Advice on Financial Goals before TTC

[katrina2017]

@victoriablackwell 1- What savings goal did you set specifically for pregnancy/L&D/maternity leave/daycare before you TTC?

• Paying off the SUV I bought last year. It's a 5 year loan and I plan to pay it off by the end of 2021 so that my husband can finance a newer car since his is getting up there in age.
• Saving one year's daycare cost ahead of time based on mid-range estimates.
• Paying off husband's credit card debt. It's not too large of an amount though so other goals take precedence.
• Save enough to cover estimated labor/delivery costs based on current insurance coverage
• Emergency savings to cover 1 year of monthly expenses.
• Save $ 15K towards a down payment on a house. Our ability to save will be cut drastically once we have to pay for daycare so we're trying to put as much as possible away.

2- How do you cope with feeling like the timeline keeps getting pushed out? Or the wait is longer than you want?

The wait is longer than I originally expected but I'm a planner and it reassures me that I'm doing my best to prep for a child. My only worries is potential fertility issues. Since I'll be 31 when we start TTC, I'm hoping it won't take more than 6 cycles of TTC. I'm also using this time to "Live my best life" so we're traveling further and on a grander scale than before. Plus, I'm actively losing weight and taking care of health issues before we undertake TTC.

 

[exoregonsoldier]

@victoriablackwell I just sat down a day or so ago to work this all out for myself! I live in a very HCOL area, and my partner wants to buy a house before ttc The average cost of daycare in my area is 1.5-2k a month, so I’d like to stay home/maybe work part time the first two years or so. I’ve decided to save my deductible/max out of pocket pay which is around $8k, $5k for baby basics, 2 years of expenses and 10% of a house down payment. I also have about $15k of debt. Phew.

My plan is to get a second job and just funnel that towards debt first and then savings. I’ll basically be doing that for the duration of wtt (after I’m cleared for work.) Budgeting and living frugally, I’d be able to put quite a dent in my savings goals and also pay off my debt in about 4-5 years. My bf is a bit skeptical of me biting off more than I can chew, but I have to try. By then I’ll be 34, so we’ve talked about just ‘going’ for it at that point with the savings we have then. He is naturally very frugal and a great saver and will obviously also be contributing.

 

[withaheavyheart]

@victoriablackwell We wanted to have 10k saved up but we had an HSA separate that we'd been putting money into for years. If it helps heres the cost breakdown for our first year:

~$4500 for pregnancy, labor and delivery and the first aftercare appointment. This was our deductible and we had enough saved in the HSA to cover it.

~$700 for diapers and wipes first year. You may be able to lower that if you buy in bigger bulk (i've heard Costco is a really good deal) but you also run the risk of baby growing out of a size and having extra diapers. Many domestic violence shelters will take extra diapers though, fyi!

$2,000? for food maybe. I just did some very rough math in my head for formula and baby food. Breastfeeding didn't work for us(and while cheaper, isn't free when you consider supplements and the extra food Mama has to eat to provide the milk) and then my son developed a milk protein allergy so had to be on some expensive formula until he grew out of it at 6 months.

~$2,000 for furniture, toys, bottles, clothes, books, etc. This could have been much lower. We did get some items from our registry and we bought many things new but you can buy more from thrift stores or even get things for free from a local buy nothing group on Facebook. IMHO the only things you need to buy new are the car seat, crib and crib mattress. The first 2 for safety reasons and the third because of the possibility of bed bugs.

We already had a house so no costs there, although our oven died last year so we had to replace that (houses will always need something fixed!). I stayed home so no daycare costs but in my area for infants its at least $1500 a month. It gets cheaper as they get older. But even if you stay home, you should budget some babysitter time.

Anyway, i hope that helped! Its totally possible to do it cheaper than we did! Good luck