Starting a family was something important to A* and I both when we first got together. We discussed this pretty openly and very early on in our relationship. I grew up as an only child, and because I had always longed for a sibling, I vowed to myself that I would have at least two children. A* had an older brother growing up, and knows that having a sibling was an important part of her childhood. She also grew up with a strong musical background and she wants enough kiddos to start a band. Over the 10 years we’ve been together, we’ve had in depth talks about names; parenting strategies; what colour to paint the nursery… almost as if we were already pregnant.

When we started our relationship, we were living paycheque to paycheque. We shopped grocery deals like mad to stock the freezer. We spent everything in our grocery budget trying to eat well on the cheapest meats we could find. As much as we wanted kids, we hardly kept ourselves housed and fed early on. As these things go, our situation started to improve: we both landed great paying jobs, and every few years we tweaked our employment slightly to cash in on bigger and bigger paycheques. We settled into a life we were happy with: both making closer to six figures a year; living in a downtown apartment in a great location; and jet-setting around the world a few times a year. We were having too much fun partying with friends and globetrotting to think too seriously of having children.

Then the biological clock went off…

After three years of marriage we both knew it was time to think seriously about starting a family. We launched into long talks and big plans again but did little in terms of actual saving and preparation. A year later I was 29 and A* 34. We realized we weren’t as financially prepared as we had hoped to be but also that we’re not getting any younger. We decided that if we were going to do this, it had to be soon.

The idea is daunting. Our jobs require us to travel A LOT and there is no way we can keep the same jobs while raising a family. We’ll be forced to look for something closer to home, which involves a significant pay cut. Our wonderful little downtown apartment is only one bedroom. We love where we live, but to mortgage and buy within the city we’ll struggle to keep up the payments once we start working closer to home. Living outside of the city isn’t an appealing option, despite being more affordable.

We’ve developed a plan to start pinching pennies and decided to stay employed where we are and keep cashing paycheques until pregnancy makes the job impossible. In Canada, there is the government administered Employment Insurance plan that covers parental leave, as well as a maternity leave for new parents. Our payout is based our earnings pre-baby, so it makes the most sense to us to stay at this job to cash in on the higher payout we’ll be entitled to. In the meantime, we’ll put together the rest of the money we need for a down payment on a place to live, but this involves changing cities. About three hours away we can buy a small apartment building for far less than a single family home in our current city. If we can find the right place, we will be able to live mortgage free with any leftover rental income to supplement some of the pay cut for taking a local job. Conveniently, the company we work for presently has their head office in the same city we’re looking to move to. We won’t be going straight to our dream job, but I’m fairly confident that we can transition to a local job with the same employer.

That’s a lot of change, but we finally have a plan we are working towards.

Time to try to get pregnant!