I recently bumped into my neighbor as we were both arriving back to our homes at the same time and this one in particular had a 3 month old baby who happened to be sleeping in one of those portable baby carriers at the time. Was definitely cute.
At first she was talking about how fast babies grow up and of course some of the challenges involved in taking care of them. That then brought up a topic about a couple that had sextuplets and how crazy it must be for them not just labor wise but financially as well.
The funny thing I thought was that most people that I know who have had a child weren’t too focused on creating a financial plan before attempting to have a child. Instead, it’s not until they realize that they will have one that they start to arrange their budgets appropriately.
I suppose in some ways you can’t fully prepare for it 100% which would make sense with that view, at the same time I don’t know why I don’t see more people creating say some kind of savings account ahead of time intended to be used to help in having a child as oppose to just relying on incoming income.
Now obviously that doesn’t mean for every baby you are intending to have that you should save like say $100,000 before trying to have a child. Instead, trying to estimate say the amount of money it would cost you for things like diapers for 3 years, or whenever you think they won’t need it anymore, and have that much stashed away to get one important financial obstacle out of the way to create less worries later.
Again, you are not necessarily doing it for every cost associated with having a child, but rather some important aspects. It’s almost like a business when I think about it too.