Managing Your Money With A Young Family

Having a family is a joyous moment for many couples. Each of the 700,000 or so babies born in the UK each year is special and has the power to make a life-changing emotional difference to its parents.

On a slightly more practical level, however, these children also present a financial challenge. It’s estimated that a child born in 2016 will cost £230,000 to raise to the age of 21. Understandably, as many as 60 per cent of parents struggles to cope when faced with that cost. So how do you manage your money smartly to be able to cater for the needs of your little one while ensuring you can concentrate on those magic moments as they grow up?

Use those nine months to plan. Luckily, most pregnancies come with a big bump-shaped warning. The months leading up to the birth are a great opportunity to prepare for life with a child. Use this time to have a thorough look through your regular spending patterns and pinpoint ways to make savings. Slashing an energy bill or cancelling a subscription could well free up vital funds to help you manage your money. You might also need to consider spending some money at this stage to ensure life runs smoothly post-birth. AvantCredit offers home improvement loans that could help you to transform a room into a nursery or ensure you can get that all-important extension built before the little one arrives. It’s much better to plan this out in advance than try to scrabble around for the money later on.

Manage debt. Many of us have to take debt on at some point to fund big ticket expenses. When catering for your family it’s important that you don’t let these run away from you. Part of your ‘spending audit’ should involve getting a full and accurate picture of what you owe and to whom. You might need to consider a debt consolidation loan to tidy up your finances. The priority is to make sure you are in control, so you can focus on parenting.

Take any help you are owed… Parents should not be too proud to accept help. Childcare vouchers and child tax credits exist to help parents. These are the state’s way of giving back some of that hard-earned money you’ve handed over in taxes over the years. Take what you are owed to ease the burden.

…and take any help you can get. It’s not just the state that can help with this either. Many of your friends and family will be only too glad to help if they can. This might range from taking your child to school so that you can afford to take a job through to babysitting so you don’t have to fork out for someone to look after your children when you go out for an evening. Look out also for people who are willing to pass on or sell on the toys, clothes and pushchairs their now-grown-up children used.

Spend sensibly. The Money Advice Service offers a neat suggestion for couple with young children. It advises that you set a limit of, say, £50 and make sure that any purchases made above this are discussed by both of you first. Together you can ask the all-important questions – do you want it, do you need it and can you afford it?