As if it wasn’t enough to go through emotionally with IVF and other fertility treatments, you’re slugged with a bill for thousands of dollars, so we spend half of our time saving for IVF!
Where you live makes a big difference, and there are lots of differences between people in the US and people residing in Australia and Europe.
In the US, some people have insurance cover provided to them through their employer, and insurance often covers a portion of IVF. In Australia, private health insurance may cover standard hospital accommodation fees, and nothing else, but our Government contributes to a portion of the bill.
Either way, that sh*t’s expensive!
And it often doesn’t work the first time.
So, what’s a gal to do?
Save for IVF, that’s what?
And how?
Well, that’s the money question right there (see what I did there?)
Rosco and I were lucky in that we had been saving to pay of our mortgage for a few years by the time we needed to undergo treatment, so we were able to dip into our savings, plus we both had quite well paying jobs. Second time around was a little bit different as I was no longer working full time, and those savings had evaporated from the first time around, but we were lucky enough to fall pregnant on our second frozen embryo transfer and therefore didn’t need a retrieval.
But, I do have heaps of tips for you on how to save for IVF. To me, it comes down to three things:
- Getting your money’s worth
- Spending less
- Earning more
1. Getting your money’s worth
By this, I mean maximising your chances of success with fertility treatments. If you know better in terms of lifestyle changes you should be making, and don’t make them, then it’s money potentially down the drain. If all you do is pig out on junk food and get sloshed on the weekends, then maybe try and get that sorted before forking over thousands for IVF.
Sometimes, you might also want to take up acupuncture or other complementary therapies and ecourses, which might cost you a few hundred, to try and compliment your treatment to improve your chances of success first time around (spend a little now to avoid spending more later).
2. Spending less
I talk about this a fair bit in the podcast. This doesn’t mean never having a life and surviving on porridge for life, but you’d be surprised how much a whole bunch of little changes can add up!
The first step to this is understanding where your money goes. Once a year, I download about three months’ worth of our transaction account summary and split up all our expenses by month, and average it out so I have an idea of what we’re spending… and I’m often like “whaaa? we spent how much on take away food and coffee” and “hot damn, fuel is expensive”…. the end game of this is, you don’t know what you can save money on until you know what you’re spending it on.
In the podcast I mention a meal planning template and a document on how to save money on food expenses – click here to get access to both of these.
3. Earn more
… or at least try to find a job that covers some of your expenses if they don’t, and make sure you’re always putting your hand up for promotions.
You might also want to take up a hobby that pays – like gardening, or craft, or sewing, or graphic design. There are SO many ways to earn money, and so many sites other than just Etsy!
Check out the podcast, where I hand over more tips and tricks, including the envelope strategy!
Listen here.