Hello there! 😊 Long time no post but I’m here now! 

As you may or may not know, I love sharing some of my experiences so we can all learn from each other.

Welcoming a new member of the family is very exciting and requires a lot of planning. I don’t gate keep so here are some of the tips I applied and some that I wish I would have known beforehand. 

• Finance meeting with your spouse ahead of time.

First and foremost a meeting to have an overview of what we are working with is very important. If you are not having these already (maternity leave or not), maybe it’s time to start. I’m blessed to be in a two-income household but going on maternity leave means losing some of that as employment income is less than what I would earn if I was working. This is a chance to figure out TOGETHER where you can cut down and strategize on your spending going forward (I’m talking about the Amazon orders at 2am while pumping!! Ya! Those ones!). If this can happen before your leave that would be amazing, so you are not delusional in your spending. 

• Take advantage of your benefits from your employer.

I had two options which were to continue paying for my benefits that were being deducted from my paycheck or just put a pause to the benefits. I opted for the latter so that I can delegate that money that I would have been paying monthly to other places in our budget. Before my leave, I made sure I was up to date with my dental, chiropractor, physio and prenatal massage appointments. These appointments don’t necessarily have to stop while you are on leave, but it will go a long way if these are taken care of before you stop working. You are already paying for the benefits, so take advantage of them.

• Make sure your spouse has the family benefits package from his employer.

Now that we have children, we always make sure that both my spouse and I are enrolled for the family benefits package. This is to ensure that when one of us goes on leave, the other is fully covered, or has some coverage and most importantly, the kids are covered too. While on leave, I still enjoy a good massage, and I would love to enjoy those knowing that I don’t have to pay out of pocket.

• There is absolutely nothing wrong with hand me downs.

When we had our first daughter, we barely spent a dime. We had friends and family who had kids a few years prior. They were kind enough to hand down a lot of big-ticket items that we needed for our baby. These were still in excellent condition, and we gladly took them with open arms. There is nothing wrong with splurging; if you want to, GO FOR IT SIS! 

• Remember to add the new addition to the benefits package.

It’s so easy to forget to add the baby to the package until you need to pay for their prescription. As soon as I got back to work, I made sure to add the baby to my package and that they were added to my spouse’s as soon as he could do so.

• Thrifting for my postpartum clothes.

As we all know, bodies change when you house and bring forth life to earth. Mine did and I was a lot of sizes up. I will be honest, I was not excited to get new clothes, but I also wanted to be comfortable and look presentable. I personally decided that the best thing for me was to look good on a budget which meant buying clothes on sale or thrifting. I still do this but I knew that I was only in that size for a very short period so I didn’t want to splurge on items I was going to put away in 9-12 months’ time. There was no point in spending a lot when I always felt uncomfortable regardless of what I wore. 

Now, some of these things might seem like it’s not a lot of money but trust me it adds up quickly. What are some of the money tricks you have learnt on your motherhood journey? I would love to hear and learn from you. 😊