I’m going to go through, in as much detail as possible, how first year with BB cost. It’s messy because I remember some months I just recorded all the spending and didn’t write notes. COVID-19 has obviously made everything more unpredictable. My parents have been extremely generous throughout. And that’s okay. Life got messy, and I know we have not been unreasonable with the way we spent. In fact, our main approach to this year with BB was – act out of habit, don’t sweat the small stuff.
Pregnancy, labor costs: ~$2,500
I have documented my IVF costs and so I’m not counting that here. Instead, we paid
- Doula, $1,600: Worth every penny. Jae Carey, she is a miracle worker
- Co-pays, $900: These mostly went to weekly to almost 2x weekly physical therapy appointments for my symphysis pubis dysfunction
I had health insurance from two companies with really good coverage, a huge privilege, which meant many things were covered, including:
- ~$250 worth of baby classes (birth class and CPR class)
- 2 breast pumps (worth $250)
- Labor and delivery (depending on how you account it, ~$20-40K in costs to the insurance companies)
- $1,700 in costs related to BB’s tongue tie
- $700 circumcision
= $23,000 or more in covered healthcare costs
Upfront home furnishings, toys: ~$1,125
- Litter robot, $325 (this is an old refurbished model, new models are now $700): We splurged on this non-baby item for multiple reasons. It tidied up the space for our cats, reduced the work we had to do for them, and was easy for our cat sitters for our original travel plans. We followed the instructions exactly to transition our cats and they love it. I don’t regret this splurge!
- Other furnishings, $800: I can’t remember everything in here and some of this was paid for with gift cards, but big items include a fancy humidifier ($125) that we didn’t use, an extra book shelf ($114), folding table ($60), a lot of sleep related stuff (various swaddles), and upfront diaper supplies
- Not included, $4,000 worth of gifts and in-kind gifts
Daycare search: $400. I registered for wait lists at two NYC professional daycares. One of them would be the daycare of choice when we returned to NYC in 2021 after this blog was written.
Recurring costs, annual amounts:
Extra food, $700: Honestly this is the one I’m having the hardest time tease out. We have been sheltering in place with my parents since March. My mom buys groceries, I buy groceries, my husband buys groceries, and it’s really not clear what food went to whom. So I’ll just say I think BB, who began eating solids around month 5, added $100 a month to the budget though it probably was a lot less in the beginning. I think next year I’ll have a cleaner budget to estimate this.
Health insurance, $580: BB was on my health insurance for 4 months ($100 extra a month), and on hubby’s for 12 months ($15 extra a month). When I return to work we will not add BB nor hubby to my health insurance, but I will remain double insured as we hope to attempt IVF again.
Formula, $700: BB became formula fed around 5 months and usually went through about $100 of formula a month
Health co-pays, $300: After the generous insurance payouts, we ended up with about $300 of bills, mostly co-pays, prescriptions, and odds and ends like a breast pump rental from the hospital ($90)
Diapers and wipes, $420: People gifted us diapers too. All in I’d say we probably go through $35 of diapers and wipes a month. We buy Costco
Clothing, toys, supplies, $480: Throughout the year I’d find myself spending just about $40 a month adding toys, sizing up clothing. Honestly the grandparents here have been more than generous here because they can’t help themselves (BB does not need this many clothes haha) so I don’t even think I needed to buy much.
And here are the totals:
Total non-recurring upfront costs: $4,025
Total recurring annual costs: $3,180, or, $265 a month
Total upfront and recurring costs for baby’s first year: $7,205
Overall, I am glad we went the route of not really counting the pennies when it came to BB, but still using all of our engrained habits (price comparisons, buying used, borrowing, returning what we don’t need, being very shrewd with health insurance), to spend where our priorities lay.
