I'm partly asking because it seems like many Hellobees are more affluent, and partly because we're not TTC and I'd like to see what families that have decided they are "ready" for a baby make. (And yes, I know, you're never ready.) So answer the anonymous poll! If you are brave, go ahead and comment, and say what you and your SO do!
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we decided we were ready when my husband got out of "school"....
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I'm a SAHM and my DH owns a software development consulting firm!
My pregnancy wasn't planned. We weren't going to TTC for another 5 years or so. -
Right now we both work full time at somewhat entry level jobs, and we both are in school part time, 6 credits per semester, and I chose that we make between 50-75k a year. we make just around 60k....for the midwest isn't bad at all just starting off. Once I finish school that should bump up as well. I'm working on my degree in accounting
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Our household income is $150-200k (though, closer to 150k than 200k). We were not “ready” until we made well over $100k a year, owned a home, had paid down the majority of household debt (both mortgage and student loans), and had a certain amount in savings that we determined we would feel “safe” with (outside of decent 401k, and emergency savings of 1 year's bills). My husband is a professor and I am the corporate paralegal for a private company.
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No $0 category?
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My husband is a high-school English teacher (with tenure, and when he finished his Master's a couple of years ago he got a salary bump.) He makes slightly more than I do. I do publicity and marketing in higher education.
We're in the 75-100k category, have some savings, but in New York City, it's not enough for us to have the lifestyle we could have if we moved elsewhere.
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I just wanted to add as well, that we don't own a house, and we have 40k+ in student loans right now. So we are no where near "baby ready" we would love to pay off all of our student loans and then buy a house before baby, but I don't know if I will be able to hold off that long
But we're both only 23 so we're still young!
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@mrbee: I made a <$25,000 category but I think the < made the poll reject it! I added it again at the end. Should we be worried about you and Mrs. Bee if you have to ask about the $0 option?
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I don't have an income currently. My husband makes about $500,000 a year as a CEO of an international company. I don't want to say the category of company since I blabber too much anyway haha! We knew from the start that we wanted children but I was less concerned with money than with how often he is gone overseas. The home base is in Asia so he has to split his time between here and there. All that aside, I grew up in a family that maybe made $50,000 a year on a good year and we are all happy and loved. I would have had children if I married a waiter
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We definitely wanted to wait until we paid off some more debt that we have but this little surprise came at a great time. We just moved for my husband to start a new job. I don't work right now and I may get a temporary job if I can find an assignment for a few months before the baby is born. But even if I don't, we decided we'll be more than fine.
My husband is an electrical field construction engineer/planner. He makes $62,400 a year but also gets a per diem that adds about $30,000 a year onto his base salary (so total around $92,000). He also has been doing really well so he may (hopefully!) get a raise/slight promotion in a couple of months. This beats last year when we were both working (I was full time, he was part time) and we were making about $25,000 combined.
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We are in the $150,000 to $200,000 range. My husband is a teacher and I am an attorney. We are going to start TTC in January. We wanted to wait until we had a decent amount in savings. I work for a small firm so my maternity leave is horrible and will most likely have to take some of it unpaid. Since I am the breadwinner in the family we wanted to make sure that we would be ok without my income for a few months. We finally feel that we are ready.
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@daniellemybelle: Ah I'll look into that issue with "<" characters. Thanks!
Haha no, Hellobee is just getting started.
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@ecogirl: You can just tell me the name of the company. HAHA. My DH's gonna be traveling all of Jan and Feb too!
He'll be gone Sun-Fri. I get him for one day a week.
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We decided we were ready once we moved back from living overseas and purchased a house. The next step was baby!
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@daniellemybelle: maybe 0-25000?
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@Chopsuey119 Haha!
I would fall for that too! Isn't it so difficult when they travel so much? -
@ecogirl: He's taking off for 3 days on Sunday. The thought of being alone with my LO is killing me softly already. Sucks because I get scared being home alone (without DH) at night!
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I was working, but lost my job at 3 months pregnant, so now I am SAHM, and DH is a mechanic. He makes 40-50K yearly.
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I work as a support manager at a small software company and my husband works at a bank in credit analysis. We make a decent living (I took the poll) but don't even feel like we're going to get ahead with costs of everything going up, up, up. We're keeping a positive outlook, though and we figure we'll do what we can do and keep working towards our end goal someday (retirement)!!
We decided we couldn't wait forever to have a baby either since both of us are in our mid to upper 30's.We're figuring it out as we go.
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We are on the low end of the $75-100. I think it makes a difference where we live though, it doesn't cost nearly as much to live here then it does to live in some place like NY. I'm a SAHM and my husband is a computer programmer for the local blood bank.
We don't have a lot of money, but we have enough to cover the basics. I feel like if we waited until we had a lot of money to have the baby, we would have been waiting our whole lives. And you never know what's going to happen. We actually had a pretty good savings when I got pregnant, and then realized holy crap I'm pregnant, we need a bigger house. And there went the savings.
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My husband and I both make decent as we're both software engineers. We weren't ready to have kids until we were both done school (I got my Master's after we graduated undergrad), were married, and owned a home. Now we're just waiting for my trip to Las Vegas to come and go and we'll start!
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We decided to conceive after I was laid off and the recession started, and I couldn't find a job. I figured, if I'm gonna be on unemployment and unable to get an interview, I might as well be pregnant and a stay at home mom!
Pretty much the worst time financially to have children, but we've made sacrifices and worked hard to make it happen (I had 3 part time jobs, Rob Sr. was full time and had 3 tutoring students) because the timing was the best for us. We're of the mindset that you're never really prepared for kids financially... once we were prepared emotionally and our relationship was good and stable and a good foundation for a family to be built on, we went ahead with it.
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Just remember that a lot of the people whose incomes are on the higher end of the spectrum live in places where they might need to spend $3000/month on rent and $2000/month on daycare, so it's all kind of relative, and "what we need to have before we TTC" depends mainly on what YOU think is a necessity. (Like, if you think owning a home is a big priority for TTC, that might be more realistically accomplished for a couple living somewhere far from a big city, than for a couple making four times as much living in NYC or San Francisco).
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@Lozza that's very true. Our mortgage is substantial and everything costs a lot in NYC. It really is relative to where you live and your expenses.
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We make pretty good $ for being in MI. DH is a bank manager and I'm a proposal consultant. We bought our house before the wedding, paid for half our wedding, and have a decent amount saved in savings, retirement, insurance.
We continue to save and always feel that there's no such thing as having too much savings... being financially ready was definitely a main focus for both of us, moreso in my reasoning because I wanted to raise my credit level up significantly in the last few years. A couple months ago, I found that I'd exceeded my personal financial goals and we are now TTC
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We used to be a $200+ household but since I'm a SAHM now, we're about half that, which isn't that much in CA. Rough adjustment but we've never been extravagant with our spending. The mortgage does suck a lot of our money though. Good news is that the husband is expecting a nice promotion next year
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We're on the mid-to-high end range of this poll, but we live in a very expensive part of the country (SF Bay Area). I feel like we currently live comfortably but not extravagantly at all. We won't be saving much once baby comes along, and it's pretty much not possible for us to have savings at all if we have a second baby.
Luckily my career is on an upward trajectory right now, and there's a good chance we will be moving to a much cheaper part of the country in the near future.
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I have been really stressed about this lately! I feel like DH and I both need to get big raises this year if we are ever going to be able to afford daycare. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure I will be getting very little if not no raise since my department didn't do that well
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We're in the middle of the $100,000 to $150,000 range but live in a semi-pricey area. Not nearly as expensive as NYC or LA, but not cheap like many midwest and southern areas. So our combined salaries don't seem like nearly enough.
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We both work in public education so we don't make as much as others. I just finished with my masters and get to make student loan payments soon. Super excited. DH started his masters but he is putting it off for now - what sucks is that in order for him to have a higher pay raise he needs to have a masters which means incurring more debt. Raises at our jobs are pretty much non-existent. I got a whopping 3% raise for the first time in 3 years and the state has to do a drastic budget cut to public education for the next fiscal year. So, no 3% raises for a while now. However, I cannot imagine working in the private/corporate sector. I love my job knowing that what I do really can make an impact on someone's life. I really don't care about money in all honesty. Just so long as I have enough to pay bills and a little extra for Starbucks and perhaps a trip once in a while I am ok
I am working on winning the lottery, however.
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Combined we make around $200k w/ DH's salary being a big chuck of that. He own a recycling company and I work in marketing and own rental properties.
When we bought our house and started budgeting for our future, we were making around $70k combined. In the past few years, DH's business has been very successful, so his salary has increased, but our expenses have remained the same (with the exception of some sporadic luxuries), so that has put us in a really good financial position to start a family. We also live in the midwest and have no student loan or consumer debt, so that helps a ton as well. -
We make about 180K combined - I'm a lawyer and DH is a medical resident. BUT we live in Boston = cha ching. Day care will be 2K a month. Yikes.
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Hubs makes a lot more than I do, but we do pretty well for our area (normal OC, not ritzy OC). We have a different situation because I still contribute $1500/month to my mom's mortgage.
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I'm a teacher with a Masters and 7 years so about $50k. DH makes a lot more than that so we're over $200k. But he's 42 so he's spent a long time getting there. He's currently the VP of an Insurance company, but will be President soon.
Money was not our reasoning since we are comfortable enough (although seriously, almost all of it is in our mortgage and his under-water previous mortgage)! Timing is our issue. I would love for our "kid" to graduate before he turns 60 : ( We're getting pretty tight on that one...
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We live on the West Coast where it isn't as expensive as NYC or SF Bay it's more than the Mid West. We make around $65,000, it's enough for a regular couple to be comfortable but we've got some added expenses (child support being a large chunk). We don't have student loans though! DH is a railroad engineer and I work as a licensed csr in insurance. Hopefully I will become a producer under my agent in 2012 after my next series of licensing an my income should double, then we will be comfortable.
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I'm in tech PR and the husband is a medical resident and we're in LA.
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Oops, I forgot to add: Rob Sr. works in grad school administration, I'm a web producer at an art museum. For two jobs in non-profits we do pretty well, considering our hours (Rob Sr. is 40 hrs/wk and I'm 32 hrs/wk). And we live just outside Boston and both work in Boston.
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Ick, I feel shockingly poor compared to most of you ladies! I am getting my Masters right now, and I teach college writing classes, while my husband works on a farm. Hopefully I will start teaching at a university next year as an official instructor so that we can start TTC.
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Our income is in the $100,000-$150,000, all of it from DH's job. I don't work and DH is an executive chef for a hotel. We live in Tokyo and DH has an expat contract, so most of our living expenses are paid for by the company, including rent, utilities, insurance, plus yearly flight back to the States for all of us. We decided we were ready to start a family when DH had become more established and was able to spend more time at home, as well as living in a family friendly country.
He'll be gone Sun-Fri. I get him for one day a week.
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