You can never save too much money for a baby. Haha. I don't think anyone can be fully prepared regardless of the situation. My hubby and I are trying for our first baby. Although we won't know what to expect because babies don't come with price tags, we will wait until we are financially stable and on our feet with jobs. We want to provide our baby with the best that we never had. Best of luck.

That's really all I can find for benefits! I hippie it helps a little :)

Ooo that Marielynn. Will look into it for sure!

Efong, I live in Calgary! I have looked into this as well, here is a website that may help you a bit... ссылка

Baby dust to you :)

Thanks ladies. I also live in Alberta. Edmonton. I am a control freak too which I'm okay with. I'm also a bit of a workaholic and super love my job. I have lots of parents telling me that things will change in terms of my thoughts and priority. I sure hope so! Yes this would be our first. I love kids!! I am thankful I live in Canada. I'm already think about RESPs.

Wow maybe i should move to canada..... here in the Ohio in the US where i live there is no such thing as "maternity leave". If you get pregnant your only hope is FMLA (family medical leave act) And even with that your only going to get 6 weeks. Unfortunatly for me my place of employment was no help with my daughter and i only ended up being able to take off 3 weeks because thats all we had saved up at that time. (We didnt find out till late with my daughter). I know my labor and delivery was close to 10k not including all my prenatal visits. So i was left to pay 20% of all my bills after insurance. As far as saving money back i would defiantly consider getting a decent saving started but breast feeding saves a TON of money. We stocked up on a lot of our main stuff like diapers wipes and such as soon as we found out we were expecting and we got far more at our baby shower. I didnt have to buy diapers untill dayghter was almost 6 months old! Daycare here is very very expensive i would reccomend saving your majority of money towards this and misc items you will need after pregnancy. Sorry so long just giving my experience. Defiantly cant give you an estimate since were in different countries! Goodluck

Is this your first child?

Have you thought of being a stay at home mom? If this is your first once you have the baby you may not want to go back to work. That's what happened to me.

We live in northern Alberta and we decided to have a baby. After my mat leave was up I was going back to work. When her first birthday came we decided I stay home for another year.

She is now 3 and I still haven't gone back to work. If we needed me to go back right away I would have but we cut our reckless spending so I could stay home.

A babies first few years don't cost much! Buy what you can second hand because they grow out of it so fast.

I'm the same. I sat down one day and did a massive spreadsheet accounting for nappy costs, food, child care, plus all the start up costs of cots, highchairs, car seat etc. So we didn't start TTC until we had double the savings calculated for the initial start up costs. Along with making sure that the monthly costs could be met. We aren't going on any holidays this year and we have reduced our monthly outgoing so too.

Essentially, I'm a control freak and I treated the start of TTC as if I was starting a business. But I would rather that than find out 9 months later that we can't afford any of it and get into considerable debt.

Good luck, the fact that you are asking the question leads me to believe you have a sensible financial head on your shoulders!

We only get 6 weeks. Your lucky to get all that time. I'm a sahm so I pay no childcare. We also didn't save to have a baby. We get them what they need and sometimes what they want and that's that.

I can't give you an exact # to save but infant spots in daycare are not easy to come by and you usually quite a bit more for them. I had to do some budgeting and had to change my lifestyle a little (not get my hair done all the time, cut down our cable package, etc) but for me it was worth it as I would never get that time back with my LO. I guess you just need to decide what's best for you and your family. GL!