Book Review > Baby or Bust

Baby or Bust is a book about financial planning for new parents and parents-to-be. With a hot pink band across the cover and a cartoon of a baby, disappointingly, it is marketed at women, but then most baby items are. And that is the main issue for this book; it is more about having the baby than financial planning.

As an accountant, teacher, journalist and parent Ms Field has a lot of knowledge and expertise in this area. The book is well-written, extremely well-referenced and has an accessible style. There is a checklist or list of hints at the end of each chapter to reinforce the main points.

The foreword is by Paul Clitheroe in his role as Chairman of the Financial Literacy Foundation and Founding Director of Ipac Securities. He stresses the importance of being financially secure. ‘Taking a sensible approach to money management won’t just make life more comfortable for ourselves and our children, it will also teach kids vital money skills that they will hopefully put to good use during their adult life.1’ This is something that we all want for our children and grandchildren.

Baby or Bust presents its information under the following chapters.

1. Ready or not? Knowing the right time.
2. Can we afford a baby?
3. Forward Planning
4. Nine months … and counting
5. Paying for everything
6. Maternity leave and beyond
7. Penny-wise parenting – surviving on one income
8. Living well on a budget
9. Bibs, bottles, briefcase
10. Saving for schooling

Chapter 1 deals with when to have a baby and addresses such issues as parental age and how to decide when you are ready for children. These are important topics that are best left to more considered and authoritative treatments in other publications. Apart from the discussion on the effect of loss of salary on current household income and on retirement savings the chapter could have been omitted.

Chapter 2 gives some State by State costs of raising children and also considers additional issues associated with starting a family, most importantly, insurance and making a will. This chapter is especially well-referenced in regard to government benefits and additional sources of information.

Chapter 3 recommends ‘financial planning for babies is best approached in three stages – laying firm foundations before you conceive, putting the finishing touches in place during pregnancy and, finally, ongoing fine-tuning when your child is in infancy2’. For would-be parents the vital first steps are said to include organising health cover, drawing up a budget, building up savings and heading into pregnancy as debt-free as possible. There are some hints about reducing discretionary expenditure to save money. A basic household budget is given at the end of the chapter; and it is basic. The budget template in DIY Financial Planning by Barbara Smith and Ed Koken is no less accessible and much more useful both for prospective parents and anyone else attempting to build financial security.

Chapters 4-9 contain an odd mix of advice on what baby equipment to buy, supermarket strategies, recipes for playdough and slime and advice on low cost birthday parties along with mortgage management, assessing credit options and coping while on maternity leave. The reviewer found sound financial advice mixed in with the type of information frequently found at the maternal and child health centre. It is difficult to understand the rationale of the grouping of material between and within the chapters.

Chapter 10 deals with the important issue of saving for education. Again it is an odd assortment of information on class sizes and relative costs of private education by State and the advice to label children’s clothing. The author considers vehicles for investing for education including residential property and scholarship funds. A more detailed consideration of this important financial planning topic would have been useful.

This book contains financial advice sprinkled with general advice on enjoying the changes that a new baby makes to a family. The books main strengths are its accessible style and the extensive referencing on government information and benefits. The weakness is that you are never sure from page to page if you are reading to build knowledge about financial planning or to gather handy money-wise hints on being a parent.

This book contains very rudimentary financial planning information that is well presented and easy to read. For a person/couple already well versed in financial planning this book has nothing new to offer.

For a person/couple who have no knowledge about financial planning it provides some introductory information and the link to the new baby and the motivation of doing the right thing for their child may be enough to instigate some moves towards better financial management. The additional hints on low cost items for baby may be the ‘spoonful of sugar’ that allows the bitter medicine of financial planning to go down more easily.

Lesley Ann Smith is a member of the AIA.

. P viii
2. P 34

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