Is Trying To Get Pregnant an Emergency?
January 13, 2009 – 5:16 amIs trying to get pregnant and start a family an emergency? I mean, from an emergency fund perspective, would you be willing to use some of your emergency fund dollars to get pregnant? I would.
I never realized it before, but there are a lot of people like my wife and I out there who are having trouble getting pregnant. We went to an orientation at our hospital that they hold once a week, and the place was PACKED! We’re in our early 30’s, and guessing from the crowd I saw apparently there are a lot of 20 somethings and 40 somethings that need help.
Now do I consider getting pregnant a “drop everything any pay anything immediately” emergency? No. Of course you need to use a little common sense. My wife and I saved up for a while in order to afford a fair amount of the cost before we got started. We didn’t save up for this in particular though. We simply saved what we could and tried to plan diligently, and therefore our savings allowed us to have more options than most of the other people in that orientation. But I wouldn’t be against dipping into our emergency fund if necessary to finish paying off any remaining medical bills with cash.
There’s probably never a good time to have kids from a financial perspective. They’re expensive to have (in our case) and expensive to raise, and I don’t know of anyone who thought they were well prepared financially for such a big change.
Here’s the other deciding factor for me: for my wife becoming a mother is the top goal in life. And I’m more than willing to spend an emergency fund to help her reach her goals. We also could have sold some stuff, reduced our lifestyle spending further, etc. Some goals can clearly be put off, like my goal to reach financial freedom. Others are more pressing and are more important, and for us this was one of them.
What’s the point: Saving provides options. Common sense limits should help you avoid over-saving if you’re worried about that. But living below your means consistently can, as we’ve learned just recently, open up doors for the really important decisions in life.
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