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Working Moms
NovRain27
member
Advice - First Pregnancy
NovRain27
member
in Working Moms
I am 4 months pregnant. My husband and I are figuring out our expenses. My job isn't doing great but my boss basically promised me that we would work stuff out when the baby came and i am hoping for working from home part time. On the off chance that doesn't happen. Does anyone have any good saving money tips? Or side jobs that help bring in some extra money??
Thanks :-)
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Re: Advice - First Pregnancy
Do you have a family member or friend that you can pay to watch LO while you are working? Around my area the cost of daycare is $1300 a month. If you can pay someone (like a relative) $700 you will be saving $600. I think that's your best option.
There is always a 2nd job however you, or DH will constantly be working and its not just a temporary gig.
I live in a rural area so daycare here is about $700/mo.
Please know that, in most cases, it is not possible to productively work from home and watch your baby at the same time. Plan to have someone watch your child while you work.
Those are some pretty vague questions asking for pretty detailed answers
1. Who is your insurance under- if you lose your job while pg, are you still going to be insured?
2. Have you looked into various daycares yet? Home daycare is cheeper then daycare centers
3. What are you currently spending money on that you can cut? cable? starbucks? maicures? every little bit helps...
4. What are you thinking you want to do for a 2nd job? what are your hours of availablitly? What are you good at? What are your hobbies?
A kiss he will never forget- Disney World 2014
My insurance is under my husband so that wouldn't be an issue. Looked into daycares but they're a lot of money. Only thing we can cut is my gym (which is $10 a month) and getting a cheaper car since my lease is up in September. I don't get manicures or starbucks, If i do its from gift cards. I have no idea what a 2nd job could possibly be but just wanetd any suggestions if anyone does do anything on the side to bring in extra money. We aren't "well off" or scratching for money, but at the moment i want to be able to bring in something extra if i do decide to work part time from home.
I agree with PP's that you will need to have some sort of child care set up if you work from home unless you plan to only work when your husband is at home.
The easiest things to cut from your budget is to get rid of debt (car payments, credit cards, etc.), cut cell phone plans to minimum, cut cable, and to watch your grocery shipping and cook at home instead of going out to eat.
For side jobs, if you could tell us what industry you are in or what your experience is that could help us think of some jobs you could do.
My biggest expense for the baby was diapers. Look around for good deals. In my experience, usually you can get diapers for about $.20 each. When you find a sale/ have coupons, buy them. We bought about 6 boxes (in different sizes) before DS was born. I just started the last of them.
We also pay ourselves first with our paychecks. It is set up so a certain amount from each check goes into the savings account. The rest is deposited into our checking. We can of course move more into checking if we need it. It helps me because I don't see the money in the checking account, so I don't spend it.
I disagree, I have a hard time getting a shower, or getting laundry done or even eating sometimes with a newborn. I wouldn't be able to work from home with him here at all.
I think it depends, I worked from home with my first child. She was in daycare pastime and home part time. She would play on her mat while I did conference calls and actually my boss after a few months doing this asked what I did with her when we had these early morning conference calls and I told him she would be on the play mat and then after the call I would drop her off at daycare. They never knew, but that was her and she I could do that with. I also could put her in a sling and type and she was content as well. With this said, my son was completely different and I could do that with him. He was sick a lot for the first two years and always out of daycare and I would work from home, because I we don't have a lot of backup at work, so there really isn't anyone who can step in To attend a conference call on my behalf. Some there were times that I had to do some creative scheduling other times, that I did have to call out and other times I found some one to back-up.
I guess what I am saying is that there is no blanket statement. I think it depends on the job, the child, the family situation.
Second, one of the things that we did was put money on gift cards especially for baby while on maternity leave so that we had funds that weren't taken from short term disability or savings, but we can use if we needed anything just for baby. We also pre-bought diapers and that helped a lot, but my son ended up being allergic to the diapers and we had to use Huggins natural for a year and a half. If you don't breast feed formula was a high cost as well. My son was allergic to milk and had to be put on special formula.
Some other things to plan for... If your insurance has a deductible you might have to pay that after the baby is born, cord blood if you decide to do that . . .