SoFi Blog

Think about your best memories of your parents while you were growing up for a moment. Maybe it’s the year they finally bought that bike you wanted for your birthday, or all the times you opened the freezer to see it stocked with mint chocolate chip ice cream, because mom knew it was your favorite.

It’s worth pondering as you take in your parents now, as they grow older. You might be wondering when you’ll be returning the favor of taking care of them, and more importantly, how.

The plan, Jonathan recalls, was straightforward: Marry his fiancée, get away for a honeymoon, and get down to the business of starting a family.

“My wife was 39 and I’d just turned 40,” he says. “We wanted to have kids, and we also knew time wasn’t necessarily on our side.”

The wedding and honeymoon were beautiful. But soon after their return—and after several months of trying to conceive without success—they started to worry, and decided to see a doctor. “We figured she would tell us everything was fine, but then she ordered tests.”

The news wasn’t good: He and his wife were infertile. They might still have children, their doctor told them, but not without medical assistance. “Becoming parents would require a special procedure,” Jonathan says. “And it was going to cost us a lot of money.”

From the sleep deprivation to the midnight feedings, your first child will represent a major—albeit wonderful—shift in the way you live. What’s more, your beautiful addition will also represent a shift in the ways you spend and save.
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Raising a child is expensive—the USDA’s most recent report (2013) estimates the total cost from birth to age 18 at $245,340. So planning for your first child means also examining your finances and your future financial goals.

Here are nine ways to prepare financially for baby in just nine months.

In the latest of our 3 People series, we meet three women from diverse backgrounds, cities and careers, who open up about overcoming financial adversity caused by credit cards. Each person’s credit card debt was caused by a different reason, yet each used a SoFi personal loan to take control of their debt and get their finances back on track.

Life insurance: as you yawn, roll your eyes and think to yourself that there couldn't possibly be anything less interesting to read— we acknowledge your lack of enthusiasm.

After all, life insurance is something that many people, especially healthy and young professionals, put off or don't consider at all. Perhaps it's due to a sense of invincibility, or maybe a notion that life insurance is for our parents.