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Conception

When's the best time to get pregnant? Use our interactive ovulation calculator to work out when you're most fertile and most likely to conceive.

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Original poster

Did you save before/during/after conceiving/conception?

14 replies

lankyliscuits · 05/05/2019 23:12

Me & the OH have, what I would consider, decent salaries but I'm a sucker for savings! It took me a while to twist his arm but I now have and we've started putting some money aside (no BFP yet). I just wondered what other people's thoughts/plans were when it came to this? Did you specifically save for mat leave etc? I'm a bit anxy pants about having some money set aside.

OP posts:

user1493413286 · 05/05/2019 23:14

Once I became pregnant I started saving but I’d worked out before trying what we needed to be able to manage on

Aimily · 05/05/2019 23:18

You're much more sensible than us, we had decent savings, we were actively ttc. Then went and bought a new car last September, savings gone in one fell swoop. We now have dc1 due in July, and very little money saved at present, as we have been buying bits and bobs, this unnerves me immensely!

I would save to buy what you need in preparation and maybe have extra saved for 'a rainy day' as they say.

Also fingers crossed you get your bfp soon.

Avf88 · 06/05/2019 07:56

Ideally I’d want to only go back to work part time so have started a don’t go back to work fund. Both our salaries are ok so I don’t think we’d struggle too much over mat leave but I’d also like to know that I don’t have to worry about it

Nicecupofcoco · 06/05/2019 08:04

Hi op! Yes we saved a baby fund up! Put money aside each month as so as we agreed to try! It took almost a year to fall pregnant and continued to save as much as we could up until baby arrived! Helped us pay for things for baby and used the money for maternity leave afterwards etc. Really useful, but I'm sure even if you haven't much saved you'll still make it work out OK!

McHelenz · 06/05/2019 08:05

Yes, my husband wouldn't let us start trying until I had cleared my credit card and overdraft. Also needed to get 1000 in savings minimal. I'll obviously continue saving as I go on.

McHelenz · 06/05/2019 08:06

@lankyliscuits we are in a good postion that we own our house outright and I earn a decent wage. I will only get SMP so I worked out the minimum to get my monthly topped up to what I'm used to.

witchy89 · 06/05/2019 08:10

We knew we would be able to afford to have a baby on just one salary while I was on maternity leave before we started trying. Once I was pregnant we began to put a bit away each month to cover any surprises. My partner actually did some pretty hardcore saving so we have quite a bit put away now just in case. We'll continue to put money aside now our dd is here, but not as much as before obviously!

Samanabanana · 06/05/2019 08:12

We saved 3 months of my full salary so that I could 'pay' myself a wage in the final 3 months of mat leave, which is unpaid. We would have saved more but were lucky that my maternity policy at work was fairly generous and was essentially 6 months full pay and only 3 months smp.

elQuintoConyo · 07/05/2019 11:13

No.
We rent. Have a second hand banger, I work part time.
We managed just fine, and still do. We didn't have bugaboo tastes and the wish for a fully-kitted nursery.

I think it depends on your lifestyle. We have never had credit card debts, for example. Nor a mortgage! Nor an expensive car or long haul holiday, not really bothered about them.

limesoda · 07/05/2019 11:30

Not savings but we are renovating our house and it is costing us a fortune every month but due to be finished soon so we will have that money 'spare' every month when it is all done.

We have worked out what we need to survive on and have a plan in place. I'm self-employed so don't have the safety blanket of paid maternity leave, just paltry maternity allowance.

We are pretty decent savers, have decent enough investments and overpay our mortgage every month so have other safety nets if anything terrible happens.

NikolaPiccola · 07/05/2019 15:38

Where do you live? In the UK you have 9 months of paid maternity leave! Saying that I'm 19 and still in education. I have a friend who fell pregnant at 18 and she bought second-hand stuff and prioritized what she needed. The babies aren't the expensive bit, it's once they get to school that it costs a fortune!
You can also look into cloth diapers which can save up to 3 grand in two years! And look into things like a cotbed (turns into a tod bed later on,) a car seat that grows with the child (more costly upfront but you save loads over 12 years.) You can also save loads on toys; children don't actually care about what they play with, my sister found bottles entertaining. We're in an age of consumerism and the industry makes children out to be money takers when the reality is, that is their marketing for encouraging you to buy products!

And if you are in the US I can only empathise! It is shocking that they don't give paid maternity leave.

McHelenz · 07/05/2019 15:53

@nikolapiccola however, going from a pretty decent wage to 150 a week is not ideal. Hence savings to top it up..it's not just the baby it's the house and car and all the rest of life that carries on when you're off work.

MyBabyBoyBlue · 07/05/2019 15:59

Yes, we stepped up our saving rate when we got our BFP!

crazychemist · 07/05/2019 17:10

We didn’t have a huge amount of savings when we had DD, but we were confident that we could save, it was just that we had put it into a new house. If you can’t manage to save on your current income, how will you manage with the extra expenditure of a baby (they aren’t all that expensive, but they aren’t free either!) and will the reduction of income of being on maternity leave? You don’t need to have lots of savings, but you should work out whether you can actually afford to live the way you want to live.

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