Exhausted with current situation - money issue

@80smonster we won't agree on some aspects as I'm not a Tory but nor am I a radical lefty either. As you say though it is pointless disincentivising high earners as ironically these are the people that are more likely to have a fair degree of freedom of movement still - be it via careers, buying their way in or nomad visas on high freelance earnings.

If the numbers allow, remortgage in the first instance and get on a cheaper rate.
Failing that downsize to outskirts, it's seems you have transferable skills..
Not sure why so many people are wedded to remaining in London when they just cannot afford it. You're just existing at the moment and cold with it, life is not a 'Working Title' movie..

I agree that decentivising high tax payers seems to be something that the Tories and Labour seem keen to do. Sadly, Labour has the edge, their inability to tax everyone to achieve robust public services will remain problematic, the government borrowing our way out of trouble won’t work since this unsettles inflation and will push up mortgage rates. The country is pretty much at breaking point and chasing off the last few who are highly educated, earn well and pay taxes isn’t the solution.

I presume you don’t get the funded childcare due to one or both of you earning over £100k. If you only just tip over could you consider paying a bit extra into a private pension to put you back under the £100k mark. I was chatting to a friend about this a few weeks ago, he is also a NHS consultant. He has to pay £200 per month into a private pension and not pick up any extra shifts to put him back under the £100k threshold. Next year he will have 2 nursery aged children so will be saving over £2k per month in childcare with the funded hours and the 20% tax free element on the hours he needs to pay for.

You can say what you like about wherever you are from, I don’t claim to be a UK expert. But as a Londoner of 44 years, London is a safe place, as safe as anywhere can be (backed by data and crime stats). We also remain the financial backer of UK in terms of taxes paid to HMRC. People who choose to be dismissive of hardworking Londoners are the same who will face issues if there was a mass exodus of tax payers, as they would see house price drops in less desirable areas of the UK and also taxes soar.
New York is my next favourite city in the world (after London), I’ve been there many, many times and have never ever felt unsafe, though I am sure this is area dependent. As for Dubai, the only people we know who’ve opted to move there have struggled to find work in more developed places.

@80smonster I don't disagree- when we lived in Copenhagen yes you were whooping tax but childcare payments were both very reasonable indeed and same for everyone-

I'm actually very social minded but I admit at the moment ( and this isn't something new by Labour- it was the same under the Tory's) we are disincentivising high earners, and not always individual high earners, families earning 100k plus pre tax combined - I can appreciate people in cheap parts of the country think this is huge but it really isn't when either rent or mortgage can easily be £40k a year for something relatively modest - plus nursery fees etc - and no not everyone can move to cheap areas fir all kinds of reasons ( which would no longer be cheap if there was massive demand) -

Have you looked into this, OP?
https://www.gov.uk/apply-great-british-insulation-scheme

Give me a break.

I lived in London until well into my 20s and my adult daughter lives there now. Neither of us has ever experienced machete welding thugs or relentless noise at home.

Every big city has dangerous areas of course but that’s not representative of the whole of London. I’m sure OP lives in a nice area and there are plenty of those.

As an alternate to taking your older child out of nursery you could also consider a very short maternity leave and go back to work much earlier. We had a FT nanny which was not financially feasible on statutory mat leave [2nd time around] so I went back to work PT at 16 weeks. A nanny in your own home is obviously a different prospect than giving such a small baby to a nursery but going back to work earlier is a choice you could consider.
I'd also calculate the cost of two kids in nursery in due course given both your working hours. If might not be any cheaper to have a live in nanny but it might be considerably less stressful in terms of logistics and other add on benefits. Coming home to children who've had dinner and a bath already is a game changer rather than spending £4k a month and then working through the witching hour after a 12 hour day on your feet. You won't feel any richer but you may have marginally more headspace.

We are (well) past the nursery years now, but there was no way DS1 went to nursery while I was on maternity. Can you reduce, or remove, the nursery bill for the remainder of your time at home. It allowed us to save enough to stomach the year of double nursery fees before the oldest started school.

The nursery years ARE tough. If you can find a way to keep afloat through them, life becomes cheaper for a chunk of time.

We were in NY over the summer, not sure what happened to their zero tolerance policing which worked so brilliantly.

I don’t mind you calling me small minded as I am aware of my own breadth of travel, experience and knowledge. I have lived extensively overseas. I would say London as always is a story of two worlds. I agree with you about the brain drain, it is a real concern. Achievement, accomplishment and ambition needs to pay. And yes it is galling. Our medic friends are going to UAE for 5 years to avoid these issues.

Have you heard of Dave Ramsey? You might find it helpful to listen to his podcast and go through his financial university course. It’s very basic common sense advice that might help. If you listen to the podcast there are so many people on there who have gotten through and paid off huge amounts of debt and got out of tricky financial situations so you may find that encouraging.

Some advice he would give is stop all pension and saving contributions until all debts like credit cards and car loans etc are paid off. If you have a car at the sell it and downgrade etc.

They also really encourage budgeting and tracking every penny of spend to stay accountable.

https://crimerate.co.uk/london/richmond-upon-thames

Richmond is a lovely leafy suburb and has a lower crime rate than the UK national average. By contrast I visited Hastings recently, I’ve never seen so much poverty/obvious drug problems in such a short space of time.

This is very good advice!

Quite a few families we know have already emigrated, these are high net worth individuals, who own property in other European countries. We were also victims of 100k rule, so received not a penny of nursery funding (bar the standard 15 hours). For us this meant I took a backseat earning, to reduce our overall tax liability. Sadly the UK is penalising those who have worked hard to achieve good grades, have large uni loans and now find families unaffordable, even in top professions. Whilst a huge proportion of society loafs around on Universal Credit, having the gall to tell other well-paid individuals to move house. If we want Scandinavian-style public services, all of us will have to pay, or we will see a continued brain drain of important and valuable professionals trickling out of the UK.

Would it be easier to stay at home with your children to stop the nursery costs and work two night shifts at the weekend when.your husband could take over looking after them fully? You would still earn and work 24 hours a week but not pay the child care bills.

I'm not quite understanding this op. How much equity do you actually have?

I live in what's considered a very nice area in Yorkshire. House is worth maybe 300k or a bit less (3 storey, 3 bed), it's extremely energy efficient and next to a river and woodland. The villages surrounding me are even better value. You're a consultant so you can't pretend to be earning a pittance. You could easily live very comfortably here on your salary and your DH could do a different job from home part time and look after the kids. You'd probably just need a small mortgage.

I think that you're struggling psychologically to make that leap and over-complicating it. It's understandable, but when you think about what you would be gaining it may feel easier.

@QforCucumber whilst this is undoubtedly true- the problem is you both have to be if the same mindset and not mind moving where you may have no friends or family- not everyone is prepared to do that , even if it makes life cheaper and easier.

You are picking entirely anecdotal sources, not globally held data. This is what I mean about small-minded…
London is safer than New York, which holds 15th place.

If you aren't eligible for government help towards childcare eg the tax free childcare accounts presumably one of you earns more than £100k???

We had to sacrifice the close age gap due to costs, there's 4.5 year between mine so that there wasn't 2 lots of nursery fees at one time (aimed for 3 year gap but suffered 2 losses in between)

Moving may still be an option though, but maybe further than you think, we are in the NE - with a 4 bed detached house on a mortgage of £180k - £900 a month in our new deal, house valued at £250k. You could both take a step down in careers and afford to live comfortably, while not killing yourselves in the process. Each of us could take a step up and earn more, but at the minute, with an 8 and 4 year old, we're happy to work our 40 hours and come home every day by 6pm. Joint income here is £75k and we have a holiday abroad every year, and a centre parcs weekend, things have gotten tighter - but not so much that we're turning down a takeaway or a meal out once a month.

Having young kids is always an expensive time.

However you are making it so much harder for yourself by living in London. People who want to live in London always make endless excuses about why they absolutely HAVE to live there, but in reality, you are educated people with adaptable skills, and you could easily have a much better quality of live elsewhere the country.

I was born and bred in an expensive part of the south east. Moved north in my late 20s and never looked back. You can still earn a high salary in a northern city and quality of life is so much better.