Pre TTC Goals

victoria+james · October 2012

Before you had your first, or if you are planning your first currently, what did you want to have completed before TTC? I'm specifically curious about financial goals since DH and I don't see eye to eye on what we each think financially "ready" is. I think 6 months of bills saved is good before we start trying, he wants 12 months...

Our bucket list:
1. Get married
2. Buy a house
3. Get family friendly cars
4. Go on our Honeymoon
5. Get a dining table big enough for the whole family holiday fiasco
6. Pay off all credit card debt
7. Build up savings

Everything is done except 6 and 7. We should be debt free by juneish and savings... Well, that's the debate!

Cindal · October 2012

victoria+james:
Before you had your first, or if you are planning your first currently, what did you want to have completed before TTC? I'm specifically curious about financial goals since DH and I don't see eye to eye on what we each think financially "ready" is. I think 6 months of bills saved is good before we start trying, he wants 12 months... Our bucket list: 1. Get married 2. Buy a house 3. Get family friendly cars 4. Go on our Honeymoon 5. Get a dining table big enough for the whole family holiday fiasco 6. Pay off all credit card debt 7. Build up savings Everything is done except 6 and 7. We should be debt free by juneish and savings... Well, that's the debate!

The first four. We spend major holidays at the grandparents house every year without fail so our normal table is big enough. We didn't have any credit card debt ever. We're still trying to save but its at the same time as ttc. The first four were the biggies. oh and Insurance! That was my 5th big ttc obstacle and that was taken care of last december.

bugandbibs · October 2012

I think for an otherwise debt free family, 6 months worth of an emergency fund is a good rule of thumb. I only would advise more if you live in an area with a very high jobless rate, or work in a very specialized field. 12 months is excessive for most people. You can easily reduce the cost of living if someone looses a job to make money go further (cut cable, phones, internet, food costs, clothing, etc...)

How much you save though before you have a baby is relative to how much time you will take off from work, and how much you will be spending on baby related items (which are costly).

So, we have a 6 month emergency plan that was separate from our baby fund. When you start saving for that depends. You can start now, wait until ttc, or until you are actually k/u. I wouldn't divert money from paying off your CC until you are actually preggers.

brij2006 · October 2012

Here's ours:

1. Get married - check
2. Buy a house big enough to grow in - check
3. Build up an emergency fund of 6 months expenses - check
4. Get our monthly expenses down to only needing 1 persons' income to pay for - In progress to be finished by summer, or early 2013 if I get my normal raise at work.
5. Have $10k in our "special fund." To be used for medical expenses, maternity leave, bedrest, etc. - Halfway there.
6. Go on a fun trip with all of our married friends. - Booked for September 2013

Unfortunately, we're both ready to TTC and don't want to wait for every single thing to fall into place. So we may be starting before #5 and 6 are completely done.

nataliekristin · October 2012

I think you're fine as long as you have a savings plan and are sticking to it. You can only be so ready, and i dont believe there is such thing as a right time...

kcisthebombdotcom · October 2012

I think 6 months of savings is fine to start ttc especially if you're debt free besides your mortgage payment. There will be 9 months from the day you go off birth control to the day you deliver (if not more) so you will be able to save more during ttc/pregnancy.

We also postponed TTC until we had a house/got married/took a honeymoon. We didn't have more than 6 months of bills in savings when we ttc especially because of the costs involved with buying our house so we just saved aggressively during my pregnancy to make up for it.

MarieC78 · October 2012

Well our goals are a little different, plus I'm almost 35 haha... I don't want to spend money on a wedding when we could be putting that into savings...and I also don't want a cheap at the courthouse thing either. I know this goes against what a lot of people believe, but it's what works for us. So our goals were pretty easy.

1. Take trips together and have fun as a couple.

2. Own a house that will work for the next 5 years or so, until school age.

4. Pay off debts and save money

5. Stable jobs with insurance.

We completed all of that, and already both own family friendly cars. Off BC since the middle of September

LaSak87 · October 2012

1. Finish grad school (a lot of my co-workers have recently had babies and I have NO idea how they balance a baby and school)

2. Stable jobs with good insurance (grad student insurance here is abysmal)

3. Buy a house

At this point, we each have about 1 year of grad school left, then it's onto the post-doctoral fellowships. If he finished first and got a fellowship with good insurance while I was writing my dissertation, TTC may come a little earlier. We're currently in a townhouse in a nice area with a decent amount of space, so if buying a house came a little later, it wouldn't be a deal-breaker.

KenziK · October 2012

Graduate from college (done for both of us)
Get married (done)
Buy a bigger house in a town we want our children to go to school in
DH gets hired as a police officer (currently working on it)
Pay off our credit card debt (should be done by late 2013)
Have over $5000 saved up before we start trying
Pay down as much of my student loans as I can
Be in a financial position for me to be able to SAH
Go on a big trip (This is on DH's bucketlist, I could care less, so we might skip it for now)

Tally879 · October 2012

What a great post!

We're at:

1) Get Married (check)

2) Get a job with strong family benefits/standard 40 hours a week (check)

3) Go on a big vacation with friends (May 2013)

4) Get student loans cut in half (hopefully May 2013 too)

5) ideally we'd like to buy a house first, but since we're trying to be aggressive on debt, the downpayment is not feasible. I'm willing to have a baby in our 2 bed/ 2 bath apartment for a year tho

We're looking to start trying next summer, but DH is trying to push for sooner rather than later.

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