cost of parenting

in a month we'll be new parents to a lovely boy. it's an exciting future to look forward to, indeed, but i'm starting to feel the cost of additional family member. the stress of getting government subsidy that's less than what i get with my salary tends to eat me up if i don't try to ignore it and enjoy the idea of welcoming our new baby!

we waited until boxing day to purchase baby wraps and a cot blanket to take advantage of sale. a few days later we got our 4-in-1 cot and mattress for $840. we were fine with buying the $700 cot because it can be a cot, bassinette, sofa, and bed. it will be put to its good use over the next 4+ years. not bad. it's wood too so it can still be sold then for a good amount. unfortunately we've already caused it a couple of scratches moving it from the living room (where it was assembled) into our bedroom (where the baby will be sleeping for at least 3 months).

we also bought our first newborn disposable diapers. we don't plan to use disposable nappies all the time. my parents are coming over to assist our first few months of parenthood and my doting mom bought 3 dozens of cotton nappies! not only would they be good for the environment, they would also save us $$ significantly. however, i told j that i would like to use disposable nappies at night to ensure that our baby wouldn't be wet without us knowing, in case he's not the crying type. at first we thought of getting the cheap kind but this lady who was also about to get nappies advised us to use Huggies instead. since we don't know any better yet, we just took her advice. there is not a whole lot of options for disposable nappies here in nz i think.

on the next pay day we plan to get cot sheets (flat and fitted) and mattress protector. i hope that the baby shower would follow through and that i'd get some really useful stuff. i'd request for more cot sheets and other practical things for the baby. although we are excited to be parents, we are very much cautious of overspending because of excitement.

we planned on using CC1 to pay for the cot to earn more FlyBuy points but BabyStar doesn't accept CC1's kind. i ended up using CC3 instead. i'll have to transfer this pay period's snowflake to CC3 and the rest of the cot's amount in the next pay period. we're not earning any points from CC2 and CC3, just low interest.

oh, i also got myself busy last week re-creating a budget spreadsheet. j expressed his desire to categorize our spending. i created one for 2008 including these last 2 weeks of 2007 for transition purposes. we're hoping to increase our savings to at least 20% in 2008, but we'll see.