Things to do before baby arrives (and trying to plan for afterwards!)

CreditCardJunkie

Hi, I did some freelancing while on maternity. To be honest the first 3 months I couldn't do anything outside of look after the baby, but after that it was nice to have some extra income on top of SMP. Lidl nappies are fab (we used pampers premium for months in the beginning and the Lidl ones are every bit as good). I personally find cheap wipes a false economy & stock up on the boxes of huggies in the baby event. Try your best to have everything paid off and some savings for baby arriving, you will have enough stress without having to worry about money! Our boiler went when I was on SMP and honestly it was so stressful with such a young baby and trying to figure out where we were going to get over 2k! Also check if you are eligible for a boiler grant depending on where you live, we were because the maternity pay put us in the bracket for the grant!

ST1991

The good news is, i've only got 7 weeks left of work!

My debts are almost gone - woohoo!

We've handed in our shared parental plans to both employers and they have been accepted
So i am off for 3 months, then my partner will be off for the remainder of the paid leave (6 months) whilst i am able to work from home 4 out of 5 days a week - which is perfect!
I'm sure things may change, but we're both totally open for that to happen. We are both first time parents, and this was our initial plan. whether or not we end up deviating from that is something else, but at least we have a 'plan' to begin with!

Our bedroom is now completely finished, and the nursery is ready to just be wallpapered and painted this weekend! Once that's done we can take all the furniture out from under the stairs and put it all together - very exciting!

We had some emergency savings, and decided actually to use some of that to buy a new car.
My partners car had to go (it was heavily modified, needed endless repairs, was old, and actually had no back seats at all = the most un-baby-friendly car you could think of + was getting expensive to maintain.
We put down mine in part exchange, as i've also had multiple problems with it since i got it 2 years ago, and it had started to become a bottomless money pit... We were lucky that selling his car for parts + mine in part-ex gave us decent chunk, and we used some savings for the rest to get something newer and more reliable/family friendly between us

We actually haven't stocked up on anything else, as from what i've seen, we may hate the choice of nappies or wipes that we go for and have to swap. I've almost got all the essentials though, got as many freebies as possible, and my manual breast pump + microwave steriliser arrived last week!

I guess now i should start thinking about getting a hospital bag together at some point too, just in-case!

FrugalJenny

Petriix said:

All sounds pretty sensible. The only thing I would question is the desire to work when you have a tiny baby. I would suggest that you make full use of the time you have available and only consider a gentle return to a few hours of working from home after 6 months and not to consider full time until a year.

It's easy to over extend yourself trying to get back to normal; and you can just about get by for a few months. But that's when the cumulative effects of sleep deprivation and the physical demands of providing a human with all its nutrition start to mount up.

When you do your budget, see how much you can reduce the need for you to be earning anything at all (above your maternity pay and child benefit) in the first year. Then you can plan around what works best for you and the baby rather than feeling forced to work because of the financial pressure.

Obviously you might really enjoy your work and having some time away from the parental responsibility might really help you. A lot depends on whether you have someone (like a grandma) who can look after the baby without too much cost or worry.

I totally agree with you. Taking care of the baby when it comes should be the priority than any other work, even if you get less paid

tealady

I  not a mum but having friends who are can I add my 2pennyworth?
Don't stand when you can sit, don't sit when you can lie down and don't lie down when you can sleep.
When baby sleeps, have a sleep yourself. Housework can wait (or ask visitors to pitch in)
Give dad some "baby time". Don't worry if he is hopeless about changing nappies or bottle feeding, he can learn. That time is when you have your "me" time.

Couldsavemore

3 things that saved me a small fortune were...
1. cloth nappies. Better for your purse and the environment. Before deciding its a no! Look them up... we've moved on since terry squares. Also, no matter what you use... you'll end up with poo on your hands, baby clothes, your clothes... honestly you'd be amazed. It doesn't take long to get over poo! when you have a baby. As a double money saving whammy you can sell them on or keep for baby number 2.
2. Buy a wet bag and face clothes... Again I saved a fortune on baby wipes using face clothes.... honestly much better at cleaning baby and poo. Obviously I had 2 sets... 1 set was bum only! 
3. For baby vests with the poppers between the legs... you can get expanders (from ebay etc)  You do need to buy specific to the make of baby vest but it did mean I could skip sizes

Also... baby grows/vest have weird shoulders... they are designed so following a poo explosion you can easily pull them down the babies body rather than try to remove pooey item over babies head. Or when you get to the 'nappy changing ninja level' change a sleeping babies nappy. This, I wish someone had bothered to tell me!

Above all... enjoy and fall in love