I’ve been regularly cruising the blogosphere for a few weeks now and have happily stumbled upon or been lead to several excellent blogs written by financially savvy people who have had children and write about what expenses you may incur when you take the parenting plunge.
Here’s the ones I’ve found so far:
Trent at The Simple Dollar often writes about parenting issues, almost always from a financial standpoint. He even has posts where he’s tallied up the daily cost of having a one-year old, and subsequently a two-year-old. Although it’s from an American perspective, he’s broken down the costs in such a way that it’s easy enough to estimate what each category would cost in your area.
For example, because Canada has universal health care, and Hubby’s and my employers provide dental, drug and other coverage, our costs in that category will be much lower. However, it’s likely that our food, hygiene and entertainment and child care costs will all be somewhat higher than what Trent has to pay in the States. That may change if retailers start lowering their prices on imports to match our currently strong dollar, assuming it stays that way for a decent length of time.
Mike at Quest for Four Pillars has a great series on Baby Expenses. I must admit that I’ve only made it up to Lesson IV: Car Seats and Strollers, but it’s been very helpful, somewhat reassuring, and not-at-all painful so far. It has the added benefit for me of being written by a Canadian. Thanks for the point to the series, Mike. I’ll be reading the rest shortly.
J.D. at Get Rich Slowly has quite a few articles on raising financially savvy kids. A lot of his posts are on trying to avoid marketing aimed at your children. A topic I’ll be reading up on for several years to come, I’m sure.
I’m sure there are plenty more out there, I just haven’t found them yet. If you know of a good one, feel free to let me in on it.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Blogs for the financially frightened parent-to-be
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5 comments:
Thanks for the link - it's nice to know that the series was useful and your comments are great.
Mike
the fetus watch widget is a little scary, but cool compilation of links. I wish I were Canadian
@four pillars: It certainly is a useful series. Thanks!
@baglady: It is a little scary, isn't it? I'm guessing it'll be less scary as s/he starts to look more like a baby and less like an alien.
I'm very happy to be Canadian, though being American wouldn't be too bad ether. You have to pay for your own medical care or health insurance, but your taxes are lower. It all depends on how you look at it. :)
Thanks for stopping by.
@fecundity: You should amend that to read "You have to pay for your own medical care or health insurance, but your taxes are lower... if you don't live in Massachusetts, New York or New Jersey."
My marginal tax rate reaches into the mid-40s in New Jersey with federal/state/local/city/plutonian taxes, plus no state-provided health care. I pay $400 per month for a $1500 deductible plan.
Then again, we have the balmy Northeastern US weather.
Argh.
Okay, Brip Blap. You have a point. I'm thankfully not familiar with all the state and provincial tax systems.
My federal and provincial income taxes total roughly 24%. There's also $2700 a year property taxes, $600 a year for the provincial "healthcare premium" (which my Premier informs me is not a tax but which looks remarkably like one), 14% sales tax on most stuff I purchase...
Oooh, and a quick look at the Petro Canada website shows that I'm paying about $0.31 of tax for every litre of gas I buy.
This is not a fun game, Steve. I quit.
Let's leave it as "You have to pay for your own medical care or health insurance, but your taxes are likely lower, depending on which state you live in and which province you're comparing it to."
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