Expecting Money: The Essential Financial Plan
for New and Growing Families

No matter how much one earns, owns, or owes, children dramatically alter a family’s financial picture. Expecting Money helps emerging parents plan a successful economic future. From setting a financial start line to developing a comprehensive new budget, readers will be able to build lasting security with the techniques outlined in this guidebook designed specifically for the most important time in anyone’s life – beginning a family.

Packed with valuable information, practical worksheets, and enlightening anecdotes, Expecting Money covers such key topics as:

• Prioritizing baby and maternity costs to obtain desired items and reduce waste
• Identifying and refining money values to spend and save effectively
• Crucial financial issues to discuss with a partner and how to resolve differences
• How single parents can overcome pressing economic concerns
• Employee benefits, and legal issues for pregnant and new-parent employees
• Managing fertility treatments and adoption expenses
• Determining if going from two paychecks to one makes sense
• Finding the best childcare options for baby and budget
• Income opportunities, from alternative schedules to creative employment choices
• Planning for education, homeownership, family vacations, and other long-term goals

In her engaging, down-to-earth style, credit expert and TV commentator Erica Sandberg provides the tools and inspiration all new and future parents need to overcome obstacles, make savvy decisions, and create a healthy financial future.

“Starred review” from Publisher’s Weekly
In her introduction, certified credit counselor Sandberg writes, “When I became pregnant with my daughter Lillian, I was caught off-guard by how little I—someone who has been in the personal finance field for over a decade—knew about the monetary aspects of pregnancy and new parenthood.” This book is Sandberg's response to that uncertainty, a compilation of the advice that she craved for herself. Sandberg opens with familiar chapters like “The Meaning of Money” and “The Dangers of Debt” that prepare readers for an uncluttered financial picture going into familyhood. The different needs of different families are addressed in chapters like “On the Double: Partner Issues” and “On Your Own: Single Solutions.” Most valuable of all, Sandberg costs out what new parents need to spend on the average (U.S.) baby's clothing, child care and other basic needs, even going so far as to compare the costs for different birthing options. Later she compares types of day care and analyzes different ways of meeting long-term needs. These concrete details are what make this book most valuable and helpful for new parents who need real numbers and facts to plan out their family's financial future.”