You hear a lot of figures thrown around about how expensive it is to raise a child.
Here’s a dissenting view.
Many modern sources you look to will not give you the impression that having a baby is affordable. For example, Deborah Pike Olsen writes from the website, babycenter.com, “You’ll spend almost $10,000 on your baby’s first year, according to the thousands of moms who took BabyCenter’s exclusive survey.” On the CanadianFinanceBlog.com Tom Drake provides a “reasonable expectation” of the costs the first year as $11,025. His breakdown is Food: $1646, Clothing: $1879, Health Care: $154, Child Care: $4,990, Shelter, Furnishings, Household Operations: 2,356.
Straight away, you can tell where the savings are going to come from!
One thing many new moms don’t account for (and how can you?) is the utter generosity of everyone around you when you’re going to have a baby! It’s amazing. People will ask what you need, will drop off baby clothes and equipment, will hold surprise baby showers and elderly neighbours you’ve never even talked to will knit blankets and booties for your little one. Babies in the womb and out seem to emit some sort of compulsion field that causes everyone around them to want to give something. Now this compulsion also affects the mother, but she should try to restrain herself a little bit from buying, because the deluge of gifts will come from all sides and she most likely will have more than she needs.
It really helps if you’re part of a church community too.
Something should go here, maybe later. 