My "teen baby" is 5 years old now...so....

We had a lot of help from my parents. We didn't have to pay "rent' - although we were expected to contribute some of our income to the household. We saved a lot, and kept our debt as low as possible. Baby stuffs we stocked up on when we have extra money so we could skip going to the store when we were short.

We're on our own now, but don't have to worry about money. Just the usual family financial issues.

sick_mama17,

This thread asks a great question. Maybe if you posted the exact same question on the pregnancy chat forum and the parenting chat forum, more posters would reply.

well. lets see
i dont have to pay rent yet which is a HUGE money saver. (haha but i get to get slapped in the face with it in the next few months LOL)

kristen is set. shes got a saveings started already and everything. honestly if i wouldnt had inherited that money i wouldnt have had her.

My boyfriend (babys father) was able to supports us and we have managed (so far) to raise our son without too much help from anyone, of course our parents gave gifts and do grandparent things but that had nothing to do with our age, if we were 30 they still would have done that sort of stuff.

lats, I take it your bf wasn't a teen still in school, right?

i just tried posting but my computer froze and i dont think it worked so il just repost,

he was 18 but no he wasnt at school. He was working full-time on minimum wage at the time i got pregnant untill our baby was born, but we made it and luckily hes had a couple of payrises since then.

Also i should add that in my country the government helps out a lot of families here, eg a large percentage of families receive a "top up" of their income so that they can manage a bit better, which we also receive. But this is for pretty much the whole country as the income cut-off point is quite high

lats,

that's a good deal from your gov't. What is the top up plan called?

family assistance - if you would like to read into it the website is http://www.workingforfamilies.govt.nz/ . As you can see it is quite common to receive this here, the minimum wage here is around 50,000 i think, but if you looked at the average wage of smaller cities and towns i dont think the averages would be quite so high as a lot of the high wage earners are from the bigger cities.

here is a bit of info from the site:

Working for Families
Working for Families is a package designed to help make it easier to work and raise a family. It pays extra money to many thousands of New Zealand families. Greater financial support is available for:

almost all families with children, earning under $70,000 a year
many families with children, earning up to $100,000 a year
some larger families earning more.

I wouldnt have had my son at 18 if i knew i had to depend on welfare to raise him.

Jess, I wish I knew where and when and why that mindset started to fade away.

seriously... when i got pregnant with my son... paul and i were a team both working 2 incomes... after we split up... he left me with NOTHINg and basically robbed me clean... I started over with a backpack of clothes and $27 bucks in my pocket... no car, no job, nothing... I BUSTED my assss worked 3 jobs... and provided for my son and myself.

Wow. That's all I can say.

I dont think its right to judge anyone on welfare or recieving any government help such as wic and food stamps. That help is there for people who need it. I think its okay aslong as you don't plan on staying on it forever, just until you can get back on your feet financially however long that takes. We are lucky in England, theres a lot of financial help available.

Expressing an opinion in general is not judging specific people, in my view anyway.

Getting help when someone needs it until they get "back on their fee" is all well and good, and it implies that the person started out "on their feet." My objection is when people who have not yet ever been "on their feet" plan to get pregnant and have a child while they are "off their feet".

That means that getting assistance was part of the planning to have the child in the first place. I think that is very, very wrong.

not only do i actually agree with futureshock on this one, i was also not judging.. simply basing my opinion... it was massive hardwork and i never slept but i was capable of doing it without assistance... i personally know too many woman who wouldnt have even tried... and simply would have just welfared up and that is my opinion and point.

Not all the children are planned.

ok?

Sorry, FS, sometimes it appears as if you take the contrary road on all these girls posts. You have got to admit that you have never been in this situation yourself. You were much older when your daughter was born, you even had wonderful glowing things to say about how helpful your husband was in assisting you after your daughter was born! And that is GREAT for you.

These girls don't have the same options you had. They made different life choices - which being human, we have the right to make - and their lives are so different from yours that neither can you comprehend what they are going through or they you.

Thanks for the info on your program. It sounds awesome. It is different from what we refer to as welfare here in the states.

One difference is that it is specifically for working people(from your link):

In-work tax credit

In-work tax credit, pays up to $60 a week for families with three children, and up to an extra $15 a week for each additional child.

To get in-work tax credit couples must normally work 30 hours a week between them, and sole parents must normally work 20 hours a week. You can also get in-work tax credit if you’re self-employed, but it’s not available to families receiving an income-tested benefit or student allowance.

We have something a little bit like it in our tax system, earned income tax refunds and other tax refunds specifically for families with children.

Another difference is, as a society citizens of New Zealand decided they wanted to help families work and support their children, so they created the program of which you speak, and others.

Here in the U.S., we didn't do this. We created welfare for families that were working and supporting themselves but through some misfortune, had fallen on hard times. Originally welfare was only available to widows, just to show you how this program was intended to be used.

The reason there is controversy surrounding welfare and other programs like WIC and HUD, etc., etc., is because people have begun using these tax payer funded relief systems as their primary income, and NOT for supporting themselves during an unexpected misfortune. That is to say, people with no means to support themselves to begin with, with no jobs, have children and immediately go on these welfare programs, at the expense of others.

So, while some couples are working and saving money in the hopes of starting a family when they can afford it, their tax dollars are going to, among other things, paying for people who never worked, never saved, and never waited to start a family. People who just decided they wanted children right now, and then went ahead and had them.