We’re Having a Baby!
You’ve met Mr Way. You’ve met Miss Way. Say hello to Baby Way! Well, not just yet….
If the incredibly expensive Africa trip followed by a new car weren’t expensive enough, we’re now expecting our first child!
We recently found out that Miss Way is pregnant, with the baby due in July 2020.
Obviously, we’re absolutely delighted with this news. But at the same time, there are some severe doubts about whether we’re doing the right thing.
We are both incredibly frugally minded. We mentioned in How to Buy A Car – The Frugal Way! how painful we found the decision to spend £7,000 on a car. This has had a huge impact on our savings rates and seen our FIRE timeline extend significantly further into the future.
Clearly having a child will extend our timelines even further, despite being convinced we can make this significantly more frugal than the vast majority of parents.
We’re hoping that putting some of our concerns down on paper (screen?!) might help to convince ourselves of our decision. It might also help others who are going through a similar decision process!
If money was the only consideration, we would not get very far in life. Clearly there’s a lot more to it than that. Starting a family is something we have both wanted for many years. We are really excited that it could finally be happening.
Miscarriage
We say could because of the risks involved. We’re still early in the process (11 weeks) and risk of miscarriage is significant. This is always in the back of our minds because we know lots of people who have been through this devastating experience. As cautious people, it’s something that is really weighing on our minds.
We wanted to put this subject out in the open because it is often somewhat of a taboo. Obviously not many people want to share when this happens to them! But we feel if these topics are discussed more, it can help some women to feel less alone – or even inadequate – if the worst does happen.
We’re sure many others in the early stages will be worried about this just as we are.
Money Worries
As mentioned above, we’re fairly comfortable that we can do this frugally. The majority of parents splash out on needlessly lavish items for their children.
Most of our peers who have had children will buy everything new, including:
- Top of the range buggy/travel system – £1,500
- Full nursery of furniture – £3,000
- Baby monitor – £150
- New clothes – £50/month? They grow quick!
- Disposable nappies – £1,875
We will be significantly reducing all of the above. We’re aiming to buy almost everything used, as well as hand-me-downs from family and friends. We also aim to try out reusable nappies, which could save us in the region of £1,500 (see link above)!
Babies out-grow everything rapidly so buying new seems like a huge waste of money for the short life-span of each item.
For us, these decisions are driven not just by cost, but a deep desire to consume less. Baby Way won’t be surrounded by a multitude of plastic toys when they would probably rather play with the box they came in!
We’ve been increasingly following a minimalist lifestyle (small steps at a time!!) and these wishes really meet with our current principles.
The Biggest Issue
With this plan, we’re fairly confident that we can keep the direct costs of Baby Way to a minimum. But our biggest worries come with either:
- Having to go down to a single salary while one of us plays parent
- Paying out huge amounts for childcare
This is something we’re really unsure about at the minute. Many parents prefer one of them to stop work entirely when their first child is born, only returning once the early years are out of the way. This is not our preferred route, and doesn’t meet our current financial goals.
We both want to carry on with our careers but are also keen to either eliminate, or vastly reduce, our childcare needs.
Potential Solutions
Miss Way
We have managed to time the due date well. Miss Way is a teacher and with an early July due date, the summer holidays will help to offset some of the necessary time off after giving birth (Miss Way usually earns very little in the summer anyway). It’s almost as if we planned this!
Another positive is that Miss Way should be eligible for 39 weeks of maternity pay, due to some of her work being on PAYE. The total amount she will receive isn’t great, but clearly is better than a kick in the teeth! Receiving some of this money in the summer will be a welcome boost.
But there’s no avoiding the fact that we have until Baby Way is 3ish before we can get free childcare. This means we need a serious re-shuffle of our lives.
Luckily, much of Miss Way’s work is in evenings. She does after school lessons and runs choirs in the evening. This should mean that Mr Way can take over childcare after work while Miss Way continues to earn some money. This also applies to Saturdays, when Miss Way also often works.
We need to weigh up whether this will be sustainable, or whether we need to pay for some part time childcare to allow Miss Way more time to give to her work.
Our research tells us childcare is available for in the region of £50 per day, so we need to weigh this up against how much Miss Way could earn in that time.
Mr Way
Another consideration is whether Mr Way should reduce his working week to 4 days. We were hoping that he would be in line for a big promotion any time around now, which would mean he could switch to a 4 day week without much of a reduction in salary.
But this promotion is looking uncertain right now and we don’t know if/when it may appear. In addition, it isn’t guaranteed that Mr Way’s company would be open to this change. It could also harm his longer term career prospects.
If this was to all work out, it would allow Miss Way another full day to work. It is also really attractive to Mr Way because he doesn’t want to miss out on the early years of Baby Way’s development. You will never get that time back and we’ve both seen too many peers regret the amount of time spent in an office.
The End of Separate Finances?
As we wrote in Why We Keep Our Finances Separate, we currently keep our finances entirely separate and split all joint expenses 50/50. With Miss Way likely to significantly reduce her working hours (and salary), this may become less sustainable.
Having separate finances does still appeal to us, for the reasons we set out in our post. We have been discussing whether we move to a different split, with Mr Way paying 2/3 of all joint expenses, for example.
The other alternative is to combine finances into one household pot. Clearly this would favour Miss Way, but would significantly reduce Mr Way’s savings rate and increase his FIRE timeline.
NCT Classes
A prime example of the pressures faced by parents-to-be is a decision we are currently facing. We have been advised by a multitude of family and friends to attend NCT classes. For those who don’t know, these are classes which “support you through pregnancy and make sure you’re prepared for labour and early parenthood. Develop the skills you need to tackle this adventure confidently, with our support.”
Our big dilemma here is, as usual, the cost. The only reason people tend to advise doing this course is for the friends it generates, rather than the course content.
We very much appreciate this point, as we’re sure life can be very hard as a new parent and having friends to ask advice and socialise with can be a lifeline. But £150+ seems a high price to pay for a small group of friends!!
Help!!
Hope that wasn’t too much of a ramble, but there’s a lot going through our minds at the minute. Lots of positive thoughts, but plenty of worries to accompany them!
We would really love to hear from the FIRE community on this. If you’ve been through this yourselves, what advice can you give us on any of the topics we discussed? We’re particularly interested in:
- Frugal tips for reducing baby costs
- Should Mr Way go to a 4-day week?
- Childcare options and/or advice
- NCT classes – did you do these/similar?
Exciting times. Unfortunately as I don’t have any children I can’t be much help. The best arrangements that I see is where parents manage to share childcare between them, but purely on a financial basis if one of you earns less then they should be the one to give up work. I suppose it’s about looking at all the options and deciding what works best for you.
Thanks Sam. Sharing the childcare is the plan but we’re not 100% sure how that looks yet! At the minute, we’re thinking Mr Way will try and negotiate a 4-day week, allowing Miss Way to return to work for that 1 day, plus some evenings/weekends. Mr Way earns slightly more, but we both want to keep our careers going. Finding that balance may be the difficult thing!
Claim child benefit. Even if one of you earns over £60k and so you need to pay it back, claiming it gives you NIC credit ( for state pension calculation purposes) when you’re on maternity leave.
Yeah that’s a good point we do intend to claim it. We both earn below £50k so it will be a nice bonus for us.
Congratulations.
I understand the obvious variety of questions in your mind, but really the only thing which should be primary is health of your child and your own. Everything else is just costs.
Tip #1 : Everyone, just about everyone will have advice, I realized only after 6 months of having our kid that there is no perfect way.
Tip #2 : We bought a used baby pram/stroller, it felt like a good choice but later we had the need to get a different one as it was hard to get the Hartan on public transport alone or in a car. We switched to a new Joie Literax last year and have been super happy. It doesnt cost as much as other expensive brands and the build quality is extremely good (I am talking old town cobbled roads here). You have time to keep an eye on discounts or find used ones.
Tip #3 : We did not compromise on diapers, went with a subscription instead to get a discount. The effort to manage reusable diapers was far too much on two very tired parents.
Tip #4 : Goal based saving. I estimated these costs for the 1st year and noted them down. In the run up to the birth, I have specifically saved everything.
Tip #5 : You do not need to buy everything rightaway, there is a big marketing push to make you feel inadequate parent if you dont by X or Y. The child doesnt need this stuff, all it needs is your time, food and zillions of diaper changes. So do not buy more things than you absolutely need for the first month. Everyhting else should be done later as needed.
Tip #6 : We chose for one of us to go part time (still at 80% after 3 years). The one with lower income did that.
Tip#7 : I am sitting in Germany, cannot compare but daycare costs really killed us. Easily till this year, 70% of my wife’s income was going to the daycare. We wondered whether it would have been better to just not work then. However, we believe that losing on current work experience for 3 years of temporary support is a mistake in the long term.
The point about everyone having advice really rings true!!! We’re really surprised by how many people have offered us ‘tips’ so far! The most frustrating thing is people saying “you know nothing yet” etc.
At the minute, our intention is to try and go pram-free by mainly baby-carrying.
Tip #5 is a really good point too. The marketing is very over the top! Hopefully with our frugal tendencies we’re able to avoid these traps. It’s easy to see how most fall for it though!
On Tip #7, this is the big dilema for us. As you say, childcare costs are a real killer. Fortunately, with our current plan, Miss Way should be able to maintain enough work to keep her in the loop. This means she shouldn’t miss out on any ‘career progression’ as such. Mr Way is hoping to go down to 4 days. This could affect career progression at his (very old fashioned) company, but at the minute we value family time much more highly than careers.
Thanks again for your comments, they’re really helpful!
One thing is sure when it is born. Everything will be different. Then you will realize that most of the things you wrote here will not go as planned.
Firstly Congratulations! I could have written the same post not that long ago. And I could write another post in response!
In terms of costs I’ve written 2 posts on our experience with this (before and 1 year after baby arrived) https://thegreencanuck.wixsite.com/zero-waste/single-post/2018/05/13/Minimalist-Baby-Prep and https://mrsmoneyhacker.com/year-1-baby-costs/
I’m also in the process of writing a post along the lines of options we are considering in terms of working arrangements. Once baby arrives your priorities will change. For me I was determined to reach FI as soon as possible and determined to keep progressing my career, but now it’s more about living a simpler lower stress life (which is our ultimate goal for reaching FI in the first place), and with a baby, that can mean one parent staying home for longer than you may have intended. We are still playing things by ear but it’s nice to have options. Some of the options we are considering are outlined in this post: https://mrsmoneyhacker.com/shortcuts-to-financial-independence/ (sorry for all the links). All I’ll say is keep an open mind and you can always try cutting hours and then go back if it doesn’t work for you. Employers who have kids are far more understanding of time off requests and flexible hours requests than you may think. I have had discussions with managers since having a baby and never knew they felt that way. They are much more understanding than you’d think and you’ll never know unless you ask.
We do cloth nappies as well as elimination communication (holding baby over a potty when you think they are going to go – you will soon know your baby’s cue’s) – we wouldn’t have it any other way, you never run out and the laundry isn’t that much – though definitely having a nappy sprayer helps. If you have any other questions on this please do give me a shout.
Myself and my husband used to split everything 50/50 too and had some interesting discussions on how to split things once I was off for an extended period of time. Eventually, as I am not a big spender, we settled on hubby covering my costs as it was not much more than he’d have been paying for childcare and he got a cook and a housekeeper for the same price (though those things were never expected of me) 😉
As for NCT classes, we did splurge for gentlebirth classes as I was opting for a homebirth and my midwife recommended they would be more my style than the free ones provided by the health service, I do feel they really helped my husband and I build confidence around what to expect and gave useful tips for my husband to do during labour which really really helped both our confidence. We also did make like minded friends who I spent a lot of time with while on maternity leave. You could likely find similar friends through local parenting groups on Facebook though.
Hope that wasn’t too much to take in, and if you want to chat further I’d be happy to 🙂 Congrats again.
Thank you so much for this comment! We’re in the process of reading all of your links (and your entire blog, actually!!).
We’ll get back to you with a proper response once we have fully digested everything you said – we have so many questions!
Again, thank you. We look forward to chatting further!
Aw no problem. I’m flattered you are reading away 🙂 I know it can be so overwhelming trying to figure everything out but you will be amazed how much comes naturally and you just figure it out as you go. Feel free to contact me through any time with questions.
I found your blog accidently. Thank you for doing a great job!
As a parent of three cute girls, I just want to give my 2 cents.
Kids are the best thing in life which will happen to you both. Embrace that. Responsibility will not stop you, it will encourage you.
Don’t worry. Just wait and get ready to change yourself. For the better. You will be a great parent.
Thanks for your encouragement. We are really excited about the journey ahead of us!