What are important financial items to address when preparing for a new baby?

Welcoming a New Baby

Welcoming a new baby is an exciting and transformative time, but it also comes with important financial considerations. Planning ahead can ease the transition and help ensure your family’s financial security.

Pre-delivery Planning

• Understand your health insurance and anticipate potential costs: Prenatal care, childbirth classes, maternity clothes, a crib, a car seat, and hospital costs.
• Review your company’s policies regarding paternity or maternity leave: What is offered and what steps are needed to secure it.
• Draft a baby budget: Expenses in the first few years can be $10k-$20k per year.
• Choose a pediatrician within your insurance network.
• Start a Rainy-Day Fund.

While in the Hospital

• Order a birth certificate and Social Security card for your newborn.

First 30 Days

• Take steps to add your child to your health insurance policy.
• Begin planning for childcare.
• Consider opening a college savings 529 plan.

Beyond the First Month

• Update beneficiaries on life insurance and retirement accounts.
• Purchase disability insurance.
• Write or adjust your will to reflect your new family member.
• Continue to fund retirement accounts to secure your long-term financial health.

“Every night before I get my one hour of sleep, I have the same thought: ‘Well, that’s a wrap on another day of acting like I know what I’m doing.’ Most of the time I feel entirely unqualified to be a parent. I call these times being awake.”—Jim Gaffigan