How much have/will you save?

graywhy

I'm just curious about how much $$ you will be saving before the baby gets here?

 Since June we have saved about $5000, and plan on saving another 5 or so before the baby gets here in February?  Do you think that will be enough to help us get through the year of mat leave pay? I'm a little worried because my mat leave pay will only pay the mortgage and DH's work slows down a lot over the winter.

 How much $$ do you think we will need?

Anyone in a similar boat? What are you doing?

TIA

Fuzzypeaches

We have between 11-12 thousand saved for this.

I am self employed and don't get paid maternity leave, so I have been saving for a while for this. We have figured out that we can survive, although tightly on about $1,000 a month from me plus DH's wage. So I plan to stay home for about 6 months using our savings. We have enough for some cushion and won't need to use it all, so hopefully when I go back to work our savings won't be down to nothing and we can continue to build it back up.

 

dunvilles

It's hard for me to guess what you would need or what would be enough. I would suggest making a budget. See where all of your money goes, and then add everything up and see if you'll have enough.

 We cut back on eating out/shopping and are trying to save as much as possible for unexpected emergencies like car repair, home repair, taxes etc... We've also cut back on grocery costs. Just any where we can so that we can see what we can truly live on.

 I'm staying home for 6 months without pay. I know we'll never be able to fully save 1/2 of my salary before baby gets here. GL!

Fuzzypeaches

How much money you need depends on you.

What we are doing, is living off my "maternity" wage...so my wage each month is only $1,000. The rest of it goes into our savings account. It helps us practice living on that small amount to see how realistic it is.

vmgetl

We have $6000 earmarked for maternity leave/ baby.  That will cover my salary less what we put in savings for about 8 weeks and the other 6 weeks will be paid by work. 

We can always dip into our savings if we need to, but we figured that should cover everything we may need plus a little extra.

duchessII81

We're putting my salary into baby savings. I'll go 8-10 weeks w/only 60% pay from STD benefit and we don't want to touch the e-fund.

Kingston54

Really depends on what your expenses are.  DH's salary covers all of our ongoing expenses, so we will just need to have "spending money" set aside, which is what my salary technically covers.  The rest we usually put into savings.

mooeta

Our plan was to have 10-15k saved, and I could take 8 - 10 weeks off unpain.  However, my DH was downsized a month ago and that made that goal impossible.  We are still saving and my DH will be providing childcare until Next August.  He'll be going to school at night and watching the baby during the day while I work.  Save as much as you possibly can.  I'm glad that we had really been saving much more because atleast we have a comfortable cushion.

Amrice78

I will have saved 3 months of my take home salary.

ValentineNJ

I will hopefully have 3 months salary saved.  I have more than that now, but have to pay for nursery construction costs and baby gear (not having a shower).

whit022109

dont forget that everyone's expenses are different than yours. the cost of living in some places is vastly different than others. what one person may have saved may not be enough for someone else. but to give you an idea, we will have a few month's bills saved up before james gets here.

Anna&Matt

We will have roughly 12K saved when the baby comes. Since I'm only taking 12 weeks I think this is WAY more than we will actually need (my mat. leave is paid at 80%).

aocain02@yahoo.com

We've been saving for awhile now because my DH and I both work in the same field...land development...and we all know there isn't a lot going on there right now.  We have been saving for the baby necessarily but have built up enough so we could comfortably live (paying mortgage included) if one of us gets laid off for about a year. 

melvolcom

We're basically screwed. We did not plan for this and our bills are really high. I find out on tuesday what my boss is going to give me, but I am pretty sure he'll just be giving me what the state gives, the 6 weeks after my maternity pay is over is going to be a struggle. I have a cupcake business on the side so I am praying that I keep getting orders to supplement my income. 

berrysweet

melvolcom:

We're basically screwed. We did not plan for this and our bills are really high. I find out on tuesday what my boss is going to give me, but I am pretty sure he'll just be giving me what the state gives, the 6 weeks after my maternity pay is over is going to be a struggle. I have a cupcake business on the side so I am praying that I keep getting orders to supplement my income. 

We're sort of in the same situation. My maternity leave will pretty much be completely unpaid. I'll be able to take about two weeks of paid vacation, and the rest will be unpaid...my company doesn't even pay your health insurace premiums while you're on leave. Nice, huh? 

We're trying to practice living on DH's income alone and "bank" mine, so that we'll have more of a cushion when I'm on leave, but we'll also hopefully be used to spending much less as well.