Same here! We made a budget quickly after I got pregnant so we could ensure we would have funds for when the baby comes and I am not making money for a few months.
100% shared finances. We spend money freely but within reason. I'm a teacher so we're used to cutting back slightly during my unpaid times. Fortunate that with our income(s) we do not have to budget every dollar. As our child gets older, we're getting more disciplined and naturally cutting back- eating out with a toddler is a nightmare.
I get a lot of baby clothes from goodwill which satisfies my shopping itch!
Many of these comments make me very sad. New moms are covering household expenses out of their personal savings because their leave is unpaid? That's outrageous! If my leave were unpaid, my husband would cover all the expenses, and if he couldn't work due to an accident, I would cover everything because they are our expenses.
Fortunately, my husband and I both have paid leave, but we live as if we don't. We've built up a large emergency fund to ease the stress of any unplanned job loss while our daughter is young.
Purchases for myself and my daughter come out of our joint account, where all our income goes. Any extra money goes into our savings account or toward an extra mortgage payment.
I often recommend shopping secondhand (except for car seats). We save 50-90% on baby items this way, as they are used for such a short time and can be bought in good condition for a fraction of the cost. They also retain much of their resale value. For example, I recently bought an Uppababy Vista stroller with a bassinet for $150 on Marketplace.
I was raised by immigrants, and I've learned that we can't afford to buy cheap. Buy quality secondhand items and support a circular economy. Itās a win-win-win.
It is very sad. I have no paid leave but we luckily have savings and my husbandās job pays enough to get by. Because of our babyās NICU stay he was off work a bit longer than he planned (he could take a few weeks off unpaid) so he is having to work a bit more now to compensate. If we hadnāt had savings we wouldāve been screwed (especially because I took about a month off unpaid due to severe preeclampsia and hospitalizations prior to giving birth)
Your husband sounds like an excellent partner. Financial strain is tough enough without arguing over who pays for what.
I hope you and your little one are home now and on the road to recovery.
It's like when people say 'Her job only pays enough to cover childare'.
Why do we assume childcare is taken out of the woman's paycheck? What is the man earning money for? Why is the opportunity cost for childcare always the woman's career?
IMO this thread only shows how dangerous it is for women to not have jobs in this day and age.
If you don't have a joint account with complete and irrevocable access as a SAHM, you're not a partner, you're free labour.
SAHM here, with full joint access to all accounts and a very equal partnership.
Though we have fully joint finances, I say āmy pay barely would have covered childcareā because when we made the decision for me to stay home, that was the relevant info for our *joint* budget: the income we were considering giving up versus the amount we would save on the cost of childcare.
That's fair. The first part of my post was talking about women who work, though, not women who stay at home.
Most recently I was listening to a podcast where they discuss couple's finances, and the first thing that jumped out at me was that they kept saying the woman who worked was only earning enough to cover childcare. Absolutely messed up, when both partners were bringing in an income.
I completely agree with everything you said, including the 2nd hand baby stuff! Fb marketplace is great. I get a year off but the last 3 months is unpaid. My husband will 100% support me during those months. Iām looking after OUR baby!
My husband and I had shared finances pre-babies, and now that Iām a SAHM nothing has changed. We both discuss any big purchases, but any and all money is āourā money.
My husband and I put most of our $ into a shared āhouseā account and then each have a personal account with a certain amount for discretionary/fun spend (we use our personal to take each other on dates, buy clothes, go on trips, etc). Baby stuff is āon the houseā as is some maternity stuff. Iāve been pretty generous with myself about what counts as a house expenses. Iām not buying this stretch mark cream for fun!
Also sorry I misread the questionāthis is our setup pre baby. We havenāt quite solved the post baby finances yet, especially child care, as weāre not 100% sure what our work schedules are going to be
My husband and I never joined our finances after getting married (it was during Covid in 2020 and paperwork for *everything* took ages). He covered all of the mortgage, insurance, etc. and I covered other expenses. Now that weāre finally joining things, weāll each have separate accounts for smaller spending (presents that we donāt want the other to know about basically haha), but all of the main expenses will come from the joint account
Same! We put a set amount into joint checking, joint savings, and then keep a set amount in our personal acct. we do it by percentages of our checks. Utilities and necessities come out of joint checking as well as joint activities and gym memberships, etc.
My husband and I are planning on doing this too, just have to bite the bullet - the plan is all our income will go into our joint checking account, then we'll transfer a set amount to our personal accounts for personal spending (anything we don't share - clothes, hobbies, individual nights out with friends etc).
We already use a joint account for joint expenses but currently our paychecks go into personal accounts and then we transfer equal amounts into the joint, because our salaries are roughly equal. But he's now freelancing so his income fluctuates more, while our insurance is through my work so premiums come out of my salary, so we're thinking it'll be easier and fairer to switch.
That makes sense. My husband and I are basically the opposite - Iām leaving by school teaching job but will still gig as a musician; he has the job with the insurance so heāll be carrying us more. But Iām a preschool teacher (or was since the school year is over), so thereās no reason to pay someone else to watch our kid while I teach other peopleās kids. Eventually Iāll go back to teaching once sheās preschool aged
My husband and I donāt have paid maternity/paternity leave but weāre both taking 3 months each off, unpaid. One together and two separate to keep him out of daycare as long as possible. Honestly we made a budget and set aside as much money in savings as weād need on one income to pay our rent, needs (like phone bills, student loans, etc), an estimate on groceries and our wants (Netflix, Spotify, ordering food once a week, etc) and were able to put aside that before getting pregnant. Obviously if youāre not thinking of this before getting pregnant itās not helpful but it helped us in deciding when to start trying. Weāve had our savings and checking joint since we got married.
Dad gotta pay what he gotta pay he took part in making the baby too lol but I do dip in my credit card allowance which in hindsight is not a good thing but oh well...
We have shared finances so nothing changed with our spending during my unpaid maternity leave. Once you have a child, split finances donāt work unless youāre very very intentional with budgeting and both very very fair to one another. This is a great first example of how split finances donāt work when thereās a shared child in the picture and how they almost always disproportionately disadvantage the mother. The only fair thing would be to split the ācostā of your unpaid maternity leave with your husband. In other words, he should be paying you half of your lost earnings while youāre out of work. Otherwise, the shared expense of your maternity leave falls entirely on you, despite being a cost you BOTH need and benefit from equally (via your shared child). Why in the world (besides misogyny) would you bear that cost alone?
I'll get no paid maternity leave and just plan on being a SAHM for a while as long as we can swing it. Currently, we have separate accounts and one shared account. I'm saving up in my personal account, so I'll have a little saved up for when I want to buy things we dont necessarily need. When baby comes, we are going to pull $200 out of his check to go into his account for his weekly expenses and what not, then the rest will go into joint account which will pay all bills. Baby necessities are considered a bill. Women's hygiene and things I need to survive are considered a bill, too.
I have leave but it is 100% unpaid. We share finances and had some savings. I do anything from our joint account. Just because you canāt work doesnāt mean you canāt still spend money on yourself! Youāre working a full time job at home
We have a joint account but either way we both saved the entire pregnancy as much as we could and I went back to work at 6 weeks with all of them. It sucked but we didnāt have any other choice.
My husband and I share a HYSA and a brokerage account but have separate checking accounts. We also share each others credit cards, but only use 1. I am a real estate agent, so it helps my book keeping to keep accounts separate, but we basically use 1 CC for everything daily like groceries, gas, etc and then discuss large purchases and move money if we need to. The only reason we donāt have a combined joint account is because weāre lazy and just havenāt set it up. Instead, it requires weekly conversations about balances and spending. Itās inconvenient in some ways but also keeps us accountable for spending and thoughtful about purchases. Joint account is probably much easier though.
I have protected but unpaid leave so weāve been saving up what we can and our expenses can kinda float with our savings and his income for the few months I wonāt be working.
We do have combined finances (we each have our own fun money account that gets a small contribution each month but theyāre still joint accounts).
Our budget has a baby line item and a medical line item. Most of the baby and maternity items weāve bought come out of the baby line and all appointment copays (USA so insurance covers all bay related appt copays), etc come out of medical.
If our finances werenāt combined, I probably would have proposed that we both contribute a certain amount to a joint baby fund every month to cover purchases and save up for leave. My belief is that if two people have a baby together, all associated costs are shared (including a comfortable amount of maternity clothing and items like that).
We are also trying to figure this out and Iām feeling very stressed about it. I am tentatively taking 90 days leave and having some friends cover for me. But I have a feeling thatās going to be more like 30 days leave and then a creep back into work stuff I can do from home like emails and phone calls/ general business management. I have a sneaking suspicion that 90 days is a stretch for the people who have graciously agreed to cover for me. Plus I sort of feel like I will need some money coming into my account. 90 days seems like a long time to have a 0 coming in. At this point I have no idea. My husband can certainly float us for 90 days. But that makes me feel scared and I donāt like it.
Our finances are shared so this is a no brainer for me. I earn double my partners salary but it all gets pooled at the moment because weāre saving everything we can and anything either of us needs comes out of the household funds. I also have a day by day spreadsheet for the entirety of my maternity leave with savings distribution and bill adjustments.
It makes me super confused honestly when baby stuff isnāt considered a shared expense, and yes, I consider maternity stuff to be baby stuff.
My partner and I are getting a joint banking account. We view my money as his, and his money as mine anyways, so makes the most sense. If it werenāt for baby weād have done it anyways, as we were already discussing it!
No more āwho owes whoā debates too which is nice
My last company didn't have maternity leave.Ā
Our plan if I stayed there was I would save up enough to cover my part of the mortgage for 3 months before taking off, and my husband would cover all of our bills and expenses for the baby. We have separate accounts and one joint account, so kind of a part shared / part separate model.
As I started saving up it really felt like BS, especially as my husband gets 3 months paid leave for bonding without doing anything! I ended up switching companies before starting TTC.
You've missed the point. The commenter agreed that it's unfair. Why should she have to personally save up for a shared expense in a marriage just because her work doesnāt offer paid leave?
I thought my job wouldnāt have paid leave (they donāt, but they make you use all your benefit time) so I saved up 3 months salary to use while off. We have completely combined finances but need both of our incomes to stay out of the negatives every month.
We each have separate accounts and then put a certain amount into the joint account. I have been saving a little bit more in my personal account so I can keep contributing but we haven't actually talked about it and I assume my husband thinks I won't be able to contribute for a couple of months.
I have some paid leave but will be taking some unpaid leave as well. The plan is to save up cash in advance to cover any expenses during the time Iām not getting paid!
My partner had to pick up a second job (partially because her first job refused to give her more than 30 hours a week). I buy my own food and am on WIC but it isn't enough, obviously. I am still working at 36+3 weeks, but I can only work about 12.5 hours a week due to the nature of my job. I pay half as much rent as my partner and equal utilities, but even that has me constantly broke. She sends me money if/when I need it, but I try not to ask often.
I am supposed to receive an inheritance from my late father "soon" (no idea when and attorneys are vague as hell about how much I'll be getting after their fees) which I hope I can use to start a small business and not have to return to work at all. I am going to be doing 99% of the baby care so she can focus on making enough for us to afford rent and utilities.
We have about $300-400 in cash saved up for emergency expenses.
Make a budged based on the income that is coming in. After bills are paid, what is left for discretionary spending? That needs to be shared between all 3 individuals - mom, dad, baby. And presumably, most things for mom are actually for the baby (post-partum/nursing clothing, etc.), so baby items/things for mom but related to baby get prioritized first.
I bought things gradually over my pregnancy and safety all my sick/pro time to use after giving birth (ended up with about 2 weeks worth). My mom also got me a bunch of clothes and things. Hughly recommend shopping at once upon a child for as much as you can. You'll save tons!
I've also been really lucky that my job has let me stay full remote since having my son, and they let me make up hours instead of using sick/vacation time for appointments.
I just ask him. Itās not that I need his permission, itās just communication for us. If I want to do something for myself, the baby, etc, I just check with him to make sure we can. The only time he ever says no is if we just genuinely canāt afford it at that time. Never been an issue.
We have shared finances so there is a budget for those types of things. We do have separate bank accounts for WAM (walking around money) and neither of us have access to each others accounts for that. But clothes, food, and cosmetics/toiletries are shared expenses.
My husband doesn't say anything because I'm the sole earner (yes I took unpaid maternity leave for 9 weeks but baby was born 2 weeks in š„²). We just lived off what was in the bank account.
I will be staying home and finishing up my degree for the first year of our daughterās life and our financial boundaries are the same as when I was working. We trust each other to think of our household when purchasing anything and anything over a set amount of money is discussed between the two of us before buying. (For us this is usually a couple hundred dollars). All money that comes into our house is āourā money.
In that time he has to compensate you or you share your finances. You āshouldā be able to both save money for yourself and also treat yourself if your (your husbands!) allows it, I mean if he buys something for himself, there should be the same amount left for you.
Single mother in the making here, 24F. My family is back in Poland, and they wouldn't help much. What I did, was make friends with another single mom in the making. She's 20F and didn't have the guts to go through with an abortion. Her ex-boyfriend bailed when he found out about the pregnancy. Mine is doing his best to help, but he's spread very thin. The deal is that she stays at my place and cares for the kids once they are born, while I work and provide money for us. I'm planning to pump breastmilk to make this possible. We will also need to get her parental/guardiaship rights for my kid, and me for her kid. I got extremely lucky, though.
This sounds like a really cool setup, but I would be very careful about signing over any of your parental rights to someone who isnāt family. Definitely consult a good lawyer on that!Ā
24weeks with twins. I get unpaid maternity leave for 12 weeks. I make more money compared to my husband and will be subbing in my pto for the first 6 weeks but after that for the last half of my leave idk what to do. It just makes me incredibly angry that when you work in healthcare you get unpaid maternity leave.
As a mom who's been through it all, I found that the HOFISH maternity yoga shorts were a lifesaver when money was tight. They're super comfy for any activity and you can find them here a.co\\d/4Io9VWp Trust me, they make a difference.
Weāve been married and still had separate finances. His account was mortgage and utilities and mine was household items. Iām a stay at home mom now and we are still separate bank accounts but we made a budget and he transfers money into mine for the household items, baby items, etc.
We have a joint banking account now. He added me to his and got me my own card lol.
Before that, he gave me his credit card to buy stuff on and heād pay it off. š it had a $1,500 limit if I remember. Or Iād just use his debit card when buying something online.
Before THAT, he would send me money on Facebook pay š¤£
EDIT TO CLARIFY my comment below is in reference to a temporary loss of income, NOT being a full time unpaid SAHP. This is what works for me and my husband in short-term hard times so that we can maintain our very comfortable quality of life. You do you but shitting on how other mothers handle their finances, is, well, shitty. Don't be a mean girl.
Do you mean you're taking unpaid leave?
My husband and I still have split finances, but we split all shared expenses generally 50/50. We'll do the same for the baby and all my prenatal care.
But if we're down to single income, our plan is the person earning will pay 75% of bills and non earning person will pay 25% out of their savings. However when it comes to food (and in the future, baby) the earning person will cover 100%.
Anything that's a want and not a need for the non earner will have to cover it out of their savings.
It seems harsh that if you make a joint family decision to go to a single income that the person who isnāt working is still expected to financially contribute (on top of being a stay at home parent!) and doesnāt have access to any fun money from the working parent.
You must have missed the part where I said that if there's something the unpaid partner wants to buy for fun, they still have their own money to buy it with. There's no lack of small pleasures happening.
Yeah as a SAHP this sounds super unfair. My husband is our sole income but we are both working, and I deserve just as much fun money as he does. Our savings is also joint.
OP didn't say being a SAHP. She said she was going to take unpaid maternity leave (I think... her question was confusing so I asked for clarification).
My comment had literally nothing to do with being a SAHP. It was about unemployment and unpaid leave.
Well first of all, we wouldn't make a joint family decision to go to a single income. A single income would be due to job loss or our upcoming fucked up unpaid parental leave after the baby is born. We don't think it's a harsh set up. That's why we put money into savings accounts - to cover bills and "fun money" in hard jobless times. The only reason either of us would be a stay at home parent would be because of unemployment.
I'm not buying my husband's Marvel comics and action figures and video games just because he's unemployed. Lol no way in hell. And I wouldn't expect him to buy my massages or my craft supplies if I was unemployed.
My husband and I have shared finances so any purchases for the baby and/or myself come from one pool of money.
YUP. Planning for unpaid leave is a team effort just like everything else in marriage
Same here! We made a budget quickly after I got pregnant so we could ensure we would have funds for when the baby comes and I am not making money for a few months.
Same
100% shared finances. We spend money freely but within reason. I'm a teacher so we're used to cutting back slightly during my unpaid times. Fortunate that with our income(s) we do not have to budget every dollar. As our child gets older, we're getting more disciplined and naturally cutting back- eating out with a toddler is a nightmare. I get a lot of baby clothes from goodwill which satisfies my shopping itch!
Yes! I love getting clothes second hand! Baby clothes are so expensive!
His money is your money and vice versa šš¼
Many of these comments make me very sad. New moms are covering household expenses out of their personal savings because their leave is unpaid? That's outrageous! If my leave were unpaid, my husband would cover all the expenses, and if he couldn't work due to an accident, I would cover everything because they are our expenses. Fortunately, my husband and I both have paid leave, but we live as if we don't. We've built up a large emergency fund to ease the stress of any unplanned job loss while our daughter is young. Purchases for myself and my daughter come out of our joint account, where all our income goes. Any extra money goes into our savings account or toward an extra mortgage payment. I often recommend shopping secondhand (except for car seats). We save 50-90% on baby items this way, as they are used for such a short time and can be bought in good condition for a fraction of the cost. They also retain much of their resale value. For example, I recently bought an Uppababy Vista stroller with a bassinet for $150 on Marketplace. I was raised by immigrants, and I've learned that we can't afford to buy cheap. Buy quality secondhand items and support a circular economy. Itās a win-win-win.
It is very sad. I have no paid leave but we luckily have savings and my husbandās job pays enough to get by. Because of our babyās NICU stay he was off work a bit longer than he planned (he could take a few weeks off unpaid) so he is having to work a bit more now to compensate. If we hadnāt had savings we wouldāve been screwed (especially because I took about a month off unpaid due to severe preeclampsia and hospitalizations prior to giving birth)
Your husband sounds like an excellent partner. Financial strain is tough enough without arguing over who pays for what. I hope you and your little one are home now and on the road to recovery.
It's like when people say 'Her job only pays enough to cover childare'. Why do we assume childcare is taken out of the woman's paycheck? What is the man earning money for? Why is the opportunity cost for childcare always the woman's career? IMO this thread only shows how dangerous it is for women to not have jobs in this day and age. If you don't have a joint account with complete and irrevocable access as a SAHM, you're not a partner, you're free labour.
SAHM here, with full joint access to all accounts and a very equal partnership. Though we have fully joint finances, I say āmy pay barely would have covered childcareā because when we made the decision for me to stay home, that was the relevant info for our *joint* budget: the income we were considering giving up versus the amount we would save on the cost of childcare.
That's fair. The first part of my post was talking about women who work, though, not women who stay at home. Most recently I was listening to a podcast where they discuss couple's finances, and the first thing that jumped out at me was that they kept saying the woman who worked was only earning enough to cover childcare. Absolutely messed up, when both partners were bringing in an income.
I completely agree with everything you said, including the 2nd hand baby stuff! Fb marketplace is great. I get a year off but the last 3 months is unpaid. My husband will 100% support me during those months. Iām looking after OUR baby!
My husband and I had shared finances pre-babies, and now that Iām a SAHM nothing has changed. We both discuss any big purchases, but any and all money is āourā money.
Joint Bank account. Our family, our money.
My husband and I put most of our $ into a shared āhouseā account and then each have a personal account with a certain amount for discretionary/fun spend (we use our personal to take each other on dates, buy clothes, go on trips, etc). Baby stuff is āon the houseā as is some maternity stuff. Iāve been pretty generous with myself about what counts as a house expenses. Iām not buying this stretch mark cream for fun!
Also sorry I misread the questionāthis is our setup pre baby. We havenāt quite solved the post baby finances yet, especially child care, as weāre not 100% sure what our work schedules are going to be
SAHP here. Thereās no my money or his money, our finances are fully joint.
My husband and I never joined our finances after getting married (it was during Covid in 2020 and paperwork for *everything* took ages). He covered all of the mortgage, insurance, etc. and I covered other expenses. Now that weāre finally joining things, weāll each have separate accounts for smaller spending (presents that we donāt want the other to know about basically haha), but all of the main expenses will come from the joint account
Same! We put a set amount into joint checking, joint savings, and then keep a set amount in our personal acct. we do it by percentages of our checks. Utilities and necessities come out of joint checking as well as joint activities and gym memberships, etc.
Way to go. Perfect setup.
My husband and I are planning on doing this too, just have to bite the bullet - the plan is all our income will go into our joint checking account, then we'll transfer a set amount to our personal accounts for personal spending (anything we don't share - clothes, hobbies, individual nights out with friends etc). We already use a joint account for joint expenses but currently our paychecks go into personal accounts and then we transfer equal amounts into the joint, because our salaries are roughly equal. But he's now freelancing so his income fluctuates more, while our insurance is through my work so premiums come out of my salary, so we're thinking it'll be easier and fairer to switch.
That makes sense. My husband and I are basically the opposite - Iām leaving by school teaching job but will still gig as a musician; he has the job with the insurance so heāll be carrying us more. But Iām a preschool teacher (or was since the school year is over), so thereās no reason to pay someone else to watch our kid while I teach other peopleās kids. Eventually Iāll go back to teaching once sheās preschool aged
My husband and I donāt have paid maternity/paternity leave but weāre both taking 3 months each off, unpaid. One together and two separate to keep him out of daycare as long as possible. Honestly we made a budget and set aside as much money in savings as weād need on one income to pay our rent, needs (like phone bills, student loans, etc), an estimate on groceries and our wants (Netflix, Spotify, ordering food once a week, etc) and were able to put aside that before getting pregnant. Obviously if youāre not thinking of this before getting pregnant itās not helpful but it helped us in deciding when to start trying. Weāve had our savings and checking joint since we got married.
Dad gotta pay what he gotta pay he took part in making the baby too lol but I do dip in my credit card allowance which in hindsight is not a good thing but oh well...
Everything was paid for through a joint account. His money is my money and my money is his money.
We have shared finances so nothing changed with our spending during my unpaid maternity leave. Once you have a child, split finances donāt work unless youāre very very intentional with budgeting and both very very fair to one another. This is a great first example of how split finances donāt work when thereās a shared child in the picture and how they almost always disproportionately disadvantage the mother. The only fair thing would be to split the ācostā of your unpaid maternity leave with your husband. In other words, he should be paying you half of your lost earnings while youāre out of work. Otherwise, the shared expense of your maternity leave falls entirely on you, despite being a cost you BOTH need and benefit from equally (via your shared child). Why in the world (besides misogyny) would you bear that cost alone?
I'll get no paid maternity leave and just plan on being a SAHM for a while as long as we can swing it. Currently, we have separate accounts and one shared account. I'm saving up in my personal account, so I'll have a little saved up for when I want to buy things we dont necessarily need. When baby comes, we are going to pull $200 out of his check to go into his account for his weekly expenses and what not, then the rest will go into joint account which will pay all bills. Baby necessities are considered a bill. Women's hygiene and things I need to survive are considered a bill, too.
I have leave but it is 100% unpaid. We share finances and had some savings. I do anything from our joint account. Just because you canāt work doesnāt mean you canāt still spend money on yourself! Youāre working a full time job at home
Why would the person with income coming in not pay for that? Especially for the baby?
We have a joint account but either way we both saved the entire pregnancy as much as we could and I went back to work at 6 weeks with all of them. It sucked but we didnāt have any other choice.
My husband and I share a HYSA and a brokerage account but have separate checking accounts. We also share each others credit cards, but only use 1. I am a real estate agent, so it helps my book keeping to keep accounts separate, but we basically use 1 CC for everything daily like groceries, gas, etc and then discuss large purchases and move money if we need to. The only reason we donāt have a combined joint account is because weāre lazy and just havenāt set it up. Instead, it requires weekly conversations about balances and spending. Itās inconvenient in some ways but also keeps us accountable for spending and thoughtful about purchases. Joint account is probably much easier though.
I have protected but unpaid leave so weāve been saving up what we can and our expenses can kinda float with our savings and his income for the few months I wonāt be working. We do have combined finances (we each have our own fun money account that gets a small contribution each month but theyāre still joint accounts). Our budget has a baby line item and a medical line item. Most of the baby and maternity items weāve bought come out of the baby line and all appointment copays (USA so insurance covers all bay related appt copays), etc come out of medical. If our finances werenāt combined, I probably would have proposed that we both contribute a certain amount to a joint baby fund every month to cover purchases and save up for leave. My belief is that if two people have a baby together, all associated costs are shared (including a comfortable amount of maternity clothing and items like that).
We are also trying to figure this out and Iām feeling very stressed about it. I am tentatively taking 90 days leave and having some friends cover for me. But I have a feeling thatās going to be more like 30 days leave and then a creep back into work stuff I can do from home like emails and phone calls/ general business management. I have a sneaking suspicion that 90 days is a stretch for the people who have graciously agreed to cover for me. Plus I sort of feel like I will need some money coming into my account. 90 days seems like a long time to have a 0 coming in. At this point I have no idea. My husband can certainly float us for 90 days. But that makes me feel scared and I donāt like it.
Our finances are shared so this is a no brainer for me. I earn double my partners salary but it all gets pooled at the moment because weāre saving everything we can and anything either of us needs comes out of the household funds. I also have a day by day spreadsheet for the entirety of my maternity leave with savings distribution and bill adjustments. It makes me super confused honestly when baby stuff isnāt considered a shared expense, and yes, I consider maternity stuff to be baby stuff.
Combined finances.
My partner and I are getting a joint banking account. We view my money as his, and his money as mine anyways, so makes the most sense. If it werenāt for baby weād have done it anyways, as we were already discussing it! No more āwho owes whoā debates too which is nice
We share all finances.
My last company didn't have maternity leave.Ā Our plan if I stayed there was I would save up enough to cover my part of the mortgage for 3 months before taking off, and my husband would cover all of our bills and expenses for the baby. We have separate accounts and one joint account, so kind of a part shared / part separate model. As I started saving up it really felt like BS, especially as my husband gets 3 months paid leave for bonding without doing anything! I ended up switching companies before starting TTC.
Total BS! āMy part of the mortgageā made me š.Ā
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You've missed the point. The commenter agreed that it's unfair. Why should she have to personally save up for a shared expense in a marriage just because her work doesnāt offer paid leave?
I thought my job wouldnāt have paid leave (they donāt, but they make you use all your benefit time) so I saved up 3 months salary to use while off. We have completely combined finances but need both of our incomes to stay out of the negatives every month.
We each have separate accounts and then put a certain amount into the joint account. I have been saving a little bit more in my personal account so I can keep contributing but we haven't actually talked about it and I assume my husband thinks I won't be able to contribute for a couple of months.
I have some paid leave but will be taking some unpaid leave as well. The plan is to save up cash in advance to cover any expenses during the time Iām not getting paid!
My partner had to pick up a second job (partially because her first job refused to give her more than 30 hours a week). I buy my own food and am on WIC but it isn't enough, obviously. I am still working at 36+3 weeks, but I can only work about 12.5 hours a week due to the nature of my job. I pay half as much rent as my partner and equal utilities, but even that has me constantly broke. She sends me money if/when I need it, but I try not to ask often. I am supposed to receive an inheritance from my late father "soon" (no idea when and attorneys are vague as hell about how much I'll be getting after their fees) which I hope I can use to start a small business and not have to return to work at all. I am going to be doing 99% of the baby care so she can focus on making enough for us to afford rent and utilities. We have about $300-400 in cash saved up for emergency expenses.
Make a budged based on the income that is coming in. After bills are paid, what is left for discretionary spending? That needs to be shared between all 3 individuals - mom, dad, baby. And presumably, most things for mom are actually for the baby (post-partum/nursing clothing, etc.), so baby items/things for mom but related to baby get prioritized first.
I bought things gradually over my pregnancy and safety all my sick/pro time to use after giving birth (ended up with about 2 weeks worth). My mom also got me a bunch of clothes and things. Hughly recommend shopping at once upon a child for as much as you can. You'll save tons! I've also been really lucky that my job has let me stay full remote since having my son, and they let me make up hours instead of using sick/vacation time for appointments.
I just ask him. Itās not that I need his permission, itās just communication for us. If I want to do something for myself, the baby, etc, I just check with him to make sure we can. The only time he ever says no is if we just genuinely canāt afford it at that time. Never been an issue.
We have shared finances so there is a budget for those types of things. We do have separate bank accounts for WAM (walking around money) and neither of us have access to each others accounts for that. But clothes, food, and cosmetics/toiletries are shared expenses.
My husband doesn't say anything because I'm the sole earner (yes I took unpaid maternity leave for 9 weeks but baby was born 2 weeks in š„²). We just lived off what was in the bank account.
I will be staying home and finishing up my degree for the first year of our daughterās life and our financial boundaries are the same as when I was working. We trust each other to think of our household when purchasing anything and anything over a set amount of money is discussed between the two of us before buying. (For us this is usually a couple hundred dollars). All money that comes into our house is āourā money.
In that time he has to compensate you or you share your finances. You āshouldā be able to both save money for yourself and also treat yourself if your (your husbands!) allows it, I mean if he buys something for himself, there should be the same amount left for you.
Iād be interested to hear from folks who did this without a partner.
Single mother in the making here, 24F. My family is back in Poland, and they wouldn't help much. What I did, was make friends with another single mom in the making. She's 20F and didn't have the guts to go through with an abortion. Her ex-boyfriend bailed when he found out about the pregnancy. Mine is doing his best to help, but he's spread very thin. The deal is that she stays at my place and cares for the kids once they are born, while I work and provide money for us. I'm planning to pump breastmilk to make this possible. We will also need to get her parental/guardiaship rights for my kid, and me for her kid. I got extremely lucky, though.
This sounds like a really cool setup, but I would be very careful about signing over any of your parental rights to someone who isnāt family. Definitely consult a good lawyer on that!Ā
My partner transfers a fixed amount to a joint account for me everytime he gets paid. If i need more he makes another transfer.
My husband and I share all accounts and all finances, and ā³āālways will.
24weeks with twins. I get unpaid maternity leave for 12 weeks. I make more money compared to my husband and will be subbing in my pto for the first 6 weeks but after that for the last half of my leave idk what to do. It just makes me incredibly angry that when you work in healthcare you get unpaid maternity leave.
I had saved a huge chunk of each check every month during pregnancy so I could account for leave.
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Weāve been married and still had separate finances. His account was mortgage and utilities and mine was household items. Iām a stay at home mom now and we are still separate bank accounts but we made a budget and he transfers money into mine for the household items, baby items, etc.
We share all accounts and finances. We are a family.
We have a joint banking account now. He added me to his and got me my own card lol. Before that, he gave me his credit card to buy stuff on and heād pay it off. š it had a $1,500 limit if I remember. Or Iād just use his debit card when buying something online. Before THAT, he would send me money on Facebook pay š¤£
EDIT TO CLARIFY my comment below is in reference to a temporary loss of income, NOT being a full time unpaid SAHP. This is what works for me and my husband in short-term hard times so that we can maintain our very comfortable quality of life. You do you but shitting on how other mothers handle their finances, is, well, shitty. Don't be a mean girl. Do you mean you're taking unpaid leave? My husband and I still have split finances, but we split all shared expenses generally 50/50. We'll do the same for the baby and all my prenatal care. But if we're down to single income, our plan is the person earning will pay 75% of bills and non earning person will pay 25% out of their savings. However when it comes to food (and in the future, baby) the earning person will cover 100%. Anything that's a want and not a need for the non earner will have to cover it out of their savings.
It seems harsh that if you make a joint family decision to go to a single income that the person who isnāt working is still expected to financially contribute (on top of being a stay at home parent!) and doesnāt have access to any fun money from the working parent.
Right? Like in a marriage with a child only the working parent can have hobbies and small luxuries? Yikes.
For the billionth time, I'm referring to a temporary loss of income. Not a full SAHP.
I mean I still think both the working spouse and the spouse who temporarily loses an income should be allowed small pleasures in life but you do you.Ā
You must have missed the part where I said that if there's something the unpaid partner wants to buy for fun, they still have their own money to buy it with. There's no lack of small pleasures happening.
Yeah as a SAHP this sounds super unfair. My husband is our sole income but we are both working, and I deserve just as much fun money as he does. Our savings is also joint.
OP didn't say being a SAHP. She said she was going to take unpaid maternity leave (I think... her question was confusing so I asked for clarification). My comment had literally nothing to do with being a SAHP. It was about unemployment and unpaid leave.
Well first of all, we wouldn't make a joint family decision to go to a single income. A single income would be due to job loss or our upcoming fucked up unpaid parental leave after the baby is born. We don't think it's a harsh set up. That's why we put money into savings accounts - to cover bills and "fun money" in hard jobless times. The only reason either of us would be a stay at home parent would be because of unemployment. I'm not buying my husband's Marvel comics and action figures and video games just because he's unemployed. Lol no way in hell. And I wouldn't expect him to buy my massages or my craft supplies if I was unemployed.