We are on one income & I have to say that it's amazing what you can do without when you have to! We have had some very tight months but always manage to make it to the end of the month. It did play on my mind when I started maternity leave though so I understand your concerns.
As others have said, you will probably be entitled to some payments from Centrelink when bubs is born.
There are some great threads on here on budgeting & meal planning that you'll probably find very useful.
If finances allow, stock up on nappies & pantry items now. Also cook up some meals & freeze them.
Or use cloth nappies. Although there is an initial outlay you'll appreciate not running out of disposables at inconvinient times!
These are things that have helped us. We also don't go out for dinner or movies anymore, although this is more to do with having had a baby it does save some money!
If there is a toy library near you join when bubs is old enough. For a small fee you'll be able to get different toys on loan instead of buying them
I always take advantage of the sales to layby DS' clothes for the next season. As in during summer I'll layby his winter wardrobe, can be tricky to estimate sizes but well worth it!
Hi, my DS is 14mths old now and I have been workin part time from 6weeks onwards; I would strongly suggest that you cut all your expenses as much as possible to just the necessities! Also if you can handle it do cloth nappies - it is much much cheaper! You will go through atleast 8 nappies a day for the first 8 weeks or maybe longer and depending on what brand you go with they may be a very expensive 'luxury' I used disposable nappies for the first 12 weeks and then changed to cloth nappies, you can either make your own (you can download a pattern from the Internet) and they are sooo cheap! That's what I did with mine and they are really cute and for about 12 nappiea it cost about $20 to make: alternatively you can buy them off the net they are cute but pretty expensive. Next I would highly highly suggest the baby markets. I am in Brisbane Queensland and I go to the Zero2five markets and it is ridiculously cheap! And great quality. Next I would suggest if you have a few friends that like to eat alot of fresh fruit and veg you can go to the growers markets and buy you fruit and veg in bulk and split it! It is so much cheaper and lasts alot longer - great if you have a little mouth to feed and want to give them alot of fruit and veg it can be very expensive to buy it from the supermarket. Next I would suggest to buy your meat from super butcher if you have one close by, they are great quality and very cheap. Next you should enquire to see how much you will get from the government, I got approx $360ish per f/n for baby bonus and $80 per f/n for benifit b (I think), if you really get yourself in a pickle you could look at working part time if you can find it so that you don't have to find daycare or a sitter for bubby. I work at anaconda on Thursday nights and Saturdays and get approx $200 extra per week for just doing 10hrs a week and DH looks after DS while I'm working as it is outside his working hours. The last resort would be if you own your own home and are struggling to make payments some banks are offering financial releif and are halfing payments for a specific amount of time (which is obviously payable at the end of the agreed term or tacked onto your mortgage) we did this and it does help just as long ad you have a plan of how to pay the money back as putting it onto your mortgage incurs very nasty interest! if you can breast feed that is a huge expense you are saving but in saying that some times it can't be done and that's totally fine!! Another thing to consider is maybe putting certain appliances on night time tarrifs if not already. Hope this doesn't sound too much like a essay but I know how hard it is to be in this situation. Good luck and just remember to try not to let the money issues get to you as it can be the first thing that makes you crack when your sleep deprived, highly hormonal and have a little bubby to look after. There are heaps of other things you can do but I don't want to keep you any longer..xx
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