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!

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We are home with the new baby.  She’s doing so well and I want to thank all of you who responded with ‘well wishes’ and prayers.  My wife and I took her for her first checkup today and she is a healthy, happy baby girl.  My mother-in-law is staying with us this week, helping with the baby and our other two kids.  Big sister and big brother love baby number three and are enjoying showing her pictures to their classmates.

I am ready to get back to blogging about personal finance -

I’ve already started to publish updates over at No Credit Needed Network.  I am about 1 week behind.  Updated charts will be published, every hour, around the clock, until I catchup.

I’m moving forward with my weight loss, over at No. Calories Needed.

Friday morning, I’ll release a new episode of the No Credit Needed Podcast.

I want to thank you all for your patience, as I work blogging into our new 3-kid household.  I love writing about personal finance and I have a new series of posts that I think you will really enjoy.  Over the next few weeks, I have several topics to write about - including how the new baby changes our budget, increasing our life insurance coverage, and why I decided not to sell our old car.

Again, I want to thank all of you who left comments, wrote guest posts, or sent emails.  We are truly blessed and we have so enjoyed the last few days.

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Baby number three - a little girl - was born Sunday Morning around 10AM. She weighs 8 pounds and she is beautiful beyond words. Mommy is doing fine and we should be going home early Tuesday morning. I stole a few minutes and found some free Wi-Fi so that I could share our wonderful news with my readers.

Big sister and big brother are fascinated with little sister, and they’ve taken turns holding the baby and kissing the baby and loving the baby and talking about the baby. My wife is resting, back at the hospital, and I’m out getting gas for the trip home and purchasing the one thing we forgot - a baby monitor! (of all things?!?)

I’ll have much more to write about when we get home, but for now -

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully [and] wonderfully made: marvelous [are] thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well.
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, [and] curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all [my members] were written, [which] in continuance were fashioned, when [as yet there was] none of them.
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
[If] I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

I would like to thank all of you for your prayers and well wishes.  My wife is doing great and we are so ready to get home and enjoy our ‘completed’ family.

New babies ROCK!!!

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I like to buy big-ticket items - new computers, new televisions, new lawn mowers.  My wife likes to buy small-ticket items - and lots of them.  We have two children (and a third on the way) and both of them like stuff - bubble gum, crayons, toys, dolls, video games, etc.  So, how do we, a family full of ’spenders’ - manage to reduce debt, save money, and live on a budget?

Me - Daddy, Husband, Budget Creator, Grocery Shopper, Planner

As I’m sure you can figure out, I’m our family’s ‘money nerd’.  I like to crunch numbers, create graphs, develop systems, pay bills, and balance checkbooks.  So, I handle the day-to-day management of our finances.  I make sure that my wife has money in her checking account and cash for monthly expenses.  I buy most of our groceries and I handle transfers to our savings and retirement accounts.  I’m the one who casts the vision  - and does the research - and reads the books.

My Wife - Mommy, Wife, Organizer, Social Planner, Household Manager

My wife is the best Mommy that I know - and a large portion of her time is spent managing our household and caring for our kids.  She has ‘budget veto power’.  I create the budget, but she has free reign to change it as she sees fit, based on the real-world needs of our family.  (In three years of living on a budget, she’s never actually exercised this ‘veto’ power.  We are pretty much on the same wavelength.  But, if she ever felt that I was being foolish or difficult, she has every right to make a change.  It’s not my money or her money, it’s our money.)

How we work well together -

Like I said, I’m good at creating plans - and creating a vision for our future.  My wife, on the other hand, is great at keeping things organized and running smoothly.  So, I spend my time thinking about the big things, those things that will help us one year, five years, ten years, and thirty years down the road - and I spend time, each day, working on the details of those plans.  But, I also struggle to focus on the little things that really help to save money - and that’s where my wife does a great job.  We’ve found a good balance between long-term planning and day-by-day living.  And, we’ve learned the power of the word ‘WE’.  We are debt free.  We are saving for our retirement.  We are buying a new lawnmower.  As I’ve mentioned many times before, when you read the word “I” on this blog, feel free to replace it with the word “We”.  Instead of arguing about our finances - we have have agreed to work together, living within the constraints of our budget.

Our kids and money -

I’ve tried, on several occasions, to institute a system of ‘allowance’ or ‘payments’ for the work that our kids do around the house.  But, to be frank, at this point, our kids pretty much do what we ask, without expecting payment.  As the kids get older, I’m sure we’ll move towards a chores-list with payments, but, for now, we just don’t need it.  Our kids receive money from grandparents for their birthdays and various holidays, and they are free to spend that money on whatever they want, after setting aside a percentage for giving and saving.  Instead of focusing on money, we are focusing on responsibility - caring for our toys, turning off lights, being thankful for what we have, and honoring Mommy and Daddy when they say ‘no’ or ‘yes’.

We try to avoid fixed roles, but we do know what we are good at and where we need to improve.  I like to cook and shop for groceries, so I do those things for our family.  My wife does a great job of cleaning our house and keeping things in order.  My daughter is quiet, and she helps keep us focused on family things - playing games, drawing, watching movies.  My son, he’s Professor-Inquisitive, and he keeps us on our toes - constantly looking for inexpensive ways to learn more about the world around us.

Frankly, we spend a few minutes, each day, talking about our finances, and then we spend the majority of our time thinking about ‘important’ things - our family, our church, and our friends.  Once you take control and decide to manage your finances, you’ll be amazed by the number of issues that seem to disappear (or fix themselves).  Now, instead of borrowing our way into misery, we save for the things we want - and then we actually enjoy buying them.

I recently purchased a surround-sound system for our den.  I’ve been saving for it for several months, and when we recently took a trip out of town, I found the system that I wanted, and I bought it.  Instead of worrying about how we were going to afford it or feeling guilty because ‘we spent too much money’ - I’m sitting here watching the Final Four in brilliant high definition and blazing surround sound.  And, I don’t feel like I wasted any money, because I made a well thought out, researched, intentional purchase.   The same is true about EVERY purchase we make.  We have a budget.  We live by that budget.  We talk about what we are saving for and what we want to buy.  We sacrifice for our futures, and, together, we make purchases that we can enjoy, right now.

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My family and I are off to the local nursery, to pick up an inexpensive flat of flowers.  We have two window boxes that rest on the banister outside our sun-room.  My son will get to pick the flowers for one box, my daughter will pick flowers for the other.  I have some potting soil leftover from last spring and we’ll use it to fill in any spaces not occupied by the roots of the flowers.  Throughout the Spring and the Summer, the kids can water the flowers and remove the weeds from the window boxes.

With baby number three on the way, it’s important that we spend quality time with the older kids.  It would be fun to start some flowers ‘from seeds’ - maybe we’ll try that next year, when my wife is NOT expecting!

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