Ouch!

So with half of my maternity leave now gone, I figured it was about time we re-worked our household budget to add in all the new baby costs... namely diapers and day care. Someone should have warned me to start this process with a stiff drink... ouch! I knew kids were expensive, believe me I had no illusions in that area, but sitting down and actually putting the numbers into our budget spreadsheet caused a bit of sticker shock... ok a lot of sticker shock. Is it too soon to start potty training? :)

Ok so the answer seems to be yes on that one, bummer. OK so next best thing, how to cut more costs out of our budget... well, we already live fairly frugally to begin with so there isn't much wiggle room to start with. But there is always room for improvement so here's the plan so far. One and two, better meal planning so we can take better advantage of grocery store deals and better coupon use including being more diligent about double-coupon days and online coupon printing. Three, finding and getting into a diaper study. Four, talking to work about trying to go to a 4-day work week during non-busy season (this alone will cut day care costs by $40 a week!). And five, cut further back on discretionary spending (which will probably have the least impact since we don't do much of this to begin with).

I would say thank god I don't have to think about college costs yet, but the experts say to start saving for kid's college as soon as they are born (some even say to start while you are pregnant!)... well I've had one financial stress-induced heart attack already for the day so screw the experts advice. Heck, I paid for my college education by myself (still am actually) and I think it did me good, so starting Lena's college savings late shouldn't be too terrible in the long run... right? Now about that potty-training...