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! :)

Share and Enjoy:
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati