INDfamily

VALERIE WOERNER: Budgeting for baby

by Valerie Woerner

How to put finances in order, plan for maternity leave and become a realist on expanding our nest

Photo by Ashleigh Jayne

When Tyler and I found out we were having Vivi, we had some serious number crunching to do. Since we are both business owners, we get an insane amount of joy from crunching the numbers. But we also had other motives besides sheer euphoria. There would be no maternity leave pay and my income would definitely change once our little girl was here so we definitely had to be on our best behavior spending wise.

First thing I did was put together an excel sheet of all the things we needed before her arrival. This is similar to what is on a registry but we included EVERYTHING we could think of: hospital bills, decorating her space, photography sessions, announcements (because there would of course be pretty announcements) and more.

One thing that really helped early on was the idea that we honestly didn't have room for a bunch of stuff besides the necessities. We are in a two-bedroom apartment and the idea of purchasing crazy amounts of clothes or hair bows was not on our radar.

If you are looking to keep your baby budget manageable and HAVE the space, it will be a little tougher. You may just have to mentally close off a room in your house that you won't breakdown and fill with tiny treasures.

Next, I read a book called Baby Bargains. This book was so great. I honestly don't know how people plan a registry or buy things for a baby without this book without going insane. Kudos to you if you did!! The book goes over every type of product you could need and talk about whether it's truly a need and also your best options with three pricing tiers. This was incredibly helpful.

Download your own copy of a blank version you can use here. I've also included a sheet for Excel and Numbers users.

Please excuse any excel errors. I am not proficient in excel so there may be quicker shortcuts you have than what I've done.

I hope this will be helpful to anyone getting ready for their first bebe.