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Hello hello! If you ever doubted that babies cost a lot of money, let this post be a clear warning sign ;) I just ran all the numbers and updated our Total Baby Cost Tracker, and it seems we have now crossed into the quadruple digit range. That was fast!!

Here's a snapshot of the previous totals so far:

Before birth: $2,781.73
Total at 2 months old: $3,651.15 (up $869.42)
Total at 5 months old: $5,613.73 (up $1,962.58)

New total now at 8 months old: $10,447.98! (Up $4,834.25). That's almost a 50% increase! Now granted $3,500 of that is allocated towards Baby Money's college tuition which I retroactively included, but still – that's all money which comes from having and loving our cute little squishy baby pie. And we're only in year 1 still, wow…(You know that saying, "they grow up so fast?" I'm hereby changing it to, "they soak up all your money too fast!" Haha…)

You can see the breakdown of how this $10,000+ is spread out on our cost tracker, but needless to say it'll keep growing over time. Once they're out of diapers and toys they'll just be into Nikes and cars like that. It really is weird watching all these numbers climb to be honest with you. And perhaps even a bit inappropriate, maybe? It doesn't change the fact we love our baby to death, but I imagine our son could feel a bit confused one day as to why we cared so much to track it all, haha… But luckily we have a few years 'till he can read ;)

Here are some other cash gobblers looming on the horizon too:

Our new SUV. Whenever we get around to picking out a new ride, we'll be allocating around 25% of it straight to these baby costs as a "premium" since he will directly affect our decision… Maybe a little less depending on what we end up settling on.
More 529 Investments. Our plan of maxing out our state deductions of $2,500/year will continue full-force as we keep saving for his future college. Even though we'll probably need to save more than $2,500/year by the time he's ready to go! I swear there has to be a tuition bubble around the corner somewhere, yeah? It's getting ridiculously high!
Our bogus $1,300 medical bill we're still fighting. I'm 90% confident this will be done and over with in a month, but as it stands it's still out there… Not gonna cross it off the list just yet and jinx ourselves – that's a surefire way to get an ugly surprise!

So that's the news on the baby/money front! Other than the financial hits, everything's going just fine. J. Money Jr. is growing at an alarming rate, and continues to put every single thing he can find in his mouth no matter how big or small. And now he's learning how to open up drawers and use keys!! I think he gets his smarts from his mother – I'm pretty sure I just drooled 24/7 when I was his age :)

Hope you and your babies are doing well too! Back to preventing J.M.J. from eating more of my wallet – both literally and figuratively! Haha… good times, good times.

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PS: It took me 4 tries to finish this post this morning – it's like he subconsciously knows when I'm talking about him and wakes up! I'll have to give him a hard time about it once he understands ;)

Jay loves talking about money, collecting coins, blasting hip-hop, and hanging out with his three beautiful boys. You can check out all of his online projects at jmoney.biz. Thanks for reading the blog!

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