I have been told many different things when I started TTC.

- pay off all your debts
- pay off as much of the mortgage as possible

Those were the two things that got us really worried, but then we went and saw our finance consultant.
She may only do finance, but she was really good to listen to.

Work out how long you intend to be off.
I am working for 6months off, but one month before the birth, which is a total of 7 months.

The first month, I am using the rest of my holidays to get a weekly income. That will last with me through to birht.

Once birth has happened, I will lose that weekly income. So this is what she told us to do.

While you are TTC or pregnany, aim to save the money that you will normally get paid in six months. So for us that would mean saving 13,000 in total.

But you get the baby bonus, so we are aiming to save a min 6 grand.
We are putting away 120 away a week at the moment, so in 9 months we will have 4,700 + the grant of 4000 = 8,700.

Its not the full amount that we want, but if worse came to worse and I ended up pregnant this cycle, we would work it out. It may mean I have to go back to work a couple of days a week. It doesn't matter.

Another thing I found, which many people don't do because its "bad karma" is we have brought a lot of our things already.

We know we are going to be a family, through it Natural, IVF or adoption so buying these things doesn't make us sad. It makes us happy.

Another tip, she told me not to stress about puting extra money on your loans. Yes it builds up re-draw, and lowers the interest paid on. But she said use that money to save. Once you go back to work you can start that up again.

I hope I have helped. I was just as worried as you. But once she told us what we had to do we started that week.

We are now happily saving and learning how to live off one wage.