With having a toddler and 5mo old my wife and I really slacked off on budgeting. I had a pretty bad shock when I opened the Amex app and saw that our June bill was over $13,000. My wife has been home since giving birth and has been staying at home with both kids this summer. I’m horribly stressed because I remember when I spent less than $2k including rent, and now $13k not including mortgage. With the chaos and stress of kids we really just leaned into whatever makes life feel easier. Any cont.

We are getting out of that phase, but with kids, we often see monthly credit card bills around $5-$7k. In the crazy months with travel, holidays, etc. it can be $20-30k.
Because few individual charges were huge, it took a while to see that it’s a whole, WHOLE, lot of little things and then we looked at habits. Not buying the kids random toys and things, looking closely at delivery fees, subscriptions. I’m not cutting coupons or driving around to save $3, I’m just being far more mindful and shaved off about $1,500-$2k per month on average.

We had this problem when we were first married w our 3 kids. Everything was put in our credit card. That was eons ago (25+ yrs ago), but I remember feeling shocked and anxious when I saw the bill. I cut up our cards right then and there and we paid cash for anything g outside of basic things like mortgage utilities taxes, etc. It was not easy at all but we got out of what I call ‘extra debt’ and we’ve been good ever since. We currently have no balance on credit cards.
You can do it! It sucks for awhile but once you see that debt go down down down, it might motivated you to keep going, I know it did us.
Good luck!

We’ve managed to avoid using credit cards for large purchases so they are only for our own fun money of $1000 each. I’d have the same feeling as you if I opened the app and saw that number 🫠

First step (which I think you’ve done) is sit down and go through the spending and total it up. $2k in Amazon is a lot - but is half of that groceries or diapers or other necessities (I’m giving the benefit of doubt here!) Once you know where the money is going it’s easier to have a convo about the money and not the person.

Then the two of you could set out a budget together (I used my own spreadsheet, but I just got the every dollar app so we can both see it all in real time). If you set a big goal together it might help, like saving up for a family experience or something.

There’s also the option to log out of Amazon and all the shopping apps on your phones but I dunno if that would help because you’re already seeing a lot of in store purchases.

Having a baby is really hard and throwing money at it seems like a quick fix in the moment but long term you might be putting yourself in a hole. If you can afford the bill and it’s just a shock it’s so high then you’ll figure it out, but if this is spending you can’t afford to sustain then a conversation and review of what you’re buying may be needed.

Try YNAB

You need to have a serious conversation with your wife. For perspective, I live in a LCOL city, but our budget every month for groceries, going out to eat, clothes, household items is $1400/mth. I make $125k/yr. Sit down, with a spreadsheet, and really review all your expenses and must haves. We just started budgeting, bc our spending was getting out of control and we are paying off a couple of debts. I feel so much more at ease with a budget than without one. I truly feel like no matter what your income is, you have to have a budget and goals.

Parents go down a similar path? And how have you changed your lifestyle to get back on budget?

May I ask what makes up the bulk of this spend? If anything, I spent way less at that stage because we weren’t really out and about doing things. Do you guys have a nanny? Eat out all the time? Furnishing a new house?