So you’re ready to do some family budgeting? The best place to start is here, with our Family Budgeting for Beginners. You’ll see that the first thing you need when creating a family budget is a good dose of honesty about exactly where you’re spending your money. The Spending Diary exercise is invaluable for helping you to get a clear idea of where your money goes each month.

In South Africa, you can apply for a social child support grant, but certain criteria have to be met. Read all about the grant and the prerequisites to qualify for one- here.

When you’re amassing all the gear you’ll need for a baby, it can seem like the costs just keep mounting up. The key is to arm yourself with knowledge about the cost of baby supplies – and then you can prepare your budget. We’ve created a guide to help you work out how much your baby supplies will cost – from prams and cots, to high chairs and car seats. Of course, the wide variety of baby products available attracts a wide range of price points. It’s always a good idea to shop around for the best possible prices.

The good news is that you’re having a baby. You’re excited! Then you start to worry. Will I be a good parent? Will I know what to do? And then comes the big one – how will we afford it? It’s true that babies cost money. But it’s also true that they don’t need to cost as much as baby product manufacturers would have us believe. It’s possible to have a baby on a budget – it’s just a matter of thinking outside the catalogue.

Anyone who’s ever tried organising a family holiday knows that you don’t often find the word “cheap” involved. But those on a tight budget should not despair – a cheap family holiday can be arranged – it just takes a little know-how.

If there’s one topic of conversation that’s likely to bind parents together, it’s the cost of childcare. Scratch that – it’s childcare in general! How difficult it is to find, how much it costs, and how important quality childcare is. With more and more families requiring two incomes to cover their mortgages, and more women wanting to continue on their career paths after having children, childcare is a hot topic. Statistics South Africa recorded babies born for the year 2011 as being more than 950 000 – only 50 000 lower than what was recorded in 2006. Our birth rate may have gone down, but the topic of the cost of childcare will always be there.

From the early days of nappies, wet wipes and nursery supplies to the costs of child care – the financial implications of raising a little one take some getting used to. We give you some handy tips and hints on how to make the burden on your wallet a little easier to bear.

Pregnancy is a time of joy.We tend to focus on the excitement of a new baby. There’s anxiety, too, but it’s mostly around what kind of parent we’ll be. Most of the time, we’re not thinking about how much a pregnancy will cost us. But should we?

On the face of things, pregnancy doesn’t cost much. It’s not until the baby arrives, we figure, that the costs will start to add up. The truth is, though, that if we don’t think about the expense of having a baby right from the start, or even before conception, the costs could add up. When people talk about planning a pregnancy, they usually don’t have this in mind – but maybe they should!

When you have a baby, you have a lot to think about – sleepless nights, how to put a nappy on, or whose eyes he or she has. What you’re probably not thinking about is how much raising this child is going to cost you. But perhaps you should be.

When you’re in debt, there often seems no way out. How do you make your money stretch further to not only make the repayments, but get your debts under control? While we read a lot about bankruptcy, there are other debt solutions – but they take time, diligence and dedication.

It is important to have a good understanding of your family finances and to manage them effectively as a parent <link to_Parenting>. Planning and organising your finances will free you up to focus on other aspects of your family life as well.

There’s no doubt that feeding the family eats up a significant portion of any family’s budget. Saving money can seem a distant ideal when the cost of groceries seem to increase every week, while your kids continue to get bigger and eat more! But with the cost of everything from home loan interest rates to electricity on the up, it makes sense to save money where you can. And it’s surprisingly easy to cut the cost of feeding your family once you have a little know-how.

Once upon a time, a girl could get through pregnancy by wearing her partner’s shirts and a smock dress. Not anymore. Now it seems as though you need an entire new wardrobe of maternity wear to stay in fashion as your belly grows. And a whole range of fabulous maternity fashion lines have sprung up in the last few years to tempt you.

What’s your reaction when the credit card bills roll in? Fear? Horror? Remorse? For some of us, credit cards are just a convenience – they use them to make life easy, pay their bills off in full, and reap the rewards. For the rest of us (and it’s a large proportion), credit cards are a way to fund the gap between the lifestyle we want and the lifestyle we can afford. In other words, we love that they allow us to make purchases at will – and we also hate them regularly (like when the bills come in).

Buying a home of your very own for the first time is a very big event. This step in your life can be both exciting and scary – especially if you are doing it on your own. With lots of questions and unfamiliar procedures that you have to comply with, it is no wonder most people get caught up in the red tape.

Women in South Africa have babies all the time. Many of these women are working while they’re pregnant. But what are you to do when the time comes to have your baby? Your life is going to change radically over the next few months and you don’t need extra worries to cloud your beautiful expectations.

Not sure who and what you will need for the birth? Is there a possibility that you might prefer a home birth, or a private hospital even though you are not a member of a medical scheme? Don’t leave it too long to decide. Whatever you decide, you’ll probably need to be part of a medical aid to cover your pregnancy and birth – and you can’t make that decision at the last minute!

Financial experts recommend that we keep the equivalent of three months’ salary in a savings account as a buffer against uncertainty. What your Gran would call “saving for a rainy day”. Unfortunately, saving money is not always easy, particularly when prices and interest rates seem to increase every day.

Having your first baby is a big learning curve. And not just from a parenting perspective. Yes, there are the nappies you learn to change, settling techniques to try out and the logistics of getting everything a small baby needs for a day out into one bag. Not easy. But there’s more to it than that.

The annual filing of a tax return is a task that can be handled with minimal stress involved if you plan for it properly. If you are planning on doing manual submission, you will need to set some time aside to prepare your paperwork properly and to gather together some key documents.

There’s no doubt that babies can be expensive. Nappies, childcare, clothing, equipment – it all adds up, particularly if you’re a one-salary household. When you’re in the midst of those busy few years of your child’s life, chances are that the last thing you’re thinking of is your child’s education. But perhaps you should be.

A budget allows you to figure out where you are at and to help you get to where you want to go financially. It will help you to keep track of your money coming in and going out. In addition, it will allow you to set financial goals for yourself.