You’ve heard the saying – “if you wait until everything is perfect to have a baby, you’ll forever be without a child.” This statement certainly holds true. Certain aspects of life shouldn’t be overlooked, such as maintaining a healthy relationship with your significant other. However, you should never allow the fact that you’re not a millionaire to stop you from fulfilling your dream of becoming a parent.
You know what? – you can afford to have that baby. You may have this image in your head of picking up your car seat while the image of your brand new car fades into the distance as you’re walking up your sprawling driveway and into the front door of your brand new home.
But in reality, your baby won’t care whether you’re driving a 94’ Honda or a Brand New Ford Escape. He won’t care whether you’re a homeowner or an average apartment renter. So, stop the silliness of delaying your maternal clock from fulfilling its needs simply because you’d like to achieve more in the terms of flashy possessions.
If you’re serious about learning how to afford a baby, below we’ll discuss a few ideas that will get your creative juices rolling.
Staying Home with Baby
Think beyond maternity leave. What will you do when you have to return back to work? As a parent, childcare will be one of your largest expenses each month (maybe even exceeding that of your mortgage or rent payment). Therefore, it may make financial sense to become a stay at home mom, or a work at home mom.
Consider purchasing the Stay-at-Home Survival Guide: Field-tested Strategies for Staying Smart, Sane and Connected while caring for your kids book. Currently, it’s priced at Barnes and Noble for $11.48. But as always, I have a coupon code for you. So, input the code “Y3C9V9H” at checkout to discount your purchase 15%. This’ll bring the book’s cost down to $9.76. Now, that’s a deal.
Trimming off the Splurges
If you’re eliminating an income, you’re going to have to adjust your lifestyle. If possible move to a more affordable home. This alone can trim your expenses by several hundred dollars each month. If this isn’t an option, you need to eliminate indulgences from your budget. Wave goodbye to premium television channels, personal shopping, having more than one phone line per adult in the household and eating out with coworkers during lunchtime at work (for your spouse).
Assuming that you spend $10 for lunch on any given weekday, $15 per month for premium television channels (i.e. HBO), $200 per month on random purchases (e.g. décor, makeup, accessories, clothing, nail salon visit, morning Starbucks run) and $30 on your home phone, you can eliminate $445 from your monthly budget. Quite the chunk of change, if you ask me!
Seeing what you’re spending in writing is the only real way to stick to your budget. Therefore, in order to make you the budget queen of your household, you can click here to download up to four different mommy budgeting worksheets!
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the single most nutritious food your baby can consume. Breast milk helps build your baby’s immune system. But, it also helps you save well over $1,000 over the course of one year on baby formula! And, if you’re looking for a bonus perk, daily breastfeeding allows most moms to burn 500-calories per day! In turn, this eliminates the need for a costly gym membership. Score!
While breastfeeding is clearly a great way to nurture your baby while saving a pretty penny, it can be a tough feat for most moms. Therefore, purchasing a breast pump may be necessary.
Now, for some reason, many new moms are under the impression that breast pumps need to be a very costly purchase, but truthfully, there isn’t very much of a difference between the $100 pump kits and the $300 pump kits – just fancy branding, that’s all.
But luckily for you, I’ve found a nifty little coupon that will allow you to receive a $50 discount on your purchase of any breast pump kit on www.Baileymed.com. Their least expensive breast pump kit is priced at $130. So, if you use the coupon, you can actually snag the deal for $80! Use the coupon code “LI50” at checkout to redeem your coupon.
If you’re able to afford your bills now with a bit of disposable income after all expenses are paid, you’re already on the right foot. But clearly, nurturing a baby will cause you to incur a few added expenses. And below, we’ll discuss how you can manage and minimize these costs to live a fulfilling life as a financially stable new set of parents.
