Consolidating as a parent

Before your bundle of joy comes along you are told by everyone and anyone that your finances will fall off of a cliff face the second they come along. For the most part you ignore this as you have probably saved and prepared, we certainly did. However there are some things that just can't be prepared for. Things like.

- school application fees before they are four months old

- medicated formula because they cannot tolerate standard formula, or any food at all in our case

- medicines and general medication

- time away from work due to doctors and hospital visits

These soon create a drain on finances. In our case Mitch needs a special formula which costs 9x the price of normal formula, or one third of my monthly take home pay, plus he has been on prescribed medications since he was born. This has meant that all of our buffer savings have disappeared and credit cards used liberally. Now in talking to other parents we are not alone in this. In fact it appears quite common if not the norm. Plus we haven't even added school fees yet.

To cope as parents we have had to enter a period of financial consolidation as it is no linger a choice not to. How parents do this obviously varies depending on their own situation. However this is how we have approached it.

- make packed lunches to stop us buying lunch and snacks at work

- buy good quality coffee beans to grind at home as this prevents the urge to "pop out for a coffee" at the weekend

- invite people over for dinner rather than meet them out, if we do go out it's for breakfast not evening meal or lunch as this is generally cheaper

- down graded our cars but to newer cars. Both had 5+ year old big engined cars and traded them for one year old smaller cars. Same monthly repayments but cheaper to fuel and insure and also three to four years of minimal maintenance costs

- buy groceries online as this prevents temptation to buy extras

Now all of these are small things but soon add up. We unfortunately have also had two of our three dogs die since Mitch was born and we haven't replaced them as it saves on vet and food bills.

Interestingly there are a few things that we have not cut back on. These include;

- gym memberships and running club memberships - both of us need exercise and this is what we term our "sanity tax"

- Satellite TV - yes it costs a lot but is an unwinding mechanism that we do use

Over and above this we have looked for ways to increase our income streams. I now contribute to www.nutripaeds.co.za as their daddy blogger, it doesn't pay a lot but it does help and was unexpected as I wasn't expecting to be paid. I have also doubled the amount of images that I have on various stock photography sites and have secured some event photography jobs on the weekends. Kim is busy expanding her service offerings in her company www.resm.co.za. Again small things but when put together as a consolidation process it all adds up.

For us the process has been one of enlightenment in a way and one that we will continue to follow. The benefits have been reaped and will continue to be reaped. How are you consolidating? I'd love for you to share your thoughts