How to Financially Prepare for a Baby – Budgeting, Super, Childcare & Money Moves with Jayde Jenkins and Ash Cam

Pregnant or planning a family? Wondering how much a baby really costs and how to budget for it?
In this episode of Get Rich, we share practical, real-world money tips for first-time mums, expecting parents, and anyone preparing for life with a newborn.

Molly Benjamin is joined by financial advisor Jayde Jenkins and soon-to-be mum Ash Cam to unpack the true cost of having a baby in Australia and how to get financially ready — without the overwhelm.

We cover:
✅ How to budget for a baby and create a baby emergency fund
✅  Maternity leave money tips — including how to protect your superannuation
✅  Public vs private birth costs (and what’s often left out of the budget)
✅  The hidden expenses of newborn essentials and pregnancy care
✅  Childcare costs, subsidies, and why you need to join waitlists early
✅  Key pre-baby life admin: wills, insurance, joint accounts
✅ How to start saving or investing for your child’s future

Whether you’re an expecting parent or just starting to plan, this episode will help you prepare your finances, avoid common mistakes, and feel confident about your money before your baby arrives.

This episode is brought to you by InvestorKit, Australia’s #1 Buyers Agency for 2023 and 2024. They specialise in helping investors find high-growth properties utilising industry leading AI and data driven research process across Australia. 70%+ of the properties they purchase are off-market and they have consistently outperformed national average capital growth rates by over 49%. Whether you’re looking to build your property portfolio or secure your first investment. Check them out here.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome to Get Rich
01:16 – Why This Episode Matters
02:21 – Meet the Guests: Jade & Ash
03:05 – Where Do You Even Start?
06:05 – Budgeting for Baby: Expectation vs Reality
09:53 – Maternity Leave & Government Support
11:40 – Must-Haves vs Nice-to-Haves
15:15 – Superannuation & Power Shifts in Relationships
22:10 – The Childcare Shock
25:32 – Pre-Baby Life Admin
27:29 – Setting Kids Up Financially
30:17 – Final Advice from Jade & Ash
33:31 – Where to Find Our Guests

CONNECT WITH JAYDE JENKINS

Website: Home | Mazi Wealth
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jayde-jenkins-cfp®-80aa66b2
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayde_financialadviser/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaziWealth

CONNECT WITH ASH CAM

Website: https://www.resetworkplace.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reset___podcast/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Resetpodcastchannel
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2SFe17HFXfbLPFd3WbphKw
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reset-with-ash-cam/id1777232501

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

TAKEAWAYS

• Start with an emergency fund when expecting a baby.
• Budgeting for a new baby can be overwhelming and often exceeds initial estimates.
• Childcare costs can be a significant and unexpected expense for parents.
• It's essential to put your name down for childcare as early as possible to secure a spot.
• Updating your will and life insurance is crucial before the baby arrives.
• Investing in your child's future can start from day one, but prioritize your own financial stability first.
• Financial literacy is a vital gift to pass on to your children.
• Enjoy your twenties and take your time before becoming a parent.
• Every parent's journey is unique, and it's important not to compare.
• Having open conversations with partners about finances is essential before and after having a baby.

SOUND BITES

"Start with an emergency fund."
"Budgeting for a new baby is overwhelming."
"Childcare costs can be a surprise expense."

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Welcome to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and stay rich. Hey, I'm Molly Benjamin. I'm the founder of Ladies Finance Club, one of Australia's largest financial education platforms for women. But before I started helping thousands of women take control with their money, I was a hot financial mess when it came to my own finances and not the fun kind of hot, more like crying in a supermarket, wondering where all my money went kind of hot.

[00:00:29] But here's the thing, if I can go from financial mess to owning a share portfolio, investing in property, and building wealth. Then you can too. My mission is simple to make women rich because when we have financial freedom, we have choices, confidence, and control over our future. Every week on Get Rich, I sit down with some of the best experts in the industry to break down how we can all start investing, growing our money, and creating long-term financial security without the jargon, boring bits or overwhelm.

[00:01:02] Because when women get rich, we don't just change our lives, we change the world. So if you're ready to start making some Smart Money moves, hit that subscribe button and let's get Rich together.

[00:01:16] Welcome back to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and stay rich. I'm your host, Molly Benjamin, founder of Ladies Finance Club, and at the time of recording this, I am actually. Pregnant with my first baby. I've just finished my first trimester, so this is a hot topic for me. One, I'm living and breathing right now.

[00:01:35] How to financially prepare for a baby. Now, a lot of people will say having children is expensive, but if you are curious about what it really costs, this conversation gives you, you know, some numbers, some tips, and the must do money moves before your little one arrives. And when I was thinking about who I wanted to get on for this episode, I was like, definitely want a financial advisor.

[00:01:56] So I. I asked the awesome Jade Jenkins, who is a mom of two, and the beautiful Ash cam, who's the host of the Reset podcast, and she runs women's retreats. And by the time this episode has come out, she will have given birth. So we wanted to break down the true cost of having a baby in Australia, how to budget for maternity leave, childcare, and those unexpected expenses that nobody warns you about.

[00:02:21] So if you wanna go into parenthood feeling prepared instead of panicked, keep listening. This one's full of really practical, real world advice you can start using today. And if you are enjoying these episodes, show us a little bit of love by hitting that subscribe button. All right, let's dive in. Welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:40] I'm so excited for this conversation ladies. Thanks Melin. Thanks for having us. Awesome. Thank you. So let's jump straight in. As I mentioned in the intro, I am expecting, Ash, I know you are very close to having your baby. And Jade, you have kids of your own. So I feel like we're covering like we've got a good amount of experience between us.

[00:03:05] Well, not that I'm bringing much to this, but between you guys. So I just wanted to kind of go like when we're kicking off and we're like maybe an expecting parent. The finances can be a bit overwhelming. It's like, oh my God, where do I even begin? And when we speak to anyone at Ladies Finance Club and they're in the start of their money journey, we always say, start with an emergency fund.

[00:03:28] So I mean, is this a good place to start when you are expecting a baby, like setting up a baby emergency

[00:03:34] Jayde: fund? It was really funny, Molly, this question because, um, my kids are now three and five, so I was going, oh, okay. What did we, what did we do? And I think, um, absolutely, obviously having an emergency fund in general is going to come in handy.

[00:03:50] But I did write down some notes in terms of things that popped up as our kids got older. So I guess I've had five years experience as a parent now, and friendship groups and all that. We've all got kids, so obviously there's random stuff that's going to pop up for babies. So my youngest had eczema, which by three months we'd worked it out.

[00:04:08] So it was like multiple chips to the gp. Not that that cost, but the prescriptions cost. All that goes with it. And then I quite quickly realized that steroids was not the answer for us. And so I looked at naturopathy. So we went through that process and I think from memory it was about a thousand dollars for all the Yeah.

[00:04:27] Appointments and the treatment that they use, which was a good outcome for us. But it was expensive, obviously. Yeah. Then there were things like by the time they're two, your ear, nose and throat issues sometimes pop up, so there might be like tonsils and adenoids, removing and speaking to friends. Those costs can range from like two to $5,000, depending if you have your health insurance or not.

[00:04:48] And the public wait list, I think, for kids is really long to do things. I think that's probably an important thing to point out, is that if you don't have private health insurance for your kids, the wait lists are quite often two and three years long for various. Things that happened. So you kind of just go, we can't do this for like three years, let's just pay for it.

[00:05:08] So things like that that pop up. There's also some things that come in, I found around the age of three, which was like additional supports like OT and speech therapy. Yeah. So you know, they're like $200 the pop if you're not on NDIS. So those sort of things. And then if you go further from that, and if you've got like a DHD in the family and you suspect your kids might be too.

[00:05:29] Then that's another big exercise and a big cost. So I just feel like as they age, maybe not so much immediately as a baby, like sure things pop up. But yeah, the additional support that I never, you know, expected any of those sort of things to fall into our lives, but various pieces of that have, okay.

[00:05:44] Molly: So I would say in short the answer is yes, have an emergency fund.

[00:05:48] Jayde: Yeah. And I did give a figure actually, so, oh yeah. I said for maybe start with about if you can, 5,000 is a good buffer point because that's gonna give you a little bit of choice when it comes to having private health or not and getting through wait lists and all that sort of stuff.

[00:06:03] Ash: Okay,

[00:06:04] Jayde: great. So what was that figure?

[00:06:05] Sorry again, about

[00:06:06] Molly: 5,000. 5,000? Yeah. Awesome. And Ash, how have you approached budgeting for the new baby? Not that well, and I thought, I like the honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For anyone that's just listening to audio, I'm about to show a very scribbled on bit of paper, which was my budget. But if you're watching video, it's like just chaos notes, right?

[00:06:30] So when we first started our our baby journey, we thought, okay, we wanna go private. That's. Suits us. So we had private health insurance and a friend gave me a savvy tip to just put myself on the pregnancy cover, not do couples pregnancy cover. And that ended up being a little bit cheaper for us. So my partner's just on a basic health cover and I'm on pregnancy.

[00:06:53] Yeah. And we thought, cool. That should cover pretty much all of the medical expenses on the journey. It doesn't, we'll talk about that in a second. And then my, my little paper shopping list was sort of what I roughly thought from Googling. I'd need a pram, a bed, a carrier, like some basic stuff. We'll just play it simple.

[00:07:12] So my, my budget that I had written on this little bit of paper was 3,500. And I thought, yeah, it's fine. We'll just be minimalist. We just, we just need the basic things. If you add up the private obstetrician costs, the private scans, the things that we've ended up purchasing that kind of blew the budget.

[00:07:34] We're sitting close to $15,000 now. Wow. On top of private health insurance. I'm sure if I was a second time mom, maybe that figure would look different and I would do things differently. Similar to Jade, where there's things that pop up that you can't plan for. So our baby was from some of the scans we had in the earlier days, the obstetrician was concerned that maybe she would stop growing towards the end, and so we have had to pay for some additional scans, which probably came in around a thousand dollars total.

[00:08:04] But the rest of the stuff. In hindsight, I probably could have researched and planned for better, but yeah, it's been a little bit more expensive than my initial budgeting. Yeah, so at the time of this recording, I am 11 and a half weeks and I'm going public at the moment. I might 'cause I would like to come to the Gold Coast and go and just pay for private, but by the time I got around to adding private pregnancy cover, you needed to have it for 12 months.

[00:08:34] Me and my partner have only been together for nine months, so we wouldn't have even hit that. And the guy who I got my health insurance with, he kind of also talked me out of it a little bit because he is like, you're gonna be paying the excess, so by the time you pay it, his advice was actually just pay cash if you wanna go private towards the end for the delivery, which was really interesting.

[00:08:55] So now we are. Going public, but even going public, there are, I've been surprised at some of those costs already involved. Obviously, like there's been like getting vitamins, which haven't been too crazy. But then there's been the scans, the doctor's appointment, which you do get a little bit back from Medicare, but.

[00:09:15] Not a huge amount. And then next week we are doing, we've gotta get some tests. You know, there's tests to see if the baby, I think it's called the NIP test, and they're like, oh, it's $500 and you can't get anything back from Medicare. And I'm like, well that's fine for me, but. That is concerning for people who, you know, might be struggling financially.

[00:09:34] That is a huge amount of money and yeah, I, I did wonder in those situations, like, do they just not decide not to get them, or, I don't know how people do it. Like it, it must be really tough for a lot of people out there. So I think we've talked about kind of like the expectations around the cost versus the reality.

[00:09:53] So Ash, can you break down how you are budgeting for, and, and if you are, you might not be, but for that first 12 months of having a baby. Yeah, so my partner and I are both self-employed, so we don't get any sort of benefits from our, our companies. It's our own, but I'll be eligible for the government maternity pay, which is around $900 a week now.

[00:10:14] And, um, they are starting to pay super on top of that, which is amazing. And then my partner's going to take a couple of weeks off and then slowly transition back to. Part-time and then he'll be, he's full-time, will be four days a week once he goes back. So hopefully between the two of us we can kind of navigate this new parenting journey.

[00:10:37] But we've been sort of thinking about it and planning it for the past two years. So while I don't have you saw earlier, my budgeting techniques are not the best. We're sort of in a comfortable position to, to move forward. Yeah. Nice. And had you been saving for this moment in the past? Not necessarily, but we were really intentional about where we purchased to live was very much within our means.

[00:11:02] So I'm sure most people do this when they fall pregnant. They suddenly think like, oh, do I need a bigger house? Do I need a bigger car? All these sorts of things. But we, we sort of. Mentally work through that and we're like, no, we're gonna stay in our apartment that the mortgage feels manageable and not stretch ourselves too much so that we can have the sort of a little bit of flexibility when baby comes.

[00:11:22] Yes. And Jade, having kind of been through this process a few times, what do you think are like the key must haves when you've got a newborn and where can parents cut back that maybe, I guess. From discussions with your friends as well, where can parents afford to cut

[00:11:40] Jayde: back? It's probably what Ash has commented about.

[00:11:43] You know, spent maybe spending an area she thought she wouldn't, and then the second one. So I think that we would probably, it was a different sort of time in terms of. When we bought stuff for our kids, because this is like 2020 and things were still really cheap, so you could go to baby bunting and buy a $300 cot pretty easily and all those sort of things.

[00:12:01] That might be a lot more now. So in terms of a newborn, they really, let's be real, they don't need much. They need somewhere to sleep. A safe travel, so like priam and car seat and food, whether that's breast milk or whether that's formula. So you can do it really. You can do it. You know, I found that with my second one around, I didn't buy anything for him because we knew we were having a boy.

[00:12:20] That was easy. But if it was still my first, really for him, all I had was a bassinet, clothes, all that essential sort of stuff. And then as he got older, like we didn't start his nursery until he was four months old. And so we just took our time to do it that way. And I think that, yeah, if you are budgeting for a new baby that.

[00:12:40] Don't get too excited and go out and buy all the things before they come because one, you might have a premature baby and then you can't fit the clothes. You might have a bigger baby and you can't fit the clothes, or your living situation might change whatever that looks like. There are sort of four key things you need for a newborn, and then you just collect and coll collect stuff as they get older.

[00:13:00] Molly: Yeah, so true. And I am, like, I say this now, but I'm very much on the, like I was looking at change tables and I was looking at what they are brand new versus what I could find on Facebook marketplace as a bit of a challenge. Yes, we can afford brand new, but like I'd much prefer to spend 50 bucks on a. A new one.

[00:13:21] Also, I don't wanna just keep creating ways, so I'm like, if I can use someone else's and it's in a really good condition, I'm all about that. But do you guys have any thoughts on buying new versus secondhand? Yeah, I initially thought similar to you, but then we've ended up purchasing a few things and I thought from a safety perspective, my mom brain started to go wild and I was like, I wanna be the one to use it new and then I will sell it secondhand.

[00:13:47] Yeah. And so like as. Snoo, for example, which is this very fancy kind of bed that they can use for only six months. But it, it's, I've got an electronic component to it and I just started to go through my head of like, what if I buy a secondhand one and it was mistreated or something like that. So the way I tried to kind of save a little bit is there's a few key moments that all the baby stores seem to have sales.

[00:14:11] So Mother's Day. Yeah. Sales. So I saved I think $400 off my Sno, which should have been around $2,000, which is a lot of money, but I will sell it. And then I went to a baby expo and they had, if you have done your research in advance and purchase on the day, you can kind of save like 20% here and there and end of financial year sales as well.

[00:14:32] So yeah, I'm kind of doing it the opposite way around. I will buy new, but then I'm intentionally going to sell these things after. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And there's some things where I'm like, you know, pram, like I'm, I wanna buy that brand new and a couple of other things. But yeah, kids in the words, I think, I don't know if you guys know Anna Kreshner, she wrote a book called Kids Ain't Cheap.

[00:14:52] And I'm like, she, she at a point. And what was interesting the other day on. Ladies Finance club, I put out a post about what were some of those expenses you weren't expecting in motherhood, and it probably came up every second time. It was the cost of you not working and your super being affected, and then also childcare.

[00:15:15] So Jade, do you have any tips around how women can make sure that it's fantastic that the government is now paying super on maternity leave? We are in self-employed, so that's really important. But I guess around that super, like are there conversations we should be having with our partner? And also Jade, if you have any tips around.

[00:15:37] The power change because you go from earning to not earning and being maybe a little bit more reliant on your partner.

[00:15:44] Jayde: That's a really interesting point because when we had our first child, I was the higher income earner, and then when we had our second child, it flipped to be, I was not the highest income earner.

[00:15:55] 'cause my husband started his business. And so when I had my first baby, it was quite a big deal in terms of like, oh, okay, now I'm gonna have half my salary. There was thoughts around like, well, should I be the one going back to work full time because I have the higher earning capacity? All those sort of things.

[00:16:14] I think for us, they'd never really felt like a power shift because we combined all our money very early on in our relationship and our family money has always been our family money even before we had kids. So we kind of just contribute what we do, contribute to it. Everything gets paid for the way it should be, and all our goals were kind of set.

[00:16:33] It's probably more the the budgeting side of things to say like, I mean, for me in terms of a power shift, maybe I was very career focused before I had children, and I remember having a conversation with my boss saying, okay, how about I work? Four days, but I'll do my five days of hours in those four days.

[00:16:50] And he said, sure. Like I'm more than happy for you to do that, but let's, of course you won't. Yeah. Let's have this conversation when you get back. And I was like, okay. And um, on the first day I went to him and I said, scrap what? I said, I'll just do my four days. And I was in and I was out and I just wanted to get home.

[00:17:04] So I think your priorities do shift. And from a financial perspective, um, I think for myself and any of my girlfriends who have been particularly career orientated. It's a really big mind shift and mental change to them be going, I have two priorities now. Like, and they butt heads and they get in each other's way.

[00:17:24] And I can't be the same person that I was in my, this role or my that role because I've got this other little person to, to put first. And it's a really hard juggle trying to say, okay, like. You watch your career stagnate a little bit and your finances stagnate. So it is more of a mental shift, I suppose, and, and hopefully we're having conversations with our partners before we're having children about, does the household finances look like once we go through that process?

[00:17:51] Molly: Yes. Well, when I, as soon as I found out I was pregnant and you know, I run Ladies Finance club, I was like, babe, I've set us up a joint account and you need to be putting X amount in every pay. And 'cause he's also self-employed and I'm like, and we're gonna be using that money because this needs to be equal from day dot ash.

[00:18:08] How have you had, if you're happy to share, have you had those conversations with your partner around what will happen when you are now not earning what you were earning? Yeah, so we started to have these conversations a few years ago when we were still living in London actually. And so at the time I was earning more than Alex and uh, my role had me flying to a different country every second week and just really was not conducive of babies.

[00:18:34] So while I was earning more in London, we made a really intentional decision that. We would completely uproot our lives, move to the Gold Coast where Alex would be better paid. He's a health professional. Long story short, they get paid better in Australia than in the uk and that meant me doing a complete career shift and setting up a business that we could see babies coming into our world in the future.

[00:19:00] So the retreats and the podcasts are very much like they really light me up. They make a big change in the world, but the schedule is. Under my kind of control, rather than working for a company and flying everywhere and like, where's the baby in that situation like she would be. Yeah. So we made that decision a few years ago knowing that our lifestyle had to change if we were going to be able to have a baby.

[00:19:24] Yeah, no big time. For sure. London Lifestyle. I, I, I take my hat off to people who have families in London, having done seven years there, I'm like, how are you surviving, Jade? So if we quickly jump back to the super, is there anything we can be doing pre-baby, during baby to make sure our super isn't being, I guess, affected so heavily?

[00:19:48] Jayde: Yeah, and obviously what the government's just introduced is going to significantly help that. I think just depending on how long you're going to have off, if you're going to have six months off, it's probably nothing to stress about too much because if you are entitled to the government support or pension, you will have this super going in.

[00:20:04] It's also worth having conversation with your employer about, well, am I getting paid maternity leave or paternity leave? Whatever it is, will I getting my super entitlements? All of that sort of thing. But if you were like, well, I'm a little bit worried because I'm gonna go and have a baby and indefinitely be off.

[00:20:19] What can I do? So there's obviously, if you are a decent income earner, you can make some extra concessional contributions beforehand to kind of try and help bridge that gap. You can also super split with your partner. So 80 up to 85% of their contributions can go and be split with yours, which in this day and age it is a good idea if we can kind of try and keep couples super balances similar.

[00:20:44] Because of the thresholds that we are probably going to hit later on in life. Like let's not talk about the $3 million extra tax. But you know, if we can try and keep our super balances similar, that is going to aid with a lot of things later in life. So the sooner we start, the less catch up we have to do later.

[00:20:59] We also do have some spouse contributions so they can claim a tax offset for some of that as well as there is some like low income government assistance that will just automatically apply to your super. So. I believe the figure is around, don't quote me, but 30 odd thousand where you are. Essentially the 15% tax that you pay will get paid back to your super fund as well as the, if you put in a thousand dollars to Super via non-concessional, the government will give you 500.

[00:21:26] So there are quite a number of incentive plans, I suppose, for you to be making those extra contributions if you're worried about your super.

[00:21:34] Molly: Yeah, and they're definitely worth looking into, especially if you are not gonna be earning, you may as well get that kind of free money from the government without government co-contribution and make that non-concessional contribution for sure.

[00:21:47] All right, and then the next topic I just wanted to chat about was around childcare, because that was apart from like people's earning capacity, taking time out of work, they're super being infected. This was definitely the next one that came up as the most significant expense. They weren't really expecting Jade, because you probably know a little bit about this, and Ash, please jump in if you do as well.

[00:22:10] How does the childcare system work in Australia for someone who's.

[00:22:15] Jayde: Subsidies, are we talking?

[00:22:17] Molly: Yeah. In terms of subsidies and. Yeah, like how does it all work?

[00:22:21] Jayde: Yeah, so let's just start, I guess with the fees. So every childcare will have a daily fee. So that might be $150 a day. It might be $180 a day. Then depending on your family income, the government will help subsidize that.

[00:22:36] So it definitely does cut out at well over sort of 500,000. But if you are earning below that threshold, there'll be an element where. The government will actually give you back some of your childcare costs so you don't have to fork it out every week. What will happen is essentially if you qualify for it, you'll pay the gap fee basically between what childcare charges you and what the daycare will.

[00:22:59] Centrelink will. Top you up with essentially in Queensland, we've also got some free kindy for kids who are four and five, which is also, depending on your level of percentage based subsidy, it makes a pretty big impact on your weekly costs for 40 weeks of the year. So there's different variations to the childcare across different states to a degree, when it comes to that free kindy.

[00:23:23] Essentially the cost is significantly reduced. I think it's a really good scheme. The second child also, you usually get around 20% extra subsidy from childcare subsidy support as well.

[00:23:36] Molly: Mm-hmm. Awesome. And Ash, have you looked into this at all, or is this something that you are considering? Yeah, something that's really surprised me.

[00:23:43] As soon as I started telling people we're pregnant, they're like, oh, have you put your name down for childcare yet? Have you put your name down for schools? You need to do that the day that they're born. And I was like. What, I haven't even had this little girl yet. So feeling a little overwhelmed by those sorts of decisions, to be honest.

[00:24:00] But yeah, I've got some friends who are very adamant on their little boy going to private school, for example, but they don't know where in Australia they're going to be living. So they have put his name down in every capital city for private schools, and it would cost them around a thousand dollars a school just to put his name down.

[00:24:18] The day he was born. And so these are all these surprise costs that, that I'm learning about as we go as well. Sorry, there's, you have to pay to put your child on a wait list for private school. Yeah. Yep. And for childcare you have to put your name, baby's name on a wait list for childcare. You put Yeah, apparently you can put your name down while you're still pregnant for childcare to be on the wait list.

[00:24:43] And if you don't, you can miss out on some of them there. So our,

[00:24:47] Jayde: sorry I to jump in, but our childcare has over a 200 child wait list for a center that might have 150 places. So a lot of people are missing out, and a lot of people are actually, I don't know how ethical this is, but the childcare is saying, okay, your baby's starting at 10 months old.

[00:25:04] We have a place for you in January when your baby is six months old. If you don't want to attend, you need to still pay for it during that period. So two of my very close girlfriends have been in that situation where they've paid for up to four months for childcare that they're not utilizing.

[00:25:21] Ash: Oh my God.

[00:25:22] That is crazy. Yeah, I don't know if there's, I don't know if they really should be doing that, but yeah, they, that's what's happened. Oh my gosh. Okay.

[00:25:32] Molly: And so Jade, what are some money moves that we should be doing for our pre-baby checklist? Like for instance, updating wheels, life insurance, what are those kinds of like kind of, I call them boring life admin, but they're very important.

[00:25:47] What are those kind of life admin things we should be thinking about in these pre-baby days?

[00:25:53] Jayde: Yeah, exactly what you've said. So definitely looking at your personal insurances because there's little people about now, we wanna make sure that you're covered if anything happens to you at any point in your life.

[00:26:02] And yes. Um, obviously I'm not a lawyer, but getting your estate plan up to date to make sure it includes provisions potentially for guardianships test, andary trusts, whatever that looks like, you need to seek legal advice around that. It probably some of the biggest ones, I'd say, making sure all of your sort of bank accounts, if you're going to be using joint bank accounts, all those sort of things are set up early on so that you kind of have your systems working before baby comes along.

[00:26:26] Yeah. Ash,

[00:26:27] Molly: anything that you've done on that list or anything that you've got on your pre-baby kind of life admin checklist? Yeah, thanks to Jade, I went in and made sure my superannuation beneficiary was updated, but writing a will is still on our to-do list and it's throws like Mum brain is crazy. Molly, I'm sure you're experiencing this too, but it's like.

[00:26:51] Oh my gosh, what if something happens to both of us? Where does our baby go and how do we make sure that she is supported? And we're still working through those decisions, but it's, um, yeah, it's it's a lot. Yeah. I had to do my will when I didn't even have kids and I was single, and they'd be like, where do you want your future non-existent children to go?

[00:27:10] And I was like, that is a great question. I don't know. So I always say nothing feels quite like adulting, like have you thought about your death? But it is a really important thing to do. And obviously we work with some amazing estate planners, so just head over to Ladies Finance Club if you wanna be connected or have a few conversations with a couple.

[00:27:29] And Jade from a. Financial advisor perspective, what can we do to set our kids up financially for the future? I mean, if we're in that, you know, lucky financial position, should we start investing for them from day one or set up a savings account? What did you do in your situation?

[00:27:49] Jayde: Yeah, so you definitely can start, you know, a savings account.

[00:27:53] You can start if you are someone who is already investing in ETFs or whatever it looks like, you can set those up for your kids. We just need to be mindful under those two models that at some point they may start to pay up to 66% tax, um, unearned income, minors tax. So just need to be mindful of that.

[00:28:09] With our high income earners, we use investment bonds for our children so they're not taxed at your marginal tax rate. They're taxed at the company tax rate, and then eventually when you wanna gift it to them, you are not paying capital gains tax. That's probably the biggest draw cut. Personally though, I think that you need to put your own life jacket on first before we go saving anybody else.

[00:28:28] Yeah. So for me, financial literacy education is probably the most important thing. You can gift your children. What's that saying about the guy who goes fishing? Like, give him a fish and he'll eat for a night and teach him to fish and he'll eat for his life, sort of thing. So I don't, I personally don't have savings or investments for my children.

[00:28:46] We are just working on our own position, being debt free by the time they're sort of teenagers. And then being able to fund. Things that they need for their life. Um, buying assets for ourselves that are maybe going to help them. So maybe buying like another investment property where they can then live in while they're doing uni and they're not having to rent and doing those things, and they're gonna get it all eventually one day anyway.

[00:29:07] So I just believe in giving them knowledge first and then giving them the tools to basically use the money that they'll eventually be gifted.

[00:29:16] Molly: Yep. And I love that. And our money mindset is made up by the time we're seven years old and is heavily influenced by our parents. So yeah, if your kids are kind of hitting that age, just remember the language you use when you talk about money.

[00:29:31] It is so important. I've got a whole chapter on it in my book, Ash, have you thought about this or are you just like, I'm just trying to get. Through the first part, to be honest, at the moment my head's around like, oh my gosh, birth sounds scary. But yeah, it's something that we want to start thinking about, but similar mindset to Jade, if we can kind of build a bit of wealth and some assets now, she's going to get that in the future anyway.

[00:29:57] But yeah, lots to think about and learn as we go. Yeah, and I guess just to finish up. Jade and Ash, do you have any advice for listeners out there with where you are at in your, your life, your career, or even just from, you know, being Jade, being surrounded by friends, moms, what you are reflecting on now?

[00:30:17] Any advice for listeners who are coming into motherhood?

[00:30:22] Jayde: I think one of the key things, if I reflect on in my early days of being a mom was. There's not always gonna be answers for why your baby is unhappy. So I had a really unsettled baby and I spent lots of money and time buying gimmicks and buying all sorts of things that I was like here, like maybe you'll sleep if we do this or do that and not overthinking that.

[00:30:42] And I also think that it is okay to, we all go through this transition of mats or what, what's it called? You know, moving into motherhood where. Things change significantly in our lives and we are not going to be a person we once were, and that's okay. We just need to, you know, move forward and eventually we'll figure out who we are going forward.

[00:31:01] And money is going to look different. You know, my husband and I joke all the time about them, or childcare, but the money that we're spending on our children we're just like, wow. Like if we invested that money, you know that this is just ridiculous. So a lot of my clients in their thirties and forties all have the same goals.

[00:31:18] And they all wanna set themselves up for their future, but they all have high debt, high child costs, and it's just like you're spinning the wheels. So it will come as your children get older, things will get easier just to have the right foundation in place with budgeting and trying to do the right thing for now, and it will just come.

[00:31:35] Awesome. Love that. And

[00:31:36] Molly: Ash, anything from you with where you are at on your journey? Yeah, I talk to a lot of women in their twenties who put a lot of pressure on themselves to have kids by a certain age. And personally, I'm having my first baby at 36, and thankfully I've had great support along the way, and physically I'm fine to do that, but I think giving yourself permission to push those deadlines, that society sort of.

[00:32:01] Brainwashes us with a little bit, push them out to suit you and your lifestyle. And to be honest, I still feel like a teen mom at this age. And so I think it's okay to wait and enjoy a career and, and travel and lifestyle and stuff. Before jumping into this, because like Jade said, once you become a mom, you are never the same person again.

[00:32:24] We can't bounce back. I do believe we can bounce forward into an exciting new version of ourselves, but you'll never have your twenties again, so enjoy it. I love that so much and I'm having my first at 37. I thought I would be married at 25. I'd have three kids like your timetables look so different. And for me it was very dependent on meeting someone and that took me a very, very long time.

[00:32:49] And I still have so many amazing girlfriends who are still on that journey as well. Search, like trying to. Trying to meet that person, or they're deciding to do it by themselves. So yeah, the, the times are changing and that is absolutely fine. You've gotta, you know, we're all on our own journey and I love that, you know, there's no reason to compare.

[00:33:08] And I would say as well, if you are listening to this and in your own twenties, enjoy it. Like, I was always just so stressed about meeting someone and I didn't meet someone till 37. That was a long time, a long time of stressing, but yeah. Yeah. Everyone's on their own time journey. Ladies, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing so generously about financially preparing for a baby.

[00:33:31] We really appreciate it and we'll make sure in the show notes we'll pop our links 'cause Ash, you've got a podcast as well. Can you just give us a little bit of information about it? Yeah, of course. So it's called RESET and it's for navigating all the different seasons of your twenties and thirties. Jade has been on there talking finance before, but we also talk about psychology, career, skin health, the whole gamut of the different seasons that you go through in your twenties and thirties.

[00:33:57] So it's a fun listen. Awesome. And Jade, you are an incredible financial advisor in Queensland. Where can people get in touch with you?

[00:34:07] Jayde: Thank you. So you can find me predominantly on Instagram at Jade Financial Advisor. Otherwise, you can head to our website, which is masie wealth.com au.

[00:34:16] Molly: Yes, and as I said, we'll pop all those links in the show notes.

[00:34:19] All right. Thanks everyone. Thanks Lily.

KEYWORDS

parenting, finances, budgeting, childcare, maternity leave, superannuation, financial planning, motherhood, emergency fund, baby expenses