I recently had the joy of receiving the news that my wife is expecting our first child. While I am relishing this wonderful moment in my life, it also brings up many thoughts of responsibility. We have to go thought baby names, plan for financial changes in our budget, and change our living arrangements. I hope this bundle of joy doesn’t bring a bundle of stress!
Baby Names
Well, this blog is generally about mathematics, and naming a baby doesn’t really have much in common with math, but leave it to me to make a calculator, or baby name generator, to help us with ideas for baby names. I quickly pulled up multiple databases of names for girls and boys and used PHP to program a webpage to allow us to randomly choose different names for both girls and boys. All together, there are over 10,000 combinations of names that can be used with this name generator. After hours and hours of looking at different names, we finally decided on one. I’m lucky it was only hours and not “days and days”. At least this is one more thing checked off the to-do list.
Baby Changes in Budget
I’ve heard the term “big things come in small packages”. Well, the baby may be a small package, but having a child is a big thing, especially for my budget. I have found myself revisiting all of my monthly costs associated with living expenses to be sure that we have the funds to support the new addition to the family. It’s important to keep in mind the monthly car payment and the total cost of a car loan among other expenses.
Baby and a New House
Of course the biggest change for us is the space we need for our new family. We find ourselves in the hunt for a new home to expand. While we try to sell our current house, we keep in mind the closing costs and minimum sales price we will need to cover our loan on the house. We also need to keep in mind the new monthly mortgage payment and the PITI payment. We can’t forget the total monthly payment is made up of not just the mortgage principal and interest, but also the taxes and insurance for the home. Hence the term PITI payment.
Summary
Things are changing in our household. Everything is expanding. And much faster than my wife’s mid-section. It’s going to be a challenge, but keeping a cool head and being intelligent with the budgets should allow us to raise our family with the least amount of stress. Bring it on!