your tips/tricks below!
