If you both plan to keep working after the baby is born, extend the maternity leave as much as possible to save on childcare : holidays, baby-sitting by grand-parents etc. In Zurich it costs min. 2500 CHF/month for full-time childcare
Savings are MASSIVE when buying second-hand (furniture, clothing, toys, books etc). We practically barely bought anything new for the kids since 10 years. Unless you have a taste for luxury (eg a Bugaboo stroller), you can cover the 1st year needs with 1500-2000 CHF (except food and pampers)
Make a monthly budget with all other extra costs mentioned above (bigger flat and car, health insurance, eventually salary reduction etc) and see if that fits
Thanks @rolandinho, we are both salaried income earners, but we are coming from states with substantial welfare and we are not fully familiar (and somehow slightly adverse) to the private healthcare system in Switzerland. How long would the mother stay outside the workforce, assuming legal requirements, and how much earnings would be lost? I was going with the assumption (and certainly more research is needed on my part) that there is a paid maternity leave somehow in this country…
Would someone be able to link relevant information re. maternity leave duration and salary loss/insurance for ZH? (bonus if in English)
We plan to shop for diapers abroad only, and everything else is pretty much given away or pennies second-hand. I have no qualms (and neither will the baby, till teenage I guess) in having used stuff
Will get right to it…
I’ve heard numbers like 4k/month which are a bit shocking, frankly.
That’s unfortunately true if you consider really everything on a TCO basis.
These extra costs are slightly compensated by a reduced social life / cheaper vacations. Like during lockdown times
Also ask yourself what you expect from it? Less sleep and less free time are 100% coming towards you and if you’re unlucky your partner changes in a way that you no longer want to spend the rest of your life with her…
That’s extremely optimistic. Also Pampers and Food spending was at 200 CHF and now 400 CHF per month respectively, our little one eats like an adult mostly (he’ll turn 3 years soon and already weights 18kgs aka a big boy).
We btw might have a stroller to sell in the next few weeks incase you want to start getting things early
I’d be happy to trade sleep and free time with something meaningful in life (which, I was assured by all parents I met, will be the case).
The second case worries me a lot, but you can’t live your life with worries… need to keep some faith that you’re both adults and committed to the relationship.
Sorry @ma0, let me try to contribute better by summarizing my understanding from the posts above on the salary perspective:
There is an opportunity cost / loss of income for the mother during maternity leave, this can be quantified at at least 20% of the income for 8 weeks, and normally at ((CHF daily income - CHF 196 welfare) x 98 days max. duration), assuming she makes more than (196 x 1.2)/day in normal conditions of full employment.
Example for a 100k gross yearly income would be the difference between 100k/52*14~=26k and (196 x 98)~=19k, so 7k in a 12 months period (I may be mixing up gross and net here depends how those 196 CHF are counted).
There is in the same period a slight advantage in taxable income due to the above, and some benefit-in-kind for the paternity leave, same caveats.
Don’t be sorry and thanks for the summary.
I meant scarily because I don’t have kids and some of the information here scares me a bit :-).
Numbers are less scary than all that unknown about relationship and stuff.
Also when numbers are explained are way less scary.
I’m still puzzled by the cost of pampers from @MrCheese 200chf means 7 chf per day… Either Galaxus lied to me (50chf for a monthly box) or he has a sh*t-machine at home
I do xD we usually went thru about 5 Pampers a day → 150 Pampers a month and we bought in Migros (I wasn’t on the frugal side of live back then) so 150 / 30 per package * 18.80 CHF = 90 CHF, ok maybe the 200 CHF was a bit exaggerated. But I guess baby food is not exactly cheap either → Milk Formula etc.
However @lowyield mentioned that he will get that stuff outside of Switzerland which should save at least 30%.
No. Some savings are good, but for our child we bought new a bed (Ikea) before she was born. All the other stuff was gifted or second hand, so we haven’t spent a lot. We have now replaced the stroller as the first one was breaking apart. She is now 2.5 and I think childcare is the most expensive item for her.
Clothes have now gotten a bit more expensive, but for the first year you will find lots of cheap stuff. She also needs more of them as they get constantly wet, dirty and broken.
But she is a small one and has a preference for pasta and soup so food is still cheap for her.
Loss of income was more of a problem for me because I don’t like to be relying on my Hausbau for money.
I am referring to the 1st year one-off costs, as mentioned pampers & food are not included in my mustachian budget. Let me share some reasonable second-hand prices in CHF I saw online (or Ikea prices for new stuff!) and our expenses back 10 years ago, as far as I remember :
Stroller: 400 CHF (can be less) (our second-hand Stokke including all accessories costed 800 EUR → our only non-mustachian expense . We sold it 5 years later for 400 CHF)
Clothes: on Ebay you can find sets of clothes for each age where you end up paying each piece of clothes around 2-5 CHF in average. Maybe you need to add few bucks for a warm jacket or so (do not have the very exact amount, but some hundreds of CHF)
Hygiene products (oil, eye drops etc) : no clue, but not more than 100 CHF during the 1st year
Accessories like baby bottles, breast-pump etc → a lot of second-hand offers are available as well. Eventually you need to replace some spare parts
we got some second-hand (or third-hand ) stuff from friends for free, here and there
If you’re a good buyer you can get those deals on Ebay, Ricardo, Facebook Marketplace, Caritas, other second-hand shops or Gemeinschaftszentren (Kinderkleiderbörse → unfortunately not anymore due to Covid)
Of course it is an initial investment of time to look for those deals, but once you know the tricks, that’s easy and quick. For clothes we used to buy in bulk and sold or donated what we did not like. Now that the kids are older, it is really getting expensive to find good deals and second-hand clothes in good condition.
So we managed to get everything we needed for less than 2000 CHF, and we could have made it cheaper. Well yeah indeed, I forgot health insurance: ca. 1000 CHF/year
Maybe one last tipp: family, friends and colleagues will certainly want to offer something : make a list of wishes (or ask for vouchers), otherwise you end up with 36 teddy bears and hundreds of 6-months bodysuits
That covers all healthcare-related expenses? Do they use a deductible system similar to “adults”? I’m assuming there are fixed pediatrics visits, mandatory vaccinations, etc.
Childcare (per kid, for full-time childcare, in Zurich):
expect minimum 2500 CHF/month until Kindergarten
Then around 1300-1500 CHF/month if your kid goes to public school, as you still need to pay for lunch, Hort and cover part of the holidays (unless you have devoted grand-parents)
But if you consider all costs (direct and indirect), then you are quickly around 3500 CHF per month minimum PER KID
No relatives nor friends nor community around here, sadly. This “intrinsic social distancing” (looks like we have been doing it before it was cool ) has been one of the major contributors to postponing this step for us.
Perhaps looking at the indirect costs, we can offset with indirect benefits that e.g. finding like-minded couples with same-age children could bring to your life.
Does, in your experience, social life improve once kids start to “make friends”?
Well if both parents work I don’t see many opportunities to meet other people. If you’re up going for baby massage courses, baby swimming or baby meetups (Krabbeltreff) and stuff like that then there’s opportunities, but they also might come at a financial cost.
Then you make friends with the parents of your children’s friends
Otherwise indeed, not much time left, and as far as we are concerned, not much ENERGY left for an active social life. During the first years our priority was to get enough SLEEP to be able to function the next day. But depends a lot on your kids, and it improves as they get older. And then BAM, lockdown
By reading and partipating to this forum, you confirm you have read and agree with the disclaimer presented on http://www.mustachianpost.com/
En lisant et participant à ce forum, tu confirmes avoir lu et être d'accord avec l'avis de dégagement de responsabilité présenté sur http://www.mustachianpost.com/fr/
Durch das Lesen und die Teilnahme an diesem Forum bestätigst du, dass du den auf http://www.mustachianpost.com/de/ dargestellten Haftungsausschluss gelesen hast und damit einverstanden bist.
. We sold it 5 years later for 400 CHF)
) stuff from friends for free, here and there
) has been one of the major contributors to postponing this step for us.
