My wife and I have an 19 month-old son named Ivan. He is very concerned that parents do right by their children (he is especially worried about my parenting skills). Ivan has decided to help out new parents by issuing a regular newsletter called:
#TeamIvan’s: News From The Crib (#99) – Financial Planning.
1. My husband and I have a 19-month old son. What sort of financial planning do we need to do? Plan to be broke.
2. What about a will? You should have a will, just understand that “empty bank account” is not much of an inheritance.
3. What about disability insurance? Having a child is pretty disabling, but I’ve never heard of getting insurance for that.
4. What about a College savings plan? It’s interesting – and amusing – that you think you’ll be able to save enough to pay for college.
5. How should my husband and I balance what we’re saving for retirement against what we need to provide for our son’s expenses? Well, given that the government’s going to gut Social Security, and you won’t be able to retire anyway, this just isn’t an issue now is it?
6. How can we keep childcare expenses down? (a) don’t have a child; (b) give the child away; or (c) once the child is born do absolutely nothing – no eating, sleeping, anything. Just sit in the dark for the rest of your life.
7. How much is too much to pay for extracurricular activities like music lessons or sports? If the price of the lessons makes you yell out loud, it’s too much.
8. What’s the biggest expense of child-rearing? You mean besides Mom’s and Dad’s therapy bills?
9. At what point should we set up a bank account for our child? At the point at which you’re sure you won’t have to dip into it for your own expenses.
10. How much does it cost to raise a child born in the United States to age 21? How many stars are in the sky? That’s how many dollars.
