Budgeting for babies?

Alfietinker

OK, how long is a piece of string question!

Hubby and I sat down last night and went through all our finances to see if we could survive on his wage if I were to stay at home to have kid/s. Discovered we could, but it would be quite tight. We've worked out how to make savings here and there based on living expenses for 2.

But we have no idea on how much we'd need to spend per week on a baby! I know absolutely nothing about baby food/milk/nappies/clothes etc. I'd want to use washable nappies where ever possible, but again have no idea how much these cost.

Any body got any tips on how we can plan a rough budget (on paper at the moment). We won't be trying for another year or so as we want to be debt free first (and finish decorating the house). But having an early idea will help us enormously!

Strange question I know, but I'm getting into this OS way, and thought I'd start as I mean to go on!!!

Thanks!



xx

ancasta_2

i suggest you trawl back through the posts and find the "having a baby OS" thread.

It was *very* useful and jam packed with ideas.

Alfietinker

Thanks! I didn't know there was one, so I'll trawl through now....

squeaky

Here it is:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=71893

ancasta_2

Wasnt that Sticky'd a while and Squeaks?

squeaky

Yes, it was stickied for the week when it was made the OS Chat Tip. I don't sticky them now, they seem to stay on the first page of OS without any help after their honourable mention.

I still add them into our "hall of fame" though

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=63883

ancasta_2

woo.

Do i not get £50 for that chat tip thingy?!

Magentasue

When my first was born (admittedly a long time ago!) I breastfed only for six months, used terry nappies and bought second hand baby clothes (was also given a lot). Bought pushchair and cot secondhand from my maternity grant and found that the child benefit covered incidentals like nappy liners. My neighbour opened a Mothercare account, bought everything new, bottle fed etc etc and spent a fortune. Babies aren't expensive, teenagers on the other hand ...

lily_the_pink

Dont forget you get Child benefit andTax Credit (there is an additional 500 in the first year - that is not means tested under 50K earnings). This adds up to around £37 per week so covers most day to day expenses - food, nappies, basic clothes, mother and toddler groups.

apprentice_tycoon

Magentasue wrote:

Babies aren't expensive, teenagers on the other hand ...

I so agree - it's great that you are thinking about your budget before you decide when is the best time to start babying and you can get ideas from here and friends etc about how much it will cost to get your baby set up with all it needs, there aren't many big surprises in babyhood, you can guesstimate most of the expense.

The scary bit is in years to come when they have expensive taste in clothes, hobbies, activities, in-home entertainment, electronics, sports etc..... out of this list of must-haves we luckily just had 2 of them - an expensive sport for our son, he showed a skill in his sport that ultimately ended up with him representing England so it would have been very hard to thwart his ambitions, he is now coming up to 21 and is still as keen as he was when he was 12. Our daughter has an expensive hobby, this is also a long term thing that is going to take her to Uni next year and hopefully into a career.
University - there's another expense that you may have to face, you'll want them to go if it seems right for them, no matter what student loans and help with tution fees etc they they get there will be their living expenses and they can't pick up enough part time work to keep themselves totally.

The moral of this story is - keep your baby plans as cheap as possible, put money aside if you can because the future is a blank page and your child may find ways to spend your money that you haven't even dreamed of :eek:

Alfietinker

Thanks you lot! :T

It's very helpful to know about how much tax credit is - although it may have changed by our time, it gives us an idea. We'll be relying on about £22k. Hopefully more if I can get my home internet business up and running to bring in a little bit.

I've wanted kids for the last couple of years, but with doing up our house (and restoring my Beetle ) there really was no prospect. Now we're sitting down and thinking "well, we'll have to get used to a new lifestyle, but I guess nobody could ever afford babies if they think about it too much"

We've got a couple of loans we want to pay off early, and my credit cards, save up a little bit to cover the cost of a newish car when ours conks out, and generally be as prepared as we can.

Our plan at the moment is to 'live' on one wage, so we get used to it. All surplus money will go on the above, and finishing decorating the house while we've got the chance.

Every little bit of information we can get helps!