My wife is freaking out since she’s getting close to 35 which is considered a geriatric pregnancy.
Hypothetically, I’m wondering how much would we need to have a child responsibly?
Doesn’t it cost like $10K to birth a child with insurance? And then maybe $20K in savings for its first year? So like $30K?
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It’s probably around 1-2 million for 18 years of life these days.
Enough to raise and support the most high risk and support needs twins from birth until they day they die of old age.alone, without any other income, ever
In our area birth is approx $20k. With insurance it was our max deductible which is $5k. While you’ll likely never feel it is enough, I wouldn’t feel comfortable without an emergency fund of $10k or so, but many people make due with much less.
When my son was born I didn’t even have a bank account. No regrets.
I found the initial years doesn’t really cost all that much. Once the kid gets older then the expenses can weigh you down if you’re income isn’t high enough. Classes and saving up for tuition would be the biggest expenses.
I do think that there’s some fault in your line of thinking. Rather than, how much money do I need before I can have a child, it is better to ask, how can I increase my income as my child grows up.
I just had a kid last year and the birth and all subsequent postnatal visits were like $1200, most of which was deductible. So the cost definitely depends on your insurance but $10k would be very high.
How much you need to raise them can vary but you don’t necessarily need to have a ton saved. Just do the math on how much extra money you all have after housing and bills and such and see if that’s enough money for childcare/formula. Those are the big costs for the first year.
What do you think you’ll need 20k in savings for? As for birth costs, just depends on your/your wife’s health insurance. I have 4 kids and based on plan that year it’s cost anywhere from 1.5k-4k.
If you have a baby shower and somewhat supportive family/friends with hand-me-downs there are very few costs outside of daycare, diapers, and potentially formula. They don’t get expensive until they start doing activities, sports, and camps.
I was 22. I think saved up 3k during the pregnancy and his mom saved 3k. We worked as restaurant servers and I delivered pizzas too. That was like 13 years ago. Rent was 850, we made maybe 2000-2500 each in tips a month, but she stopped working after the baby was born and my 2-2.5k had to carry us each month.
We were pretty broke, so some state aid and state insurance for the baby helped.
I’m sure at 35 you’re in a much better financial situation, so you probably don’t need 35k.
Also HMO insurance was awesome for a pregnancy. The whole Hospital bill was only 250 bucks copay. With a PPO plan you have to pay the whole deductible first.
Hospitals don’t repo babies, have one or don’t. If you have one, your money will be fucked but they’ll be your favorite people on earth by a mile.
Best of luck!
>Doesn’t it cost like $10K to birth a child with insurance?
Varies a lot. We have very good insurance and our total medical expense for my younger kid’s birth was probably under $1000, including prenatal care
>And then maybe $20K in savings for its first year?
If you start them in daycare right away, maybe. Daycare costs can be exorbitant.
Without daycare costs, babies are less expensive than older kids. Of course you can still spend a ton of money if you’re getting all the fancy stuff and more clothes than you actually need, etc
I max my hsa every year and didn’t have a lot of medical expenses as a twenty something dude. So, I’m sure we hit our deductible on the years we had kids but I didn’t feel it at all – the money was saved.
I don’t know a good answer for your question though. I mean, I think I felt like at $100k/yr I was a big boy and could do whatever. In retrospect, it is somehow both true that we need way more money than that and that we would have made it work with much less.
I would think mostly about childcare. How are you going to do childcare. Are you ready for that expense, or is someone staying home, do you have family help, etc.
But if you want kids, you’ll make it work.
$25,000 – $30,000
Income and overall situation matters more than money in the bank.
$10k for the birth seems pessimistic. If it’s an uncomplicated birth it will be a fraction of that, and hospitals are are pretty flexible/reasonable in how you pay it off.
I didn’t find the birth/newborn stage to be much of a cash crunch.
My wife and I had zero dollars in the bank and did just fine. Many folks do.
100k
I had negative net worth.
A million
Does not matter. Had my first kid at 23 my wife was 21. Some days were a struggle but stuck to a budget. Babies are cheap. Teenagers are at more expensive
People way overestimate what you need. Remember people in the worst places with no money have children and they have a decent life and grow up to be good people.
I don’t remember 10k for birth but maybe it’s true? I thought insurance covered most. Things cost some money. You don’t need all of it saved up either but it’s probably wise to have a chunk.
God, I am so happy I live in a country with universal healthcare and paid parental leave. Like, I don’t even want kids, but I feel so bad for Americans that need to add the stresses of these costs on top of an already stressful time.
500k
My (35m) wife (36f) and I just had our first child 4 months ago. There are a ton of doctors appointments during pregnancy that were fairly expensive and the birth was expensive too. We hit our out-of-pocket maximum, but if we didn’t, the whole thing would have come out to around 15k after insurance. We live in Atlanta for reference.
With all of that being said, it’s not just the cost of healthcare that’s expensive. Childcare is outrageous (350-400 bucks a week). Diapers, clothes, etc can be costly as well. Having 30k in savings is a great start, but costs don’t just magically stop after the first year. You’ll need to have all of that extra money, every year, until your child is taking care of themselves as an adult.
My wife and I had our first when I was 23 and broke. Shit worked out. The whole needing a bunch of money saved to have a kid is bs
Depends on your insurance for the birth. Kids are expensive yes. But it varies wildly. I find that most people provide what they can. If you have a lot, you spend a lot. If you have a little, you spend a lot less. There is a minimum of course and I think it would be really hard to raise a child if you struggle to provide basic necessities. But as long as you have a steady income that is secure and a good place to live, I wouldn’t let money keep you from having a child if you really want one. I was 35 when I had our daughter. And I fell into that trap that I had to have everything just right before hand. And in reality, nothing is ever just right. It just kind of works out.
I didn’t have shit
I have two children. Whatever you think the amount is, it isn’t enough.
It depends where you are. We were in Canada, the birth and healthcare was free and with a year of parental leave, we just have a tighter budget, but zero additional savings required and no childcare costs in the first year.
zero dollars
You’re over thinking it
I would need a 6-month emergency fund, plus a 6-month child care fund, plus 50k minimum just to have the first year covered.
Having children is not really a financial plan. It’s certainly a lifestyle change. Don’t wait. Get in there and let your life be changed
Depends on insurance, depends on the kind of lifestyle you want. As a new Dad I would say don’t wait, thus far it is the most tiring and fulfilling I have ever felt in life.
If you wait to have enough money you’ll never be ready. If you wait to be ready, you’ll never be ready. If you want kids they happen when the time comes.
kids….money in the bank……seriously….does not compute but that was just my life. Maybe 250k.
Are you okay with never having children if you don’t meet a certain income threshold?
Daycare. You should be worried about daycare.
Babies are more of a cash flow concern than an amount in savings problem.
Do you have enough income to cover child care OR can one of you support a stay at home parent with lost wages? If so, that’s the worst of it.
More than I did with 2 kids so far. Yet they survived and our family thrived.
If you have good insurance, it’s manageable. The better the insurance, the more manageable it is. You’ll need to spend some money on things like a crib, onesies, toys, stroller, car seats etc. A lot of those things can be hand me downs or picked up on the cheap via thrifting. If you choose to go new everything you can start shopping for stuff early. None of it will break the bank.
Diapers and formula can run some money but you’ll manage.
Your real expenses come as kid gets older. Daycare is an absolute motherfucker of an expense. It’s like paying full rent each month or more. $1200-$1600 / mo is not unheard of – no joke. If you have local family you can lean on, especially grandparents, siblings or cousins, this can be a huge advantage.
If you’re not able to make your budget work on one income, that’s generally where things get tricky.
As someone else said, there’s no good time – you just do it because you’re committed to having a family.
Good luck!
It depends on your income more so. Our first cost around 3k which was the max deductible and the second was 5-6k.
The first 5 years you will be spending on potentially childcare, diapers, and formula/baby food. You can get a lot of toys/clothes from Nextdoor/Facebook for free since kids outgrow them so fast they’re still good. We were lucky and got lots of hand me downs from relatives.
Once you get to public school, costs likely go down. You’ll be paying for extra curricular like a sport, and they’ll generally be eating more, but they’ll be eating whatever you eat at that point. You may also be willing to go on more vacations since they’ll now be able to understand and enjoy it. I still think childcare is potentially the largest expense at around 2k a month where I live.
Nobody is every ready to have kids.
If she’s 35 better hurry up. Just do it. You’ll figure it out. It’s not as hard as you think. Move closer to family, get another job, etc
You’re not the first person in the world to not have tens of thousands in the bank when they had a kid lol
You probably should not have a kid if you need to dip into savings to do it. That’s simply not sustainable.
As a backup? Sure, but you should not plan on needing it.
My wife and I had ok jobs at the time. And we just decided we were gonna figure it out. We had our little 1,200 sf home and probably less than $20,000 in the bank.
We did figure it out. And having a kid was the biggest professional motivator of my life. My income exploded after I started having kids.
Your wife is right. People just assume they can get pregnant when they want, but it becomes increasingly harder as you get older.
There will never ever ever be a time when you’ll be most comfortable financially to have a child. It will always be a struggle.
Just wait until they’re college age, then the pain really starts….
Just do it now. 22-24 years from now (given that you’re probably also close to 35) you’re going to want to be thinking about retirement – after putting 2 of them through college, I can tell you that the longer you wait, the more painful that thought will become.
Pro tip: you will never feel totally ready or like you have enough money. Depending on your insurance, you might not have to pay anything. My daughter was born and spent 10 weeks in the NICU; came home with a $250k bill and I paid none of it. She is 19 now and I still don’t feel like I’m ready to be a parent!
A million in ETF indexes.
I won’t have a child until I can comfortably say that the child will be set for life.
Fortunately, for men there’s no such thing as geriatric sperm. Worst case you get 14% more likelihood for autism. Or you can freeze sperm as I have at 27.