Parents- any money tips for new parents?

[jackb1117]

Good people of YMAM- recently found out that my wife & I will be having our first child- we are excited (although I am a bit terrified). This was not a surprise as we started trying a few months back after the hangovers from our 30th birthdays subsided :-)

There is lots for us to learn in the coming months, so I am curious if there are tips or tricks any of you have related to the financial impact of a baby. So far I have opened a 529 account for them which I will contribute a modest amount to annually, but other than that that we are in uncharted territory (for us anyways).

[Chocolate Lover]

You don't need each and every baby gadget known to man, really you don't. There are some that make life easier sure, but you don't need them all.

[Shooby]

Don't rush out and trade in your perfectly good car for an 8 passenger minivan to drive around one child, lol.

[Shooby]

Enjoy sleeping all night for the next several months. After that, that is over.

[ArchietheDragon]

Congrats!!! Kids are great. make it rain for a few more months.

[jackb1117]

May 8, 2015 15:26:01 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Don't rush out and trade in your perfectly good car for an 8 passenger minivan to drive around one child, lol.

Ha- that conversation has already occurred. We were car shopping last weekend for a small SUV, since we both drive sedans & one needs to be replaced. There was brief debate about getting something larger than the small SUV, but I think this bullet has been dodged.

[Shooby]

Don't rush out and buy a bigger and better house under the notion of "needing more space". In fact, don't make any major purchases or life changes until AFTER the baby is born.

[Shooby]

Honestly, I have seen new parents saddle themselves with a mountain of debt before the baby is born. They buy a new house, minivan under the notion that of course mom wants to keep working FT. Then baby comes and big goo goo eyes and gurgly baby noises and then mom wants to at least cut back to part time. Money gives you choices. Dont' saddle yourselves with debt. Live on less than you earn, then you will have a relaxed home, money to enjoy on some of the frivolities like piano lessons and eating out and so forth. Don't put yourself in a difficult financial position that will take years to crawl out of. You want to enjoy your kids while they are young.

[Deleted]

Yay!

Just like any big life event, take it slow, take any advice with a pound of salt, don't believe you 'have to have it' beyond certain basic safety issues like a good car seat...

If you disagree with what other parents do... Do not say it out loud how you will do it differently!

[giramomma]

Find daycare, now, if you both are working. Practice putting that money away, now. It's not the type of expense you can think "oh, we'll just adjust, no problem. Infant care in my city runs 1600/month. And there's a 9 month wait list.

Don't buy any parenting books. Just go on the internet.

Don't buy any gear until you know what kind of kid you get. Some kids scream in swings. Some kids won't let you put them down. Ever.

Don't stock up on diapers. Again, you don't know which diaper will fit your kid the best or give your kid a rash until you actually have said kid.

Don't stock up on a ton of clothes before your kid is born. You won't know how fast your kid grows, until he/she actually arrives.

Look into maternity benefits. What kind of hospital bills are you looking at? Do you get as much PTO as you guys need to cover maternity leave? If not, how are you going to handle the unpaid leave. Oh, and don't use up all your PTO for maternity leave. You'll have a bazillion well baby visits the first 18 months, so you will need to leave sick leave for that. I would recommend 2-3 weeks between the two of you.

If your wife is working, and thinks she wants to be a SAHM, she should try to get a feel of the best way to go about quitting. If she takes ML and then doesn't go back to work, she may have to repay some benefits.

ETA: Go as cheap as you can when they are babies and save that money for when the kid gets expensive. My 11 yo has not complained once that he was denied an exersaucer as a baby.

[Lizard Queen]

May 8, 2015 15:28:39 GMT -5 jackb1117 said:

May 8, 2015 15:26:01 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Don't rush out and trade in your perfectly good car for an 8 passenger minivan to drive around one child, lol.

Ha- that conversation has already occurred. We were car shopping last weekend for a small SUV, since we both drive sedans & one needs to be replaced. There was brief debate about getting something larger than the small SUV, but I think this bullet has been dodged.

If you are going to be making road trips &/or DIY remodeling, then I would suggest a minivan.  Small SUV's can be pretty worthless as far as cargo space is concerned.  If I wanted something smaller, I'd go for the Mazda minivan (can't recall if it's the 5, or something else).  Even sedans can be roomier than SUV's.   Unless you're really worried about replacing the car pronto, I'd wait until you see how car seats fit in the cars you have now.  Even with a giant minivan, we had a car seat that barely fit rear-facing.

[jackb1117]

May 8, 2015 15:43:26 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Find daycare, now, if you both are working. Practice putting that money away, now. It's not the type of expense you can think "oh, we'll just adjust, no problem. Infant care in my city runs 1600/month. And there's a 9 month wait list.

Don't buy any parenting books. Just go on the internet.

Don't buy any gear until you know what kind of kid you get. Some kids scream in swings. Some kids won't let you put them down. Ever.

Don't stock up on diapers. Again, you don't know which diaper will fit your kid the best or give your kid a rash until you actually have said kid.

Don't stock up on a ton of clothes before your kid is born. You won't know how fast your kid grows, until he/she actually arrives.

Look into maternity benefits. What kind of hospital bills are you looking at? Do you get as much PTO as you guys need to cover maternity leave? If not, how are you going to handle the unpaid leave. Oh, and don't use up all your PTO for maternity leave. You'll have a bazillion well baby visits the first 18 months, so you will need to leave sick leave for that. I would recommend 2-3 weeks between the two of you.

If your wife is working, and thinks she wants to be a SAHM, she should try to get a feel of the best way to go about quitting. If she takes ML and then doesn't go back to work, she may have to repay some benefits.

ETA: Go as cheap as you can when they are babies and save that money for when the kid gets expensive. My 11 yo has not complained once that he was denied an exersaucer as a baby.

Thanks for the suggestions!

We did plan much of this ahead of time as this wasn't unexpected, so we have some things ticked off the list.

* My wife has a very generous 5mo (fully paid) maternity leave, which will be very helpful.

* We have child care lined up, as my MIL is retired and wants to help. MIL did this for another grandchild as well and it has worked out well (we will still pay her some amount although she is currently insisting she won't take it).

* Moved to the 'burbs in one of the best school districts in the state in preparation for this

* Recently changed jobs to be ~10min drive from home / MIL house rather than 1hr+ from the city

[muttleynfelix]

Have a backup plan to MIL or at least a way to give her a break. At least think about it. A couple people on this board have had family care fall through. Also, your MIL is older now than she was when she did care the first time. I know my SIL pointed out how much less energy my mom has with my kids than she had 5 years ago with my SILs.

[Deleted]

Don't get sucked into buying all the crap they market to new parents.  Mine didn't even use their room for the first 6 months and they were just as amused with the ceiling fan as they were with "infant gyms" and what not.  If you do feel tempted, hit the garage sales!  You can get tons of like new things for pennies on the dollar and then you won't feel so bad when they don't like them anyhow and you resell them for the same pennies on the dollar.

[jackb1117]

May 8, 2015 15:34:25 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Honestly, I have seen new parents saddle themselves with a mountain of debt before the baby is born. They buy a new house, minivan under the notion that of course mom wants to keep working FT. Then baby comes and big goo goo eyes and gurgly baby noises and then mom wants to at least cut back to part time. Money gives you choices. Dont' saddle yourselves with debt. Live on less than you earn, then you will have a relaxed home, money to enjoy on some of the frivolities like piano lessons and eating out and so forth. Don't put yourself in a difficult financial position that will take years to crawl out of. You want to enjoy your kids while they are young.

Yup- makes total sense. We are trying to be cognizant of that- we had long discussions before starting to try about this exact type of thing. Plan is for her to continue working and I don't anticipate that will change given how seriously we debated - helps that there are other levers supporting it as well (i.e. many years of education and investment in career, unvested stock options worth fairly significant amounts of money that can't be realized unless she is there several more years, she loves her job).

[HoneyBBQ]

You don't need to buy much. People will be throwing stuff at you and begging you to take their old kid stuff out of their basement.

Look into backup childcare, too. MIL may want to help but realize it's too much, she's sick, she's old, etc. 

[t-dog]

One place not to scrimp on expense for your wife is a breastpump - get a good one for when she returns to work.

Congrats! As everyone else has said, you don't need much of any of the stuff that is marketed to new parents. Be prepared to experiment with diaper brands - my boy could only wear huggies - he would pee out the sides of any other brand! That said, don't stock up too early on diapers until you know what will work for baby.

[Blonde Granny]

When all else fails, read the child rearing thread on WIR. I think by now it's about 1400 pages of people talking about kids.

[mmhmm]

Yes. Learn to say goodbye to your money without crying in public. 

[cronewitch]

They are only infants a short time they won't remember the cute nursery or other things so only get basics. Before the last 50 years infants and young children didn't have tons of toys so don't buy any, Santa will bring them plenty. Encourage other to give the kids something other than toys like college funds, savings bonds, clothing, furniture or experiences. A toddler has enough toys but might love a zoo or museum membership and you don't need to store or haul it.

[Peace77]

You can find great deals at children's consignment shops and yard sales.

Don't buy Newborn size clothes.  Some larger babies are born too big for that size.  Size 0-3 months is fine.

[steph08]

It's all a crapshoot with kids. Mine loved the swing and rock and play, hated the bouncer.

She was born at 37 weeks and only weighed 5 pounds 7 ounces so we needed premie outfits and newborn diapers, which we didn't anticipate.

She didn't sleep in the nursery until 5 months, so the rush to get the nursery done wasn't really needed. 

I second pricing out backup daycare in case something happens and your MIL can't care for the kid. 

[gooddecisions]

Congratulations! It sounds like you got it all figured out. Sometimes I feel like the only person who having a kid didn't cost anymore. Instead of spending crazy amounts of money on clothes and going out- I spend it on daycare. Vacations cost about the same. We haven't purchased new cars. We did buy a big house when my first turned 2 and I was expecting my second. We opened the 529s after we got social security numbers. I'm actually surprised you can do that before birth.

Like you, we debated a stay at home parent. At the end, we decided it would be prudent that we both continued to work. Neither of us love working and fantasize about retirement, but we stay the course. Expect to have another conversation. 5 months is great, though.

[gooddecisions]

May 8, 2015 18:26:10 GMT -5 t-dog said:

One place not to scrimp on expense for your wife is a breastpump - get a good one for when she returns to work.

Congrats! As everyone else has said, you don't need much of any of the stuff that is marketed to new parents. Be prepared to experiment with diaper brands - my boy could only wear huggies - he would pee out the sides of any other brand! That said, don't stock up too early on diapers until you know what will work for baby.

ACA pays for that now- 100% for double electric.

[whoisjohngalt]

Don't have any preconceived notions

[andi9899]

Sell the kids. They cost too much.

[jackb1117]

May 8, 2015 20:31:23 GMT -5 gooddecisions said:

Congratulations! It sounds like you got it all figured out. Sometimes I feel like the only person who having a kid didn't cost anymore. Instead of spending crazy amounts of money on clothes and going out- I spend it on daycare. Vacations cost about the same. We haven't purchased new cars. We did buy a big house when my first turned 2 and I was expecting my second. We opened the 529s after we got social security numbers. I'm actually surprised you can do that before birth.

Like you, we debated a stay at home parent. At the end, we decided it would be prudent that we both continued to work. Neither of us love working and fantasize about retirement, but we stay the course. Expect to have another conversation. 5 months is great, though.
We

The 529 was technically set up with myself as the beneficiary, but will switch to the child once I have their SSN. When I set one up for my niece I was complaining to the rep at Fidelity & he suggested that you can just set it up for yourself and then switch it later.

[jackb1117]

I am also curious to know if some places are better than others for shopping for recurring needs, like diapers. I imagine that things are going to be much more hectic in the future, so I don't know that my wife (or screaming child) are going to tolerate me standing in the diaper aisle with my calculator app seeing which is really the best price like I do now for paper towels/TP/etc.

[gooddecisions]

May 8, 2015 21:47:53 GMT -5 jackb1117 said:

I am also curious to know if some places are better than others for shopping for recurring needs, like diapers. I imagine that things are going to be much more hectic in the future, so I don't know that my wife (or screaming child) are going to tolerate me standing in the diaper aisle with my calculator app seeing which is really the best price like I do now for paper towels/TP/etc.

amazon mom. But, if you really want to save money- just buy 24 one-size cloth diapers and be done with it. I did that for my first and used them all again for my second. It wasn't "hard" at all. I don't buy paper-towels either, cloth towels and napkins are easier. Toilet paper is no big deal- Costco.

[gooddecisions]

The biggest thing that saves me money is I buy everything second-hand. I joined 10 different neighborhood facebook swap pages. I get clothes, toys, gear, sports, etc- all off these pages. I check out 15 children's books/week at the library, so I don't buy books and I don't get bored reading the same bed-time stories. We can afford brand-new everything, but we want to retire one day and a 1 and 3 year old don't care if something is brand-new. We also do a lot of activities through the county parks & rec department.