Budgeting for babies?

pdoff

carpool72 wrote:

quick question - where do you get the sure start form? Didn't bother last time as thought we didn't qualify - now v. annoyed as it seems we would have, not going to make that mistake again! Am 18 weeks pg - will the form appear with all the other bumf we get or do I have to seek it out?

UOTE]
i finally got through to tax credits helpline yesterday who said at the mo we wont get grant but when baby born we should & to phone the benefits agency. i did & they said it will be in the pack u get at the hospital but if it isnt to phone them & they can send one out. hope this helps & u get it!! u have till baby is 3 months old to claim.

jellyhead

child benefit form is in the pack at hospital but i don't remember seeing any other forms. baby is 16 weeks old. i might have forgotten i suppose, or thrown them away as i wasn't entitled. lots of freebie packs, i think i got 5 of them (4 in the hospital and an emma's diary pack when i registered the birth). baby welcome pack by the bed and then the bounty photographer gave me all 3 bounty packs (pregnancy, overnight essentials and the new mum pack, it's the new mum pack that contains the child benefit form). she did her rounds after breakfast so one girl went home without getting her packs, she was in and out as fast as possible.

i called tax credits to tell them i had a baby, they took details over the phone then sent me an award notice in the post.

Karnam

i didnt get a child benefit form in hospital (although i didnt look too hard through all the leaflets too be honest) or the sure start from hospital.

im going to try claiming child benefit online and i have a sure start form from the job centre. im gonna apply for CTC online as well... i figure (perhaps foolhardly) that it'll be quicker online.

jellyhead

if you don't get a child benefit form in hospital i'm sure you can find it elsewhere. they always put one in the bounty pack though, have done for years.

kal25

Hi, I agree with what's already been said about things like ctc and child benefit covering day to day expenses. The best advice would probably be to try as much as possible to have baby in the mid year.I speak from experience,my two boys are in oct and nov with a week in between and third is due dec/jan so proves to be very expensive time of year with xmas as well. Not that I would be without any of them just wish I could have planned better but all came unexpectedly so to speak. If you say that you could already manage then extra money from ctc and child benefit would obviously make it easier and always comes in handy when budgeting. However these things have a habit of coming along when least expected, trust me.
I agree that babies do not have to be expensive only if u want them to be. For my first two I had a second hand steam steriliser that worked just as good as new unfortunatley had to buy new this time as this was really unexpected,brought half price microwave one from boots.Some people splash on expensive and unneccesary items of furniture like changers. It is nice to have some new stuff but being a os saver u should have no probs, I always look on here to see if there are any sales/ deals that could save me money on things I would already buy for baby but save money in process.
Just enjoy the pratice and it is good to have thought so far ahead.