How much to save before baby #1?

[Lauraloop1516]

Hi all!

I know this is a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on how much it costs to comfortably start a family? Depending on when I get the BFP, I may not be entitled to maternity leave - but I'm tired of waiting to start a family and think we should just go for it now. We've been saving for a while and have a wee baby account that we would use to sort the nursery and get the essentials. I would definitely try to get some things second hand, but I don't want to be hard up. Any thoughts much appreciated!

My last pregnancy we saved £9000 to cover the shortfall in my wages and mat pay.
What I didn’t plan for was being signed off work from 14 weeks (severe spd) on ssp which ate into the majority of the savings before my smp kicked in at 36 weeks.

This time we’ve only managed to add about £2000 to the savings but will not have to pay childcare for the toddler whilst I’m on maternity leave so will be making a huge saving there, which balances it out a bit.

I usually contribute £1000 per months to joint expenses which I’ll not be able to do once my wage drops to smp after 3 months. So technically we’d need 9k to cover it. But...my sons nursery fees will go down from £700 to £80 per months so there is a £600 saving and we’ll just stop adding to savings while I’m off so we should break even.

Second child so no need to buy much (second boy too) but things like extra groceries, increased utilities as in all day, extra petrol plus baby consumables add up.

It’s a good call and talking through with your dp about your ability to contribute financially. Mine hadn’t realised it was eating into my savings just to pay bills. I silently resented it. I brought it up and he was mortified and immediately said to stop and it would come from joint savings. It wasn’t something he’d even considered.

I agree with the posters saying that a baby costs as much/little as you make it. I’ve spent less than £1000 on buying everything (including reusable nappies so that I don’t have that weekly outgoing) for my baby. I bought big items like ths pram second hand, but also brought lots of new things when they were on sale (using amazon discount codes and cash back websites etc.)

Also, I am getting maternity allowance of £145 a week for 9 months. If you stop your current job and then become pregnant you will still be eligible for this, as you have recently stopped work. Definitely look into maternity allowance from the government.

I put aside £2000 to buy everything and spent far less than that (including all his nursery furniture). I bought a fancy travel system, which it turned out he hated until he was big enough to sit in the seat - I should have spent half the money on buying a buggy! DS spent the first 3 months of his life in the free sling I got in the baby box. This is easier said in hindsight, but if I did it again either buy more stuff second hand (all my favourite things were second hand!), or wait till baby got here to see what they like.

The main bulk of our savings are to cover the loss of my income while I'm on mat leave, to make sure that we can pay the mortgage and bills. The baby is fairly cheap - nappies, formula, wipes and infacol probably come to about £20 a week, the same as child benefit. However, you spend a lot more on maternity - as pps have said, increased heating and electricity bills, plus a lot of money on cake and coffee (and now slimming world as a result...). There's a lot of free stuff you can do (especially if you're creative - last week we had a walk to the garden centre), but you do need some spending money to keep yourself and baby occupied. Stuff like baby sensory isn't compulsory, but it is lovely.