It’s September 2015, and I’d just witnessed the birth of my baby girl. The experience was surreal yet amazing (Thank you, Mrs Chikami).
The truth is, I wasn’t ready financially or mentally. The enormous responsibility that this little human would bring into our life. Yes, we’d bought the buggy, the nappies, the car seat and the Moses basket.
“I’d introduced a baby into this world without a plan.”
Financially, I was just winging it like every other occasion, at least back then. I took every financial decision as it came and figured it out as I went along. I thought this was normal life.
Most things have a way of working themselves out, but it’s not really a strategy to live by, especially if it’s affecting your newborn and their future.
I believe my wife had gone on maternity leave two weeks before giving birth, so our household income would soon drop and we had zero savings. When that happened, we got 90% of her average weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks, then £172.48 a week for the next 33 weeks.
I hadn’t planned for any of those financial changes, let alone the following 5 years of childcare costs and nursery fees.
“The average cost of nursery in the UK is around £280 per week.”
It’s a lot of money to add to your weekly budget, but it’s possible to get assistance by checking the government website. From the age of 3, a child gets 30 hours free per week, which is really helpful for most families.
My biggest financial takeaway on becoming a new dad was to prepare way in advance for what’s inevitably coming 9 months down the road. Failure to prepare, is preparing to fail, as they say, and this failure isn’t something that you can easily brush off.
Being a new parent can be very challenging alone.
“Financial stress can be a total disaster to your family setting.”
After you celebrate the pregnancy about 3 months on, it’s always a good idea to sit down with your partner and just go through the numbers and discuss your living, childcare and lifestyle arrangements.
It’s always good to know how this joyful new chapter of your lives will be financed, so it doesn’t take away the best parts of becoming a new parent.
