Listen Money Matters - Free Your Inner Financial Badass. All The Stuff You Should Know About Personal Finance.

Deciding whether or not to have a baby is probably the biggest decision you will ever make.  Today we’ll discuss how to prepare financially for baby.  Stephany Kirkpatrick from LearnVest is our guest to discuss the financial aspects of having a baby. Having a baby doesn’t have to derail your financial goals.  It does change your financial priorities.  Good bye to five star resorts and hello to camping!  To raise a child to age 18, it will cost nearly $250,000. Retirement needs to stay front and center.  There are more ways to fund a college education than there are to fund retirement. Ask around about child related expenses.  What are people paying for child care, for school, for after school activities.  The numbers won’t be firm but you can at least have a sense of what you’re in for. Check into your maternity/paternity benefits.  If you are lucky enough to have paid leave, and many people are not, it may not be as long as you want or need to stay out of work.  You need to have money set aside to get yo