Did you have savings when you had a baby?

A question about : Did you have savings when you had a baby?

Hi

I was just wondering whether you had savings at the time your baby was born...and how much you budgeted? Obviously, each family is different, but just in general...

Me and hubby only have around Ј400 spare each month after outgoings, and that's with both of our salaries..
We don't have any savings as we have just bought a house.

I don't think we'd be able to cope atm with just the maternity allowance. It's a bit disappointing as a I am keen to have kids soon. I suppose we should wait a couple of years and build up some money..

Best answers:

• Yes, absolutely. Personally did not want children until I was financially secure.
  As things turned out, I was VERY glad we had savings since I was made redundant. It is surprisingly common, happens to one in seven women apparently. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/...l-discrimation
• I'm in a very similar situation at the moment - just got married 5 months ago, and now saving for new house and babies!
  My plan is to have saved enough to cover my share of mortgage, household bills and little extras for 12 months mat leave. The last thing I want is to have to worry about rushing back to work, or not being able to afford to enjoy little breaks or luxuries for us all while I'm off.
  My plan is to clear my debt by November this year, have saved enough for a deposit for a new house by next summer, and - all going well - for mat leave from April 2017. Which gives the hubby and I a couple of years to just enjoy settling into married life and really build for the future!
• We have defiantly put off having kids until we were financially secure. Our savings at the moment aren't high. As we just did a load of work on the house to make it family ready, but we have enough to cover my maternity leave and we have bought all the items we need to start out with.
  Maternity allowance is very much so it's gojng to be a hard year, therefore, we have prepared ourself financially as best we can.
• People, even those without children to provide for, should have some long-term savings set aside. Unforeseen things happen, often when you're least prepared for them. Illness. Redundancy. All sorts of frightening things. The received wisdom is to have six month's-worth of normal ougoings as savings as an absolute minimum. Lots of people have a great deal more than that set aside before they think about starting a family.
• We saved enough to cover all of the bills, including the mortgage for the period of my maternity leave before we even tried for a baby. We felt that we needed to do that just case the worst happened and my husband lost his job whilst I was on maternity leave. Our mortgage was tiny though, by today's standards - I shudder with horror when I see how much money people have to borrow these days but it's all relative - back then (1992) we borrowed the maximum we could afford and I suppose that's what people do today. It then took us five years to save up to get married (doing the house up at the same time) and another three before we felt financially secure enough to try for a baby.
• Unfortunately, you can't really plan babies to that extent. I had no savings at all when my children were born. I managed. For my first i was able to take 2 years off work, for my second, i went back when she was 8 months old as i couldn't afford to stay at home.
  There's 13 years between my children, it wasn't planned that way, it just happened. You'll manage whatever your financial situation is, babies don't need money, they just need the basics, and lots of love.
• As you've just bought a house you can be forgiven for not having many savings right now.
  But with Ј400 spare each month as above you could make a tidy little nest egg pretty quickly.
• Not a bean, we were spending what we earned.
  We actually started saving once we had him due to our social lives becoming much less hectic and expensive.
  So I suppose it's great if you have but not a deal breaker if you haven't. Cut backs can always be made.
• We didn't even have a house to live in, let alone savings! Just the way it happened. We didn't have much money for many years but managed. My youngest said to me today that they never went without, so it can't have been that bad.
• Well we're currently expecting baby 2 and pretty much like last time we have near enough zero savings so it's not great but it's not terrible, we will manage, just like we did last time. It is very sensible to build up some money before having children and I would definitely recommend doing so but for us it was a kind of "if we don't just get on and do it we never will". Yes, it has been tough at times but we have got through it ok. Also because of medical reasons we were told that if we do want kids to hurry up and get on with it. I have also done a bit of planning for when I finish work and start claiming tax credits and daughter reduces nursery which means we should be able to save some money then.
  Hubby also has life assurance cover which includes sickness cover/unemployment benefit so although it is a lot less than he earns it would still tide us over until he found another job.
  It's a bit of a cliche I know but I think that as long as you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food in your belly you'll be ok and we can manage all this.
• My long of the short answer is yes we did, now we do not! She's 1 and the savings took us through my maternity. It depends as well what your company offer as mat pay. Mine was 6 weeks then your on your own Jack! So stat mat which is on average Ј550. Quite a dip in salary.
• Hi
  It's one of them catch 22 situations tbh.
  You can forever try and save.. until the right time. And then before u know it your too old. Or just jump right in! And finances will sort themselves.
  We had our baby with little or no savings, and have survived. Yes its not always easy, but we are happy.
  For the 2nd we will endeavour to have some savings put aside, but we will go for the 2nd , whenever we feel ready.
• Back in the 1960s, when we had baby no 1, our savings consisted of Ј50 in premium bonds (bought singly, through premium bond clubs at work!) and one month's mortgage payment, one month's rates repayment and one month's electricity bill - plus a bunker full of coal (no central heating). I received maternity benefit of Ј4 per week for 18 weeks (6 weeks before, 12 weeks after). Also I received a maternity bonus from work - which of course I had to leave - of Ј100 - which I spent on a washing machine.
  Somehow, we managed - went on to have three more children. But then, I do think that life was less-demanding then.
• I think it's great that some people can do it with no savings. But only the OP knows whether they can survive maternity leave with no savings.
  There is no way I could do it without savings. As the main breadwinner going to 25% of my wages would mean our house would be repossessed if we didn't have anymoney to pay the bills.
  That's the main reason to save, to make sure you can pay bills while on leave. Everything thing else can be bought second hand or hand me downs and you don't need to spend lots of money for baby stuff. There is always a way to cut back to afford that.
  So I would say, work out how much income you need per month to pay your current bills. Work out any deficits from you income while o SMP and the bills and then times that by how many months you want to be on leave for. If there is no deficit then don't worry. If so, then work out how long you need to save for and factor that in. Don't forget, you'll be earning for 8 or so months while pregnant which will give you time to save.
• We currently have Ј1000 total, and in September my OH won't have a job (his current contract ends in August and he's moving careers) Between now and then, and for the whole of the time we are trying for a baby and the pregnancy we will save money, currently due to OH working part time and my low wag it's about Ј300 a month. We plan to try for a baby in June. I'd love for us to have more savings but I'm 32 this year and have a hormone condition so really really can't put it off any longer.
• No savings as we spent it all on a family car! But we'd been living as though on one wage since finding out I was pregnant so things were tight we were fine.
  Also meant that I was under no pressure to go back to work quickly or full time.