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Parenting
CantWait2Be
member
?s about debt & having children
CantWait2Be
member
in Parenting
did you have any debt besides mortgage when you started having children (this includes credit cards, student loans, car payments, anything but mortgage)?
were you able to pay off any significant amounts of debt after having children, what did you do to help make that happen?
did you have a mortgage before starting your family?
how did you prepare financially to go from one child to 2?
are your children in daycare and if so do you get a discount for having more than one enrolled?
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Re: ?s about debt & having children
We did not have mortgage before DD; however, we had 2 car payments, student loans (about $400/month), credit card debt, line of credit debt (both DH and me). After DD came along, DH sold his business at one point and we were able to pay of lines of credit and credit card debt....there must have been something else too.....
Now I'm pregnant with DC#2 and we have a mortgage, still student loans, credit card (although it's tiny), and in a couple of months we'll be down to one vehicle payment.
We didn't really "prepare" financially for DC#2, but we are not going to hurting financially. We will still be able to keep up with payments.
DD was in daycare, but now there are NO daycares in my area. I do remember that there was a discount for baby #2 if there was one.
did you have any debt besides mortgage when you started having children (this includes credit cards, student loans, car payments, anything but mortgage)? i had mortgage plus graduate school student loans
were you able to pay off any significant amounts of debt after having children, what did you do to help make that happen? i continued to pay my school loans at the same rate as pre-kid, same with mortgage. we pay recommended amount, nothing over.
did you have a mortgage before starting your family? yes. we moved when i got pg. so we had the same mortgage for about 8 months pre-kid
how did you prepare financially to go from one child to 2? nothing much, dh happened to get a promotion while we were ttc, but we could have swung it either way. we have a chunk in our savings, put away some in both retirement and a 529 for our first child and don't live paycheck to paycheck. our savings will be less when dc#2 arrives, but we should be able to make all our payments without changes to our lifestyle.
are your children in daycare and if so do you get a discount for having more than one enrolled? i am the only person i know who DOESN'T get a discount for the second kid.
We do not have a mortgage and we have one 7 month old DS. We have a great living situation -- we rent from my mom (and she lives downstairs so lots of free babysitting and help) so we pay less than half of what a mortgage around here would be.
However, we do have A LOT of debt in terms of credit cards and my student loans. In addition to no mortgage, we also have no car loans. I just went back to work when DS turned 6 months old, so we will now be aggressively paying down debt as well as saving some.
We will be having another farily soon (we hope), but again we are lucky that we don't have to pay for daycare since I work days and DH works nights.
Of course, it's ideal not to have any debt when having kids, and I wish we had been smarter and not accrued so much, but for us at our ages (30 and 39) we would not and will not let that stop us from having children. However, we have very stable jobs and can afford to pay down debt and save because of our salaries and our living situation.
We have a mortgage. We have a car payment, but that is only because we have a 0 interest loan. We have the money to pay it off. We saved my salary after we married and we save around 20% of DH's salary each year and have two rental houses. Financial security is pretty important to us. I saved a lot for the 12 years I worked (of course, we have lost a lot here lately :-(
I stay home now. Not sure how much the second child will cost us, at least a couple of hundred a month at first and go up as she gets older, but we will make it work.
did you have any debt besides mortgage when you started having children (this includes credit cards, student loans, car payments, anything but mortgage)? Yes, besides a mortgage, we had two car payments and my student loans
were you able to pay off any significant amounts of debt after having children, what did you do to help make that happen? Yes, we paid off both our cars. We also sold our house and bought a nother house with a bigger mortgage. I can't say we did anything special. We just live w/i our means.
did you have a mortgage before starting your family? Yes
how did you prepare financially to go from one child to 2? We didn't do anything special before #2 came. BEfore #1 came, I was working full time and we just banked my paychecks so we could get used to one income and so we could put money aside for a new home.
are your children in daycare and if so do you get a discount for having more than one enrolled? Not in daycare
I have to ask - why would a second child cost hundreds extra per month? The only thing DD costs us is diapers and clothes every few months.
did you have any debt besides mortgage when you started having children (this includes credit cards, student loans, car payments, anything but mortgage)? Yes, we had a car loan and student loan. It totaled about $20,000.
were you able to pay off any significant amounts of debt after having children, what did you do to help make that happen? Yes, we have paid off the student loan and are working towards paying off our car loan. We just quit buying crap and vacation a bit less. My husband works a fair amount of overtime.
did you have a mortgage before starting your family? Yes, for 6 years.
how did you prepare financially to go from one child to 2? We went from 2 to 3 ( twins and the the new baby). It really didn't cost us anymore to throw another one in ( I stay home, breastfeed, and cloth diaper so their wasn't much additional cost). All my kids are girls and they are close in age so we already had everything we needed.
are your children in daycare and if so do you get a discount for having more than one enrolled? No, but most daycares in my area do not give a discount. A few give $10 off a week.
did you have any debt besides mortgage when you started having children (this includes credit cards, student loans, car payments, anything but mortgage)? Yes. credit cards, two car payments.
were you able to pay off any significant amounts of debt after having children, what did you do to help make that happen? We paid off one car & some cc debt. (I inherited a good chunk of change).
did you have a mortgage before starting your family? We bought our house 6 months before Preston was born.
how did you prepare financially to go from one child to 2? n/a
are your children in daycare and if so do you get a discount for having more than one enrolled? Not in daycare
Thanks!
Yes, we had a lot of debt including a mortgage, 2nd mortgage, credit cards and my car. Shortly after having DD, we sold our house and moved into Dh's grandfather's house rent free. We paid off a lot of our debt with the proceeds we received from selling our house. We still have some credit card debt but it's significantly less than what it was and my car will be paid off in May
. We aren't finanically ready for #2 yet. We want to have our credit card debt paid off and more in savings before we even consider ttc. We also would like to buy a house in the next couple of years.
Well, you have diapers, wipes, clothes, that is probably about $100 a month. additional insurance & Dr co-pays are $100 (except the first year, when it will cost us an additional $3500 for the birth). So just the min is $200. Then if I want any extras like car seats, toys, babysitters, classes, that is another $50 to $100 a month. We save for college for our kids, so that is about $150 per month per child.
I can't figure out how someone could do it for less than $200 a month. I think it is hard to even have a dog that you don't spend that on, when you count vet bills, boarding, food, and extras.
I insisted that we paid off DH's credit card (which he had when we got married) before we TTC.
We had a small mortgage (we've since gotten a much bigger house and thus bigger mortgage) plus 2 car payments and my student loan.
We paid a significant amount of my car loan ahead of schedule after I became a SAHM. We were used to paying off the CC every month, so once that was paid off, we put the money toward my car note. We're now one year ahead in payments.
We had a mortgage and 2 months left of a car loan when we started TTC (and got pregnant the first month!). We planned and saved before TTC so that we would be financially stable if I chose to SAH (I wanted to, but we waited to see how I felt about it when I was pg and it was real, kwim?).?
Going from one child to two wasnt much of a stretch since we already had all the baby stuff from the first one. Since I SAH, daycare costs were not a factor, which is lucky because even with a sibling discount, most daycares in our area would have run us around $2K for two kids. Yikes. ?
Staying on a budget and prioritizing what we want to spend money on has helped us to stay debt free while still saving for retirement and having fun
?
We had debt from all the above, credit cards, student loans, car payments...
We did not pay off any significant amounts of debt after having our DS and probably accrued more since I stayed home for a year.
We had a mortgage for about 1 1/2 yrs before having DS
We are pregnant with # 2, no idea how it is going to work. We both feel if we were waiting for the "right" time it would never happen and I don't want to be over 60 with kids in college. I want to be able to enjoy grandkids hopefully too and see my kids get married. So we just started a budget for now and hopefully we will be able to put some money away to pay for our things when I am on maternity leave...we are trying to pay as much as we can in credit card debt..DH does side jobs so we are going to be using half the money for debt adn rest to save.
My DS is in daycare and the next child will also be. I believe the 2nd child gets a 10% discount, but I am not sure. Rigth now we pay almost $1000 a month in daycare...
did you have any debt besides mortgage when you started having children (this includes credit cards, student loans, car payments, anything but mortgage)?
I had paid off my credit cards while pregnant, but DH had not kept up his end of that nargain. We just finally finished paying off his outstanding debt (which we had been chipping away at PLUS adding to over time), and we also had 2 car loans when DD was born. Thank goodness we had no student loan debt, but we have been putting DH's schooling on credit (always 0% cards) because he gets reimbursed after the semester is over - getting loans seemed too much of a hassle.
were you able to pay off any significant amounts of debt after having children, what did you do to help make that happen?
Yes, mostly through christmas gifts and tax refunds. And again, it is FINALLY paid off and it feels GREAT
did you have a mortgage before starting your family?
yes, but we live in a 2 BR/2 BA TH. it is definitely within our means in a HCOL area, and we luckily were still able to refinance.
how did you prepare financially to go from one child to 2?
Not necessarily to get ready for #2, but we have been working with a financial advisor since DD was born. we've been working on paying down debt, building up savings and getting proper life insurance. DH also got a new job that pays quite a bit more which will help us quite a bit. we're doing pretty well and should be able to throw big amounts monthly into savings to save up for a down payment on our next house since we currently don't think we're going to get anything out of our TH in this declining market
are your children in daycare and if so do you get a discount for having more than one enrolled?
we will get some sort of discount, but we may have to get a nanny since I only work PT and a PT spot for an infant in a center (which is where my DD goes to "school") is VERY hard to come by.