How We're Budgeting Differently for Baby #2

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When I was getting ready to have my first baby, I did some research to figure out “How much do babies cost?” “How much do children cost?” and I found it surprisingly tricky to get clear answers.

I saw stats like the USDA saying that the average cost of raising a kid from birth to age 17 in the Western United States is $245,000, not including college tuition.

Then if you want to send your kid to 4 years of college, that’s another $80,000 on average for public school or $180,000 for private school.

But it was hard for me to really get how that would break down and apply to me in terms of how it would impact our finances month-to-month.

I learned a LOT about how much it costs to have a baby when we had Gabriel, and the true cost of having a baby really surprised me.

In this video, I’ll share what I wish I’d known when budgeting for our first child, the biggest costs to consider when having a child, and how we’re budgeting differently for Baby #2.

One of the biggest costs to consider when having a child is health care and medical expenses.

Over 65% of bankruptcies in the United States are because of medical issues.

So THIS TIME I’m paying more attention to the potential medical costs and doing some research to find out what our maximum out-of-pocket would be with our current health insurance.

Obviously, there’s a LOT that’s outside of out control here, but what we CAN do is make sure we have the best health insurance we can, take the time to understand how our deductibles and co-pays work, and do our best to maintain a healthy reserve fund or cash cushion, just in case.

The second area in terms of how we’re budgeting differently for Baby #2 is that we now know that we can spend WAY less money on stuff.

A lot of first time parents worry about all the baby essentials you need.

Babies outgrow a lot of their clothes and toys and supplies surprisingly quickly so you can get a lot of this stuff in great condition from friends, local Mommy groups, and local Buy Nothing groups.

If you can’t get what you need for free, you might still want to buy used.

Craigslist and Amazon Marketplace can be great, as well as pop-up consignment sales for kid stuff.

So for Baby #2, we’ll take an inventory of what we need, considering that we still have some stuff from when Gabriel was a baby.

And over the next few months here, I’ll see what’s available for free through our Buy Nothing Group and local Mommy groups, knowing that we can re-gift stuff back to the community when we’re done with it.

Anything we can’t get that way, we’ll look into buying used, and we’ll save our Baby Shower Wishlist for things we love and need that we won’t be able to get through these channels.

We’re also going to set up a registry with a site called Plumfund, which allows you to ask for pretty much any gift, including stuff you might not be able to register for at a particular store.

Our single biggest expense when we had Gabriel was childcare.

You might think I’m talking about the cost of hiring a nanny or having him in daycare, but actually, our biggest expense was me not working.

That’s not the case for everyone, but I’m fortunate enough to make good money.

All in all, I’d estimate that my not working cost us over $100,000.

So a BIG difference in how we’re budgeting differently for Baby #2, is that we’re actually planning to spend MORE money on childcare so we don’t lose my income.

Even though that is going to increase our monthly expenses, it’ll ultimately cost us a lot LESS because we won’t lose my income.

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Plumfund

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Buy Nothing Project

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