As with most things in life, you don’t know until you try.
And you won’t know if you will be able to get pregnant until you get down to business. Unfortunately, difficulties conceiving (even after you’ve successfully given birth previously) and carrying and birthing a child are way more common than you might think. Here’s a scary fact: one out of every five pregnancies ends in a miscarriage. Fertility issues are also expensive, from tracking your ovulation to IVF to surrogacy. Maybe you’re at the other end of this spectrum: you’ve started your dream family, and want to invest in NOT having any more kids. Well, that’s totally fine, too — but can also get expensive.
In my upcoming premium articles, I’m going to take you through your options at every stage of conceiving (or not conceiving) and what they cost. We’ll also go over how to financially prepare for long-term contraception, including birth control, IUDs, and hysterectomy procedures. With preparation and the right strategy, you should be able to afford your most precious of family dreams without going bankrupt in the process.
Before you get on top, get on bottom
…with your bottom line, that is. You may know by now that I am a huge proponent of having 6-9 months’ worth of expenses saved at all times, in case of emergency. Before you pay down debt, make a big life purchase like a car or house, or get into investing, you’ve gotta have a rainy day fund that will support you in case shit happens: you get sick, lose your job, start your own business, etc. This is true before you start saving for a family, too. So, once you have those “break in case of emergency” funds squared away, how much additional cash should you stash every month to put toward a family?
Well, it depends on your financial goals. At the very least, if you have decided that you don’t want children at all, ever, then this number might be around $10,000 for a lifetime of birth control and/or a hysterectomy (assuming an outlay of $300 or so per year, depending on your insurance, from age 18-50 aka menopause). So that’s $10,000 on the low end. That means you want to save around $25-50 per month to put toward your reproductive health.
But if you do want a family, and plan to raise that kid or those kids until they go to college, you’re looking at anywhere from $50-5000/month just to get pregnant (from ovulation kits and prenatal vitamins on the low-end to IVF treatments on the high end) and then another $1000 per month, per child as you raise mini-you to adulthood.
Sound like a lot? It is. So that’s why it’s so crucial to set aside a separate savings account to start stashing cash for your family long before you have one, if that’s something that’s definitely in the cards for you. And even if it’s not definitely in the cards, better to squirrel some extra money away just in case. Times, feelings, circumstances change and the last thing you want is to change your mind about wanting a family only to come up short financially.
xo,
