A couple of weeks ago I did the very scary thing of sitting down with Mr. B and working out how much maternity leave I can afford next year. The news wasn't good!
If I want to keep Lara in nursery full-time then we calculated that we would have to start dipping into our savings after just one month and those savings would run out in December! If we only send Lara to nursery for 3 days a week AND re-mortgage the house we worked out that this gave us another two months grace. Ug.
We started putting some plans in place for baby number two. First we looked at the changes we needed to put in place at work through HR. Did we both have quality life insurance? Do we need to make any adjustments for a larger family? Would it support both children in the event of our deaths?
What about my pension? Do I need to top it up while on maternity leave (if I could afford it!!!).
The next place we started looking was at savings accounts. When Lara was born we put in place a Child Trust Fund but those no longer exist, so we wanted to find out what the new options were - perhaps a Junior ISA when they come into being? We also wanted to budget for regular and long-term savings for the baby in the same way that we do for Lara.
I guess that every family is different when it comes to financial incomings and outgoings for a family but when it comes to planning we are (or at least should be) all the same - it is important to understand what you CAN afford and what the impact of another child is going to be on your wallet and your way of life. For me, it is important to get all of these plans sorted NOW, well in advance of the due date because when it comes to April next year, mortgages, savings, life insurance and pensions are not going to be high on my list and it would be silly to get into financial difficulty at what is supposed to be such a happy time.
If I want to keep Lara in nursery full-time then we calculated that we would have to start dipping into our savings after just one month and those savings would run out in December! If we only send Lara to nursery for 3 days a week AND re-mortgage the house we worked out that this gave us another two months grace. Ug.
We started putting some plans in place for baby number two. First we looked at the changes we needed to put in place at work through HR. Did we both have quality life insurance? Do we need to make any adjustments for a larger family? Would it support both children in the event of our deaths?
What about my pension? Do I need to top it up while on maternity leave (if I could afford it!!!).
The next place we started looking was at savings accounts. When Lara was born we put in place a Child Trust Fund but those no longer exist, so we wanted to find out what the new options were - perhaps a Junior ISA when they come into being? We also wanted to budget for regular and long-term savings for the baby in the same way that we do for Lara.
I guess that every family is different when it comes to financial incomings and outgoings for a family but when it comes to planning we are (or at least should be) all the same - it is important to understand what you CAN afford and what the impact of another child is going to be on your wallet and your way of life. For me, it is important to get all of these plans sorted NOW, well in advance of the due date because when it comes to April next year, mortgages, savings, life insurance and pensions are not going to be high on my list and it would be silly to get into financial difficulty at what is supposed to be such a happy time.
This is a sponsored post but that doesn't stop it being fun to read!
