You need to know how to budget differently when starting a family

Starting a family is an exciting, and often startling, change to your life. But it’s not all baby smiles, unicorns and quality family time.

Besides the endless diapers and midnight crying sessions, your new baby can put a huge strain on your wallet.

The team at Remitbee Online Money Transfer includes many parents, both new and old. These are some tips we wish we knew how to budget differently when starting a family!

Assess Income and Outgoings

If you’re thinking that having a baby is going to be hard work, but ultimately something you can afford… you might want to think again.

Did you know that to raise a child from birth to 18 years of age, it will cost you CA$257,364!

Hopefully, that should put you in the mood for some serious budgeting.

Start by writing down all your income and all of your outgoings. How much is left?

It might become obvious that you need to save more money.

Then Ignore the Rules!

You might have heard of the 50/30/20 rule. 50% of your income should go to needs (bills, rent, food…), 30% can be spent on your wants (date night, family outings, holidays), and 20% should be saved in a bank account or used to pay off debts.

Well, we hate to break it to you, but having a baby tends to throw all the rules out of the window! It’s hard to budget, particularly when this is your first baby.

So, How Should I Budget?

First of all, you need to save in advance. That first month, there are going to be unexpected costs.

Some babies, for example, will only settle down to sleep when they’ve driven around in a car. We bet you didn’t calculate in extra fuel costs when planning a baby!

So, our best tip for you here is to put aside money for all the usual bills (rent etc.), then have a decent-sized savings pot AND your baby budget. Just to cover all the possible scenarios.

Bonus Tip: add these to your list of desired gifts for your baby shower, to see if your friends will lend you a hand buying these!

Then there are recurring costs that will change from one month to the next:

• Food

• Clothes

• Diapers, wipes and other cleaning supplies

Head to the grocery store with a calculator to add up how much these will cost.

Finally, our last tip to you is to just enjoy the ride! Having a baby and starting a family is one huge rollercoaster with ups and downs.

Your new family is now your priority, we understand that. But we also know that you don’t want to forget your family back in your origin country. That’s one of the reasons why we offer FREE international money transfers when you send over $500 using Remitbee Wallet.

Soon you’ll be changing diapers as quick as you can transfer money with Remitbee!