Starting a family? — a Baby Fund — it is a must!

Thoughts of starting a family? Want to bring a child into the world?

Did you know hospital cost for a baby at the hospital is costly? Expenses start right in the beginning of it in the first few minutes of their life at the hospital. Epidurals alone are costly!

My husband and I agree’d we would set a goal and start putting away money for a baby fund.

Ways we were able to save up:

• Using the Yearly Excel Bullet Journal Budget Tracker

The yearly excel bullet journal budget tracker has 4 different areas of the bullet budget tracker. It has a section for giving, savings, expenses, and spending. The section to make our baby fund successful was the giving and savings. To get yours now and use it for your savings goal, click here.

Looking back on our giving and savings areas, when we gave to others in a way of finances our savings also grew the same or even doubled. It is like the Bible verse Matthew 25: 16 – 21. It talks about how God gave the servant 5 coins and it was doubled. God asked the servant what he did with them and he told him it was doubled. He told the servant he was a good and faithful servant and that he would put him in charge of much more, and to also go with him and share the happiness. Remember to flip it quickly — if God gives you something like a raise, a good bonus, something worth of value unexpectedly to give something quickly to share his blessings and your happiness.

• Using the Daily Spending Tracker

The daily spending tracker allowed us to see where we were spending the most money each day. It is an easy way to see how many non-spending days you have and to see where you are spending the most money. Our daily spending tracker showed us we were spending money each day at Kroger since we both work there. It was crazy! $5 here and $10 there — it adds up!

This was a huge part of our success to tackle the area where we were spending the most to be able to save for the baby. Need to find out where you are spending the most money each week? The daily spending tracker is a helpful tool!

• Being the Bag Lunch Budgeter

Which brings us to the the bag lunch budgeter — this article gives details into ways to make bagged lunch cool. Personally, I had to convince my husband to get on the same page as me to bring lunches to work. I started to make him lunches and put little love notes in them as surprises. He loves it! I also showed him the savings we would have if he switched to bagged lunches. Win, win in my book and he was convinced! Once I was pregnant and not getting up early to pack him lunch — he packed his own lunch because he saw the savings that came with it. Successfully, we saved up $10,000 for our baby fund!

• Having a goal and date to save up by

We knew the baby was coming in January, so this was an easy check off for us. However, if you don’t know where to start. Think more about what you want the goal for is it for creating a car fund to pay for it with cash and never have a car payment again, is it for a family vacation for the summer, is it for a paid in cash Christmas, or is it for your future? When you know the goal it is a lot easier to come up with the date because as you read.. summer time – we want to take a vacation; Christmas, so this would be 100% by September to start the shopping; future, when do you want to retire?

• Setting milestones to celebrate

Make savings fun by creating a celebration whether it is a treat to not cook dinner for the evening, going out for happy hour, a spa day, treating yourself with chocolate, going for a coffee with a friend, or even just being thankful and celebrating with the good Lord!

Celebrate the hard work, the dedication, or the results you did amazing!!

Here was our WHY on saving up for a baby:

• A new reliable car

We did not want to keep the cobalt, a 2 door car, since it was not going to work for our family. We needed an SUV just in case Ember came in a middle of a snow storm. Last year, here in Virginia it was snowy and cold. We needed to know we could get out of our drive way since it is steep up incline. We wanted an all wheel drive for that reason. We knew we needed additional space for the car seat and not have to switch it from car to car. My husband has long legs!

• Family

We wanted to ensure we started out our small family without any stress. We needed to know that whatever came our way because “life happens” would be taken care of. It has also always been in my nature to save for events and if we were going to take this huge step I knew we needed a safety net.

• Doctor bills

We knew I was due in January, which meant TWO different years of deductibles for our health insurance. Our total max out of pocket is $5000 and thought we could max it out both years. Luckily, I had a smooth pregnancy and did not have any complications and it did not cost much in the first year, however the second year we have already met our deductible with Ember being born.

Added bonus we learned during the process:

• The savings

We saved 20% by paying our hospital bill before being discharged! It ended up being almost a $1000 in savings! Bonus in our book! Plus the fact we decided to have Ember without an epidural saved us a lot of money! An average epidural is over $2,000. We had a natural birth — not by planning it, but Ember came in 4 hours after my water broke and it went super fast! (It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be — and I dislike anything with pain, needles, doctors, etc) The IV was worst in my opinion.

I leaned on God a lot. Prayed. Listened to Klove radio to have her natural. My husband was a huge supporter as well. Breathing techniques — I learned the night before by @builttobirth You Tube video.

Overall, a baby fund is all about creating a routine of savings, setting a plan, and making it happen. You will be happy when you are able to enjoy the baby and not worry about the finances that come with them. You will be healthier because you are not stressing about finances. Be courageous and create a baby fund for your baby!

If you are not a subscriber to our blog, please join us in our journey! Tiny living with a baby, budgeting to learn to save more, live your best life, and enjoy what God created for us! Life is not over — it is just beginning!