So, you’ve decided you want to have a baby. For sure, this is an exciting and overwhelming decision. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing your new baby for the first time. However, before you get ahead of yourself, taking care of some financial matters before you even conceive can make the entire pregnancy and the months after go much more smoothly.
Consider these issues:
1. Paid leave.
Does your employer offer paid leave? If so, how long? Is there anything you can do to bulk up that leave? For instance, when I was employed as a college teacher, my employer didn’t offer paid leave. However, each semester you could teach an extra class and “bank” that class. Instead of getting paid upfront, I put that class aside, so to speak. I didn’t have enough classes put aside for leave when I had my son, but when I had my daughter, I had already taught 4 classes that I was not paid for, so I “unbanked” those classes and got a paid semester leave in return. This required a lot of advanced planning but was well worth it.
Also consider whether or not your spouse will get paid leave.
2. Insurance.
Some employers are wonderful about walking you through the process of adding your new child to your insurance policy. Others may leave you in the dark, with terrible consequences. Even though I had talked to my human resources department several times, no one told me that I had to “register” my newborn for insurance within 30 days of birth. I found this out on my baby’s 32nd day of life, and my employer refused to insure him. I had to wait for the open enrollment period 9 long months later to finally get him on my insurance.
3. Day care.
Will you or your spouse stay home to care for the baby? If not, what will you do for day care? Keep in mind that some urban areas have day cares wait lists of longer than a year. In these areas, signing up to get on the wait list as soon as you confirm that you’re pregnant is not too soon.
If you don’t get off the wait list on time, what are your other options?
4. Budget.
Take a good look at your budget before you conceive. I believe the reports that say that it takes over $200k to raise a child to age 18 are overblown, but still, there are a lot of expenses with a newborn. If you decide not to nurse or can’t, formula alone is very expensive. Add in diapers and day care, clothes and baby equipment, and you can drop quite a bit in the first year. Your budget doesn’t have to be perfect, but you should have some extra money available to cover these expenses.
If you want to revel in the joy of your newborn baby, take these steps before you conceive. Then, when the baby comes, you won’t need to worry about finances or insurance.
What other financial considerations would you add?
source: everythingfinanceblog.com
