Save for the baby!

Glory Enyinnaya

When expecting a new baby, it becomes important to find extra ways to save money for a baby and cut expenses. This article offers a few suggestions for cutting expenses and increasing savings.

Overview

When you are expecting a baby or have a newborn, finding extra ways to save money for the baby becomes very important. There are many more expenses to account for, including daycare, medical bills, diapers and formula, clothing and extra food. By taking small steps early on and forming new habits, you will be able to set enough money aside to account for these additional expenses without seeing a drastic change in income. It is important to not only cut down on expenses, but to also put that money away into savings. Depending on your personal situation, you can choose to do all or just one or two of these ideas. The key is to review your monthly expenses and think creatively and honestly about what you can and cannot cut.

1. Cutting Expenses

The first step to finding extra ways to set money aside for the baby is to find expenses that you can cut. The following are a few ideas to cut expenses:

• Eat out less. This is a habit you might need to break. It might be eating out for lunch every day, or it might be getting that expensive coffee every morning. Most people have some form of expensive eating habit they can cut back on. If you can save five hundred naira a day on your eating habits, then that adds up to N15,000 a month.
• Stop smoking. If you are a smoker looking to save money for the baby, you have several good reasons to quit. Again, if you smoke a pack a day, then you could easily save about N15,000 a month.
• Cut out cable or satellite TV. This is a hard decision for many people, but cable television is not a necessity for living, and can be very expensive. Cutting this expense could save between N5,000 to N15,000 per month depending on your package. Also, if you have both cellular phones and a home phone, you might consider cutting one of them from the budget. This could also save between N3,000 toN10,000 per month.
• Refinance. If interest rates are better that when you first got you home or car loans, and if your credit is in good standing, then you might consider refinancing. Try not to extend your payments when refinancing, because that will cost you more over the long run. However, if you can refinance at a lower rate for the same amount of time, then you can save money in the short and long term.

Once you cut expenses, then it is time to start saving. If you are expecting a baby, then the savings might be for the delivery costs. If you have a new baby, then you might be saving for child care or pre-school. The following are some hints to make it easier to save:

1. Forced savings. One of the hardest things to do when you free up extra money is to not spend it. It is especially hard not to spend the extra money when you are looking at all of the baby room items, clothes and toys. A way to avoid this is to force yourself to save. To do this, set up a dedicated baby savings account, and schedule money to transfer into it from your current account on a regular basis. Generally, you can schedule money to transfer on the same day that you get paid, this way you never see the money and won’t miss it.
2. Act as if you are already paying expenses. If you are planning on regular monthly expenses in the future that you must account for, then start paying them now, but pay yourself rather that the other person. Take this planned monthly expense and put that money into savings. This way you will start building savings early, and when you really do have to start making the monthly payments it will be easier because you are already used to it.

Summary

With a little planning and self control, you can find many extra ways to save money for the baby. It is important to first find ways to cut your expenses, and then remember to put the extra money into a savings account for the future.