How much do you need??

There is no such thing as not enough.   A baby can cost a little or as much as you like. It is a matter of deciding very early on in the peice about returning to work, budgets, second hand or new etc. You don't need most of the stuff they sell out there, all baby needs is a warm bed and you! (and clothes and nappies)

And there are ways you can cut costs - cloth nappies, breastfeeding etc.

My partner earns around $400 a week after tax plus about $200 from good old Helen (I think) and we do fine. We always have food, the kids wear clean clothes and we are warm. I don't understand how 40k isn't enough we would be living like kings with that sort of money.

Someone on 40k would be getting WFF help.
DH is on 55k and that's enough to pay the mortgage without me having to go back to work.
Means living pretty frugal, but then that's the trade off between working and having luxuries.

Yup thats true, which is probably why it get tough when you go down to one income, and gain an extra person to care for.

Actually people mostly spend more than they have!

We manage to live on around 30k per year (DH's income) as well as $$ from WFF, and have nothing lacking (we have a car, warm and dressed, enough food, enough for entertainment occasionally as a treat, etc). In saying that, we wouldn't be able to afford a mortgage (we rent a small place), and in the winter, it's a struggle with the power bills (It's hard to heat our place in Dunedin enough for a baby). Not to mention that we get given a lot of hand-me-down clothes, and basically all of our baby stuff was given to us. And we have a pretty extensive vegie garden which helps.

Sometimes it is a little tougher than other times, but we make ends meet. You just have to know what you "need" and what you don't. Of course I can't afford new clothes all the time, and all that stuff... but we still have everything we need, and plenty we don't need.

we are the same. DH earns quite a bit, he has had 22k in pay rises over 6 months and i still feel like we are cutting it fine sometimes. in saying that our mortgage is $700 a week and we let people stay here for free all the time, long termish (6 months to a year) so i suppose that sucks up quite a bit of money. we are putting $50 a week aside, and everythiing baby related comes from that clothes, toys furniture, school fees etc... so that when he moves into a bed we dont have to find $200 out of nowhere etc... my sister worked out how much she spends on her 2 kids and this amount covers it (her oldest is 7 now) mite be different when they are teenagers and want labels and eat you out of house and home but if you put a little away each week it makes things much more acheivable when you dont have much

We couldnt live on 40K but we have a big mortgage and really dont want to have to sell that.  If we did we'd be able to survive on much less.  So at the moment things are tight (thankfully DH is earning more than 40K....but nowhere near as much as we were earning when I was working too)

Well we are proof that you can live off under 30K, we can still pay our mortgage and still have food and stuff for us all. It is all about shopping around for the best deals when it comes to food, etc.

Oh gosh, how embarrassing - although the post was taken out of context (the person I was responding to had previously said she uses the dryer regularly and has 2 mobile phones and wants to keep both as she uses both etc I should have really clarified the statement though plus looking at the WFF payment table her partners income is actually somewhere between $0-$36k).

There are families who cope beautifully on a lot less than $40k and families who struggle on a lot more so I guess the key is to learn to live within your means.

Why not try living on one income for a couple of months and see how you go? If you do this before baby is here you can identify where cuts can be made before baby comes.  Put your income into a inaccessible savings account and just live off your DH's income and see how you go.  (ETA: You can use the money you save during this time to buy some super cute MCNs which'll save you even more cash in the long run).

I know when we had Michaela we didn't think we could live on just DHs income and so I went back to work.  In hindsight I'm sure there are ways we could have done it to allow me more time at home, or at least to go back at reduced hours.  This time we will live on just his income (granted he earns a bit more now) and I am confident that we will be fine.

Edited by MrsMojo