Planning a family - how do you plan it financially?!

Corneycobs

I'm 34 and my oh and I have talked about starting a family. But we haven't a clue about the financial side of things and wondered if anyone could give us some pointers or help.

First of all, we're both employed full time (40 hours per week). He brings home £300 per week and I bring home about £1,200 per month.

We have fixed outgoings per month as follows:-

Mortgage - £595
Council Tax - £145
Gas & Elec - £91
Water - £31
Home Insurance - £35
Car Insurance - £22
TV, BB & Sky inc licence - £37
Mobiles (both) - £50
Lotto - £10

Then we have food and petrol (usually about £300)

We don't have any credit cards or loans to pay off.

What can we expect financially? Thanks in advance

Mojisola

Put your figures in one of the benefit calculator websites as if you're on maternity leave or a stay-at-home-parent - play with different scenarios.

Try living for a while on that amount of money. Put the excess into a savings account.

You'll learn how to manage on less and have a nest-egg before you decide whether to go ahead with a pregnancy.

CH27

Work out how much pay you will receive when on Maternity Leave & live on that money for a few months to see if you can manage.

Who will look after baby if you return to work? Check out the costs of Nursery & Childminders to see how much you will pay?

Bufger

in my recent experience (2 boys, ages 2 and 5 months) the biggest parts financially arent the cost of keeping babies alive and comfortable but in the loss of earnings.

Formula milk would be £9 per 1.5 weeks if you didnt manage to breastfeed. Nappies arent too much of an expense if you stock up when places like ASDA have a baby event on (normally 30% reduced for nappies and wet wipes). There are some large initial costs like a pram/pushchair, a car seat, moses basket, cot, linen, monitor etc etc. You can get alot of this cheaper if you shop around or dont mind seconds and generally speaking family and friends help out in these areas.

As others have said, try looking at your loss of earnings from having the baby and live on that amount. Also be aware that you may not want to go back to work but instead have another child or spend your time at home with your first, this is very common but if you never plan for it you'll never have the chance to do it.

Scorpio33

Assuming the worst, ongoing costs, we estimated:

Nappies (10-15 a day @10p a nappy) = £45 a month
Baby food = guess at £30 a month
Baby wipes (2/3 packs a week @£1 a pack) = £13 a month
Clothes (£100 every 3 months) = £30 a month
Bottles & Dummies (£5 each, 2 a month) = £10 a month.

On top of that, childcare is roughly £40 a day, then you have the reduction in income due to maternity leave.

You also have the one off costs:
Nursery stuff (Cot, changing table, wardrobe) (£300?)
Buggy - depends on what you go for, but £70 up to £800
High chair - £80
Car Seat - £100
Baby monitor (£70?)

and then you have to account for feeding bras, pregnancy and maternity clothes.

That is putting at a worse case scenario.

In realtity:
You will be entitled to benefits (at the minimum, child benefit @ £84 every 4 weeks)
Family will help with the big one off costs.
Friends will buy all the clothes & toys you need for at least the first 6 months.
and if you are breastfeeding, then the cost of food is nothing for the first 6 months.
The costs above are over estimated, they will cost less than that.

The biggest issue is when you go back to work - you will probably find that it is not worth it going back, considering the cost of childcare (£40 a day = £200 a week = £860 a month), and the cost of working (travel costs - which if you have a car taking into account tax and MOT probably total £300 a month at least, lunch costs, work outfits etc).


Hope this helps!!

Bufger

I didnt have nearly the same amount of use as this person so please use both cases.

i'd say 5-10 nappies per day. I don think we've ever had a single day where we've used more than 10 on a single child!

Babyfood is milk as specified. £9 for 1.5 weeks worth. Once you get them on to solids you can make them all kinds of things, our boys loved mashed banana, blended fruit mixes and basically mashed dinner, anything we ate they ate in liquid form!

I dont know anybody that goes through 3 packs of babywipes per week!!!!! even with 2 kids i'd estimate 1 or 1.5 packs per week.

£100 for 3 months worth of clothes is excessive. ASDA do some really good quality childrens clothing and you get absolutely loads as gifts for a newborn. You're unlikely to need any newborn clothes or maybe even 0-3mths.

Bottles and dummies - Do they need a dummy? and get yourself 6 tommee tippee closer to nature bottles and a steraliser (godsend) and you're good to go. You shouldnt need to replace these for a long time if you hand wash them before steralising. I can understand regular replacement if you're scratching them in the dishwasher etc.

I'd agree with all of the other costs in this persons post though. The one off costs are obviously as much as you want to spend, you can find second hand or nearly new for a fraction of the original prices. One thing you should always buy new is a mattress and mattress covers in my opinion.

Scorpio33 wrote: »

Assuming the worst, ongoing costs, we estimated:

Nappies (10-15 a day @10p a nappy) = £45 a month
Baby food = guess at £30 a month
Baby wipes (2/3 packs a week @£1 a pack) = £13 a month
Clothes (£100 every 3 months) = £30 a month
Bottles & Dummies (£5 each, 2 a month) = £10 a month.

On top of that, childcare is roughly £40 a day, then you have the reduction in income due to maternity leave.

You also have the one off costs:
Nursery stuff (Cot, changing table, wardrobe) (£300?)
Buggy - depends on what you go for, but £70 up to £800
High chair - £80
Car Seat - £100
Baby monitor (£70?)

and then you have to account for feeding bras, pregnancy and maternity clothes.

That is putting at a worse case scenario.

In realtity:
You will be entitled to benefits (at the minimum, child benefit @ £84 every 4 weeks)
Family will help with the big one off costs.
Friends will buy all the clothes & toys you need for at least the first 6 months.
and if you are breastfeeding, then the cost of food is nothing for the first 6 months.
The costs above are over estimated, they will cost less than that.

The biggest issue is when you go back to work - you will probably find that it is not worth it going back, considering the cost of childcare (£40 a day = £200 a week = £860 a month), and the cost of working (travel costs - which if you have a car taking into account tax and MOT probably total £300 a month at least, lunch costs, work outfits etc).


Hope this helps!!

Scorpio33

Yeah, we intentionally over estimated all costs, so we budgeted for worse case scenarios, and so if we had any left over, we can use this for a treat and / or unexpected house costs.

sweaty_betty

Another thing to factor in to costs etc is the cost of activities when on maternity leave.

I know that sure start centres run free/cheap baby sessions (sometimes including things like baby massage if you're lucky), libraries can sometimes run story times for free, if you're off when it's nice weather you can make the most of the local parks and if you have/make friends with babies the same age you can meet at each other's houses etc.

However, I did all of these things and was still tempted to do (and did!) things like: go out to coffee shops just to get out of the house (most days - the lattes add up!), do 1-2 "classes" a week (dance, baby massage, soft play areas etc) which are often about £5 (and sometimes you have to sign up for a series of sessions, so you pay in advance whether you go or not), baby cinema screenings (babies get in for free, parents pay full price!), baby swimming sessions, going to the local shopping mall (I found that I had to be really strict about getting only what I went for, instead of being tempted by various "bargains").

So, you either need to budget for such things, or be very strict with yourself:)

System

What a brilliant thread, thanks everyone.

Myself and hubby are looking to start a family this year too so very useful

Corneycobs

Yes I agree, thanks so much everyone for your input! It's really helpful.

Have any mums found that they could up their income in any way? I guess this is what frightens me the most. The idea of a family is lovely but I've been used to a chunk of disposable income all my working life (and I've worked since I was 16!) Maybe I've left starting a family too late!

gizmodo_2

Corneycobs wrote: »

Yes I agree, thanks so much everyone for your input! It's really helpful.

Have any mums found that they could up their income in any way? I guess this is what frightens me the most. The idea of a family is lovely but I've been used to a chunk of disposable income all my working life (and I've worked since I was 16!) Maybe I've left starting a family too late!

My friend got the qualifications to be a childminder when she was on maternity and now does that for a job. Means she's earning as well as looking after her own child.

You can do surveys/mystery shopping but it's pocket money really.

When you have a kid you don't spend much anymore because you don't get to go out I think you'll be surprised how you adapt. We took a drop of £1k a month when I was on mat leave and now I've changed jobs so I can spend more time with DD and live off a similar amount to when we were on SMP and somehow I'm still managing to put money aside as well as pay all the bills.