US - Cost of a baby six months after birth - xposted to personalfinance, predaddit, and babybumps

Crossposted to /r/predaddit, /r/babybumps, and /r/personalfinance as they seem to be the relevant subs for this...

I haven't seen a post like this, so I figured I should write up everything with our expenses for the pregnancy and the first six months of having our daughter. Everything neatly fell into one year- positive test in December, first doctor's visit in January, due date in August...and kiddo came early at the start of July, necessitating a NICU stay (she's fine and developing as if she was a full term baby on her birth date, so all seems well). Since we're at the end of the year and I'm doing my normal tally up of everything in Mint anyway, I felt it would be useful for people to see what everything cost us.

I'm going to break this into a few categories, as well as a final tally of everything at the end.

Key information and decisions we made:

• Health insurance. We have good health insurance through my job, but it is a high deductible plan. This means everything we paid went through insurance and was paid out of an HSA account. I'll post the actual billed amounts, but nobody should pay list- call the hospital if you don't go through insurance and they'll likely give you discounts!

• Prenatal care/birth package. Our OBGYN had a preplanned rate for this, with a price for vaginal delivery and a slightly higher price for a c-section. This made planning a bit easier.

• Hospital birth. Planned on this, but preemie made it a lot more important.

• NICU stay. Completely unplanned, but we had a 3 week stay in the NICU. My wife was discharged on the second full day, but we were doing daily trips back to see our daughter. Parking was heavily discounted, but that and meals still added up.

• Labor scare. My wife had a labor scare two weeks prior to the actual delivery, which necessitated an overnight stay in a hospital. This alone would have cost $7k.

• Parental leave. My wife was working part time and had just stopped working about two weeks before the birth, with no intention of going back (was a fun job, but not something that really made a difference to our finances and definitely would not bring in as much as child care would cost us). My company is amazing and revised their parental leave policy while we were trying to get pregnant, so I was able to take 2 months paid (yes, full pay- not sure how we got this lucky). We had the cash reserves (and my PTO) so I could have taken some time, but this was a huge extra boost for us financially. Since this did not impact me, I didn't list it as a cost. This is definitely something to keep in mind for your own budgeting, however!

• Consignment sales/yard sales. These are your best friend for baby clothes. We were at some and people literally told us to take a grocery bag, fill it, and it would only be $5. A lot of stuff still had original tags on it! We've got some stuff our daughter never got to wear while it was her size, simply because of how many pieces of clothing we had for her.

• No formula. We've been fortunate that my wife's supply has been up to the task and we have some reserves on hand as well, so we haven't needed to supplement with formula at all since bringing our daughter home. Formula is a massive cost sink, especially if your kid is hungry (like ours).

• Cloth diapers. This is something we decided to go for as we've heard a lot of benefits about earlier potty training; we'll see how it goes (and, as we are just moving into solid foods, how our resolve keeps up). We aren't fanatical about this and have used disposables at various points (mostly ones given to us at our baby shower). I bring it up as it has significant cost implications- higher upfront spend, lower lifetime costs. When factoring in resale value, we think we've already broken even on this after the first 5 months of my daughter being home, partially helped by these being second hand as well.

• Doula. We chose to have a Doula as it gave us the opportunity to ask questions of someone who had seen a number of births, someone we trusted in the delivery room, and someone to help us put together a plan of action for various circumstances ahead of time. We were completely satisfied with this choice.

Now onto the numbers.

Medical Bills

Out of pocket, we have so far paid a total of about $7200 (our out of pocket maximum is $6850, but some items don't get covered by insurance) with insurance actually getting billed ~$120k.

Here's roughly what everything looked like before insurance stepped in:

• OBGYN: $2500 (all prenatal visits and delivery)

• Doula: $850

• All other standard birth related costs, including the hospital stay itself: ~$7k

• Pediatric visits- 1 month, 2 month, 3 month, changing pediatrician/initial visit, suspected ear infection: ~$2k. It's also worth noting that our initial visit with a pediatrician, which normally happens in <1 week from discharge, was also our 1 month visit due to the NICU stay.

• Labor scare visit: $7k

• NICU: ~$100k medical cost, ~$400 in personal costs (parking, gas, food, occasional boxes of coffee for the NICU staff)

• Total Medical costs: ~$120k billed, ~$7.2k Out of Pocket (HSA reimbursable, including the Doula), ~$400 personal spend out of pocket during NICU stay (never pursued for HSA reimbursement, but some might be reimbursable)

• Total medical costs, minus NICU and labor scare visit: ~$13k billed

One thing that is worth noting: while the medical bills without insurance are scary, there are some things that can help offset if you don't have insurance. We were given the option to enroll in Medicaid due to state law, regardless of our financial/insurance situation, due to the NICU stay (I think; might have been having a kid at all that let us sign up- that period is a little hazy). On top of that, a lot of these bills are negotiable if you aren't using insurance- you just need to ask the billing departments involved.

Now that the big scary numbers are done, let's move onto the fun part!

Kid Supplies

Overall, we spent ~$4k out of pocket on clothes, toys, and utility items (stroller, pack and play, high chair, etc.). On top of that, we have been gifted ~$1,200 in items (so far- more keep trickling in), either as used items from relatives (such as a carseat that we know the history of and a crib) or from our registry. There is likely some extra money spent in there in the form of new clothes (a lot of people want to dress my daughter up in Disney gear, it seems, and obviously only brand new will work for that) that we would not have spent ourselves.

Sign up for baby registries, even if you don't share them, so that you get the discounts- Amazon and Target provide excellent price breaks on items you purchase a certain number of days prior to the due date!

The breakdown as best as I can figure it:

• Stroller: ~$600 after tax. We went with an Uppababy and got a bassinet, which was an absolute lifesaver during the first few weeks my daughter was home as we could wheel her between rooms as we changed shifts for watching her. The cost is a bit lower than normal thanks to model year end clearance and the Amazon registry discount working on the bassinet. While I can't speak highly enough of our stroller, I would say any brand with a good bassinet option is a hugely useful asset and would recommend it to every new parent that expects to be splitting responsibilities in the early days.

• Various other utility items: ~$4,000. This includes the high chair, the crib, car seat, extra car seat base, mirrors for viewing the backseat of the car, plates, utensils, squeeze packs to make our own purees, toys, humidifier, sound machine, replacement parts for the pump, etc. This also includes nursing attire for my wife, as she has no need for those clothing items without the kid. Breaking this apart is really hard, since we bought so much at once, but I can answer specific questions about pricing for items, either individually or in a category (all eating related, for example) if people want to know what certain items cost us (assuming it was bought online, I have pretty good records available; some was bought in person, but we have a rough idea there as well).

• Diapers: ~$270

• Clothing: ~$400. This covers a number items for when she is a bit older, including winter clothes for a few years down the line (hey, if you see a full snowsuit in great shape for $5, you buy it).

• Bottles: ~$70. All of the bottles are second hand, with new nipples.

• Wet bags/wipes (to date): ~$200. Buying used and catching sales for anything we bought new helped a lot here. We also have most of the clothes needed for kiddo through the one year mark, but I'm sure we have some minor gaps to fill in still in the bigger sizes.

• Rocking chairs: $135. We bought three (two with rocking ottomans), and have only used two. I expect that we'll resell these for something close to the purchase price, as all three were used.

• Total Baby Gear costs: ~$5,700

Social Costs

Finally, the social aspects. We have used a babysitter twice so far, and we also threw a big baby shower/gender reveal party. The party was held at a relative's place and we just used grocery store catering (Wegmans) to feed everyone. We have been fortunate to not have daycare costs at this point, but that will probably change around the 1-2 year range.

• Baby shower: ~$700

• Baby sitter: $360

• Total social costs: ~$1.1k

Now, recurring costs are a fun aspect of this as well. What do we expect there?

Recurring costs

• Medical: Not too bad here, thanks to the ACA requiring a lot of preventative care be covered for free. This means that all the checkups and vaccinations on the schedule should be covered with minimal OOP expense to us. Realistically, kids will get hurt here and there (I know I broke a few bones growing up) but there shouldn't be any crazy surprises here, barring major catastrophes.

• Clothing: We're the only ones that need to be happy with what clothing she wears for now, so we're likely going to stick with stuff from yard sales and the like. No need to spend lots of money on designer logos, and you still sometimes come across them anyway. Once she gets a bit older I expect this to go up, but that's years away at this point. If we spend more than $200/year for the next couple years, I'll be surprised (especially since I know grandparents are going to be trying to flood my home with more clothes).

• Diapering: Since we're using cloth, this shouldn't be too bad, but we still are using disposable wipes (I draw the line right between the two- there are benefits with cloth diapers for earlier potty training and leak control, but I can't justify reusable wipes). I expect we will buy a big box of wipes every month or so at a cost of less than $15.

• Food: So far, the costs have been minimal- my wife needs to eat a bit more and maybe $10/month in vitamins and some gripe water, with a bit of extra variety of solid foods for us to try feeding to our daughter. We're just starting to buy packaged baby foods, which work out to ~$1.00/day right now. While she is proving she has a massive appetite, I don't expect this to be a huge increase in our spending for a bit, but it will likely add <$100/month to our grocery costs when she transitions away from milk and to actual solid foods. For reference, our grocery bill is usually in the $400-500 range with just two adults, and we know we're eating extravagantly at that level.

• Babysitter: We've been budgeting ~$100/month, and we'll see how we use it. I expect some months we won't touch that amount, others we will go out for a couple evenings or a day. We also have the option of some family/friends kid watching swaps, which we'll likely explore more over time.

• Daycare: We don't need daycare, but we will likely enroll my daughter in for a day or two a week when she is between 1-2 years old for more socialization. This is likely going to be $60-100/day, depending on where we take her, so assuming the high end and a single day per week, we're looking at ~$5,200/year. This cost comes down if you pay a weekly rate, but we don't really think we'll need to do more than 1-2 days a week to start.

There will be some other hidden costs in increased travel expenses and the like, but those are more of a reflection of our lifestyle and aren't quite as critical to plan for upfront.

So what does this all add up to?

Totals

Prenatal and delivery: ~$13k billed, ~$4.8k with insurance ($3k deductible, 20% past that, and insurance negotiated discounts)

Initial baby gear costs: ~$5.7k

Social costs: ~$1.1k.

Total upfront costs: ~$12k out of pocket, ~$20k without insurance.

Total upfront costs, with NICU and labor scare visit: ~$14k out of pocket, ~$127k without insurance.

Total recurring costs: ~$8k per year for the next few years. This number can obviously swing a lot, depending on how many days we put her in daycare, or if she racks up some extra medical bills, etc.

I hope this helps some folks with budgeting and planning!

EDIT: So there seem to be a lot of questions around our ~$5700 baby gear category, so I figured an edit was a good way to address some of them.

First, this category isn't just our spending. It also reflects the spending of friends and family in the form of gifts, as near as we have been able to put a price tag on items for the purposes of posting the information here (some off registries so we know the numbers, some as a quick estimate to get a number for this post). This means that hand me downs and other used item gifts are reflected as a (rough) depreciated value.

Second, this includes EVERYTHING extra we have gotten because we had a kid that isn't addressed in another category: bottle brushes, clothing, diapers, lotions, soap, nursing clothes for mom, milk bags, bottles, nipples for bottles, nipple shields (for nursing), pump replacement parts (the plastic bits don't last forever), crib, changing table, feeding tools, toys, books, rocking chairs, stroller, high chair, travel items (think pack-n-play or travel "high chair" adapters), electric plug covers, baby gates, covers for the really hard edges on furniture you bought 8 years ago when kids weren't part of your mental landscape, play mats, car seats, car seat bases, mirrors for seeing the kid in the back seat of a car, car seat covers for under the car seats, extra sheet sets, burp cloths, baby bath tub, etc. This is a really broad, catch-all category that it seems some folks are glossing over, so I felt it was important to call out that it really does have a bunch of little things that add up. A number of the items are totally not necessary, but they are useful, so we got them (heck, 300 years ago the standard for raising a kid was swaddle them, use cloth diapers, and mom for feeding- so there's obviously a lot of extras in our modern take on child rearing).

Third, yes, we did go expensive on some things. Deliberately. The stroller is a great example, and one I would do again; it was our main splurge purchase, the functionality it adds has been great, and I expect 60%+ of our purchase price back when we resell it. There are also some items that we could have totally gotten by without, but weren't that expensive- like a baby bath mat kneeler that makes giving kiddo a bath in the tub a lot more comfortable for us. Having said that, there are only a handful of items like this on our list, and the rest has been of standard items that we're lumping into this category (see above).

Finally, there are some things we really didn't need to get, but not that many. The main reason for this is that we listened to friends and family with kids 5+ years older than ours on what they actually used and why.

Hope this edit helps clear some of this up for folks out there.

Submitted January 17, 2019 at 05:10PM by PM_ME_YOUR_RATTIES http://bit.ly/2AOQ4Ti