Finances once bub is born?

Hello amykt

I am in a very similar situation to you, in the planning stages and spending time in the waiting to TTC thread.

With DH's salary we will have enough to cover the mortgage without mine, however at the moment I have a loan to clear before I can take any time off.

I worked out on WFF that if I earn nothing we get $70 per week, and if I earn over 21k per year we get nothing.

Daycare is approx $5 an hour , so returning to work needs to be enough $$ to make it worth while.

With PPL, AL and some savings we can probably manage up to the 7-8 months mark.

It actually seems easier to work less, once they're 3 and qualify for the 20 hours

Almost all the places in Palmy and the area around do do the 20 hours free.

See your banka nd see if you can hav a mortgage holiday for a few months, that will help you and get you at home for a few extra months.

Planning for finances is kind of tricky.

We started to put money aside when we were ttc, but as per usual things just come along that start to eat it up, we started overpaying the mortgage instead as you can pull back at any stage and that seems to have done well.

I am going to take 6 months off in total, possibly a month or two longer as the daycare we are after doesn't have a space until later (fyi book in to your chosen daycare early)

We have also been buying things as we go along so whilst we have two incomes, things like nappies and so on, so that we don't have to squish that into the weekly shop once we are on one income.

YAY finances... this is a really stressful subject.

DH and I have increased our mortgage repayments whilst we still have two incomes. It makes it tight but this will be something we need to get used to whilst on one income and we are saving some huge money in interest.

Our plans are that when we go down to one income for a short period we will reduce our repayments back to the minimum. This will be less than the usual minimum repayments as we will be ahead on the mortgage if that makes sense.

Mortgage holidays are a great idea but make sure you are aware of how a holiday will affect you in the future.

The big issue is that the interest on your mortgage continues to build up during your repayment holiday.

This means that if you have not paid any extra previously on your loan you will have no room to extend the term of your loan (ie further thant the 25 or 30 years you signed up for)   Therefore you need to make up the holiday and in most cases this means that your repayments afterwards will slightly increase. This of course isn't an issue if you are going back onto two incomes.

Taking a mortgage holiday is a great way to reduce expenses for a short period of time however it is important to find out all the details. There is sometimes more to mortgage holidays than what appears on the surface.

Going interest only is another option because your loan doesn't grow like with a mortgage holiday. HOWEVER it may not reduce your repayments a great detail.

You can discuss all these options with your banker to see what options are available.

Wow what a novel... boring financial stressful stuff.

I'm pg with our fourth child but as of late last year, I'm the primary earner while DH is SAHD. Not our original plan but it does seem to work. Anyway, we are looking at getting a boarder in from now until when baby is due, to help us with some extra savings. I looked into a mortgage holiday but because the interest would keep accumulating, it would cost us quite a bit. So I went to our Bank and asked them to compare it with a personal loan or overdraft. It seems that an overdraft (for the amount of 3mos payments) will actually work better for us but the catch is that we'd have to pay it off much earlier than if we had a mtg holiday.

Anyway, I'll have PPL for 3mos but IMO that isn't quite enough time to settle a baby in (as solids are introduced at around 4mos and that's when the sleeping settles down) so we are aiming for 6mos off in total - maybe 5mos if things settle down better than I'm expecting - noting of course that I won't really be able to go back to work until DH is ready for 4. But I think 5-6mos will work fine. We're saving as hard as poss from now until then but if we run short, we'll utilise the overdraft facility.

I returned to work when Gina was 3 months old but was lucky that my gran could look after her. She started going to daycare for 2 days a week when she turned 1 and now goes full time - and loves it.
I returned at 80% or 32 hours a week - part of that time I work from home so it works out great.
I'm returning to work next week - Emma is nearly 5 months old - and will be working at 80% again.

I finish at Xmas and am due 26 Jan. Go back to work 4th May and DH is home for 6 weeks. Then bubs needs to go into full time care. $1000.00 per month. Ouch but still more economical to work.

We lived on one income while I was pregnant so in effect we should have "saved" the other....not too sure where that went!

My wee boy is 8 months today and we are starting to find it tight but that has only been in the last 2 -3 weeks. In fairness, I am working 6 hours a week and we are using that money to pay for a overseas holiday in Sept.

I am a teacher and don't want to disrupt the kids so am waiting to start back in the new year so DS will be going into full time day care at 14 months. The decision was made for me to go back full time for 2-3 terms while pregnant with #2. That way we can afford for me to be off work for 2 years.

yeah we will be in the same boat when we have a baby... I will probably only get to have 6 months off max.. but that is life i suppose

we are trying to save at the moment and pay off all our little debts so just leaves the mortgage to pay

I am paying extra on mortgage at the moment too so the principal is paid off faster and once off the mortgage holiday we will be paying extra to reduce the interest. I know that this is not ideal but I am confident that we can catch up so not too woriied about it. But yah pays to know what you are in for!