We’re Having Twins!
September 22, 2008 – 5:21 amIt’s official. After visiting the doctor this past Wednesday and getting a sonogram, it’s confirmed. We’re having twins. Although I’m very thankful to the Lord for this blessing, my thoughts quickly turn to how best to prepare.
The first perparation to be made is going from a two income household to a one income household. FrugalDad wrote on this topic just a few days ago on this very topic (here). Fortunately we’ve been preparing for this pregnancy for a while, and we’ve been attempting to live on one income all year. Thus far we’ve been successful, having only stumbled once this month due to unexpected medical bills. Going forward we could have used our emergency fund, but since the second income is still around we decided to use those funds instead.
The other items that need to be accounted for include:
- paying for the delivery, and the chance that the twins (and mom) may need to stay in the hospital a bit longer than if it was a single child. Although I don’t expect this to occur, I’d like to store up a bit of extra cash just in case.
- adjusting the annual budget for the kiddo. My wife and I have already shaved what we can (easily) from our budget. The good news is that we’ll save a fair amount of money on gasoline because she has a reasonably long commute now. I doubt this will be enough to offset the food, diapers, doctors visits, etc. for the little ones.
- start bargain-shopping for the things we know we’ll need, focusing on those things we don’t expect to get from baby showers.
For those of you with kids, is there anything you would recommend we do to prepare for our two little arrivals?
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13 Responses to “We’re Having Twins!”
Woo hoo!! Best wishes! Hope all goes well with the pregnancy and delivery.
By Hilary on Sep 22, 2008
Wow! What a blessing–actually, a double blessing! Congratulations to you and your wife.
I agree with the added emergency fund. When Mom and babies are home safe you can use this excess for any debt repayment, or to fund other investments. It might be a good idea to leave most of it in a larger emergency fund since you are losing an income and adding two members to your household.
Get a jump on college savings. Open a 529 or education IRA as soon as possible, even if you have to make small contributions early on. Your potential college expenses just doubled and in 18 years you’ll be glad you started early.
Stockpile a few non-perishable goods now before the babies arrive (diapers, clothing, etc.). Be sure not to buy too much of one size–those little ones tend to grow fast!
Again, congratulations to you and your wife. Children are the most wonderful blessing in our lives.
By Frugal Dad on Sep 22, 2008
Congratulation. This is very exciting.
By Pinyo on Sep 22, 2008
How exciting, congratulations!!
By bobbi on Sep 22, 2008
That´s amazing, congratulations!!!!
My hint; do not buy everything new. The babies will grow out of clothes/toys/stuff in a few weeks anyway. Look for a used stroller and get every piece of clothing you can from friends/family.
By Nola on Sep 23, 2008
Congratulations! You have indeed been blessed abundantly!
My advice is the same as frugal dad’s above - stock up now on diapers, every time you see a sale or have coupons. But do watch out for those newborn sizes - they are too small very soon. Your babies can wear diapers that are a little bit big - their sleepers will keep them snug enough, but not diapers that are too small.
My only other advice?
Enjoy every minute.
You’ll have days where you won’t believe it, but babies grow in a twinkling -
don’t miss a single moment of the joy!
God bless you and your family.
By Grandmother Wren on Sep 23, 2008
Wow, twins. What a blessing, congratulations.
By frugal fergie on Sep 23, 2008
Congratulations and good luck!!
By Bas on Sep 23, 2008
Congrats and Good Luck!!
By RC@Thinkyourwaytowealth on Sep 23, 2008
congratuluations - exciting news!
By Peter on Sep 24, 2008
Wonderful news and congrats. I enjoyed stockpiling diapers as well whenever we saw them go on sale. Also, go online and sign-up for pampers newsletters and find all available online coupons for major manufacturers. You will need it. Lot’s of advice I could give, but the best is to ask friend that have kids for hand me downs. You will be inundated with clothes and diapers. Yes, we still have newborn and 1,2,3 size diapers left over. They don’t go bad and someone can always use them. We are currently lending most of our newborn items to friends and they are saving a nice amount of cash. Newborns don’t play hard or damage toys yet, so they can stay new for years. Again, congrats on the twins. You’ll have to change your blog name now
By Scott @ The Passive Dad on Sep 25, 2008
Congrats! Welcome to an exciting time in your life!
We are the parents of a 3-year-old boy and 15-month-old twin boys! I’d always said that if we had two kids I’d go back to work, but if we had three, I would stay home. Guess God was sending me a message!
As soon as we found out we were having twins, we started direct depositing my entire paycheck into our savings and lived solely on my husband’s income. We treated that money like it didn’t exist, so that we could get used to living on one income. I ended up on bedrest at the beginning and end of the pregnancy, and so my husband had to do a lot of things I couldn’t do, and we lost my income earlier than we anticipated. I took a one-year leave of absence from my job (I wanted a safety net in case we couldn’t make it.), but 6 months into the leave, I knew I wasn’t going back to work.
I LOVE being home with the kids (even on the tough days!) and I’ve written about my experiences on becoming a one-income family on my blog.
As parents of twins, let me tell you that the first couple of months are REALLY hard. You’re sleep deprived, you won’t want to cook much, and the price of diapers will FREAK you out. But it gets easier as each day passes and you learn to find the best deals on diapers.
Congrats! There is nothing like having TWO smiling and laughing babies at once! You are truly blessed!
If I can give you any other advice on life with twins, please e-mail me.
I wish you and your wife happy, healthy babies!
~ Christina
P.S. Don’t assume twins will be little. My boys were 6 pounds, 12 ounces, and 7 pounds, 15 ounces. We never bothered with newborn stuff!
By Christina on Oct 19, 2008
A few other thoughts:
You don’t need two of everything. I’d probably find out the genders if you can… it can really help with planning. For example, if you have two boys, you don’t need twice as much clothing… you just do laundry more often!
We found that our friends, family, and co-workers were very generous and we were able to get a lot of items as gifts. Anyone who has had ONE kid, can imagine the expense of two and tries to help out.
By Christina on Oct 19, 2008