Baby number three is now three weeks old. She is beautiful and is doing great. Mommy and I have spent many of the hours since she was born just holding her, enjoying her little baby sighs. She sleeps four to five hours at a time and enjoys her baby swing. Big sister and big brother love her – and are ready for her to “play dolls and ride the hot wheel”.
We find that we are spending less on gasoline, because we are staying home instead of going out. But, our electric bill will probably be sky high. It’s getting hot down south and we wash about five hundred loads of laundry a day. I find that I spend a little more on toys for our other kids, in order to entertain and reward them while we care for ‘little bit’. We have well water, so we buy baby water to mix with baby’s formula. And, formula is expensive! Thankfully, we have a closet full of diapers – gifts from our baby shower.
All in all, I’m not quiet sure what the final impact of the new baby will be on our finances. We created a budget, based on our assumptions, before she was born. Over the next few months, we’ll be able to better shape our budget, to match the actual realities of our expenses. But, no matter the ‘costs’ – she’s worth it!
When creating our budget, I always tend to overestimate our expenses. That way, at the end of the month, I always have a little money left over that can be deposited in our savings account. Since we are living on one income this month, it’s more important than ever that we stick to our budget. If we have ‘extra’ at the end of this month, we will have done something!
One nice thing about having two other children already, we didn’t have to buy a lot of new baby items. We are using our first daughter’s baby crib and our son’s baby swing. We did purchase a few things for the new baby, like a stroller and a new changing table, but most of the new things we have came from friends and family members, as gifts. By the way, our friends and family members did a great job of buying us quality, useful items for the baby. We received diapers, baby bags, outfits, and gift cards – practical items that we needed.
I printed out our baby announcements today. My wife has a little printer that makes awesome 4 X 6 prints. I downloaded three pictures from our digital camera and used them to create a neat little announcement card. My wife purchased some envelopes from a local shop and I’m going to print addresses on them tomorrow. We’ll send out the announcements Friday. While baby announcements aren’t ‘necessities’ – they ARE important to my wife. And so, baby announcements are in our budget and baby announcements are going to be sent! 🙂
Just a little frugal suggestion: Breast-feeding the baby is a much more economical choice than formula. It also has numerous health benefits for mother and child. Even though your wife will be going back to work in the fall – the four or five months nursing will give your little baby wonderful immunities and customized nutrition that formula can’t match – not to mention the costs savings. Just my $0.02!
Good choice on the baby announcements – my kids are 13,12,9 and 6. Those little keepsakes – like baby books and birth announcements are priceless treasures now. SO glad we took the time and money to make those memories!
If it’s not too late to re-lactate, I agree with the above poster about the economics of baby feeding. Furthermore, the bonding and health benefits to mother and baby are incredible. Extended breastfeeding may even protect against breast cancer!
Some more unsolicited advice: Don’t buy that fluoride-tainted expensive bottled “baby water” in plastic jugs! (Not to mention the BPA in them!) Google the dangers of fluoride, the fluoride deception, etc.
We are on a well also, and simply filter our water through the Aqua Rain gravity filter. It removes impurities and is so good! My baby drinks it too. 😉
Congrats, again. 🙂
I’ve mentioned this several times in other posts, but we prefer baby formula.
I’ll definitely be reading along for your tips on economizing with the new addition. Friends of mine recently had a new addition as well… he’s 5 weeks old 🙂 and I’ll be passing along any good tidbits to them.
I am curious. Why then, do you prefer powdered-soy-based baby formula to mothers milk?
I’m surprised you are using formula and disposable diapers. For some reason, I assumed otherwise. It’s funny how we make these assumptions!
My wife takes a medication so her doctor suggested, way back w/ baby number one, that we go with formula. And, as far as disposable diapers – ummm, yeah, as long as they make ’em, we’ll use ’em. 🙂
Hey NCN,
I would avoid the baby water and get distilled water.. The baby water has stuff in it that I would not want my son to drink. We used distilled water for his formula…
Congrats on #3
Congratulations on baby number 3! It is good that you have a budget to start with and so much given by friends and relatives. That saves so much to start with. Hopefully because you have had 2 other kids and have so many generous friends you will continue to have hand me downs available as she grows up too and the costs won’t be as high as with the first two. Overall, it’s expensive to have kids these days but the payoff in having a great family is priceless.