Avoiding the childcare trap

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agree OP. You don’t need a financial advisor to help you manipulate the system and claim benefits not intended for your family.

You need some support with perspective taking.

I find it really odd that often those on the highest incomes are often the most unhappy with their finances. I am a single parent working part-time due to having an autistic child. Our household income, even including benefits, is therefore absolutely tiny compared to even one of your salaries. But I'm content with my life anyway, and have become an expert budgeter.

It is sad that you are so unhappy despite being so well off. Perhaps counselling would help you gain some perspective.

So your salary has been reduced due to taking maternity leave?
Obviously if you’re working the hours you say you are, then you have ‘sacrificed’ your time as a mother to mitigate any losses. But let’s not be coy here - you have chosen to do so. With your income, it would have been very easy to choose to work fewer hours in order to spend more time with your children. Do you think mothers should be able to work less for more money just because they chose to have a child? Do you think mothers should be able to ‘have it all’? Because I can tell you with absolute certainty - they can’t. Compromises have to be made by every parent. The sooner you accept that the less angry you will be that you can’t have it all.

You are VERY fortunate to be in the financial position you are. However, you don't seem to be savvy enough to know how to reduce your disposable income in order to claim a paltry benefit?

This x100 !

And please - microagressions? Whatever

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He received gifts, loans and inheritance from his father which is akin to finding a bag full of gold.

You’re right. My mistake. He flunked college and found a bag full of gold.

Working similar hours is largely irrelevant.

How on earth was that a description of someone who is hard working? The poster referred to him being born into wealth and privilege and being unscrupulous, manipulative and corrupt.

It sounds as though he was lazy at college as he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Wharton without honors and one of his professors there is reported to have said “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.”

He spends loads of time on the golf course at Mar a Lago. I suppose you will describe him as being a great athlete.

Agreed. What patronising takeaway from this conversation.

You what? You have arrived at some very odd conclusions. Your original question was based on an absurd premise. No wonder people responded as they did.

And you're looking for some way to manipulate your finances so that you can take advantage of a benefit you are not in fact entitled to based on your income. That is dishonest at best.

As for advice to "marry someone who is making the big money"? I can't imagine anyone advising that seriously. From a personal perspective, I wouldn't marry anyone for money. In my case, my husband and I both work full time and we share everything in joint accounts. We are academics, so we're never going to make "big money." But that's fine with us.

"My husband is livid that he loses on benefits because of my salary ..."

Anyone else wondering about this husband who is LIVID his wife earn too much for him to qualify for a sub, whose wife seems to think he will ask her to 'cover the difference' / compensate him for the "benefit lost"?

Just me?

Although it could just be that the whole scenario is AI-generated, I suppose.

It's shocking that someone who grew up in poverty is so ungrateful for being wealthy later on, and so entitled in their attitude.

I can understand having so serious questions about what the government is spending the tax money on, but not being annoyed that people with much less might need benefits or childcare.

Some people work part time because they are disabled, or have disabled children, or elderly parents that need their support, or cannot find childcare that is accessible, or for a myriad other reasons - its interesting that you automatically go for the ‘abusing the system’ trope - which is precisely the question you asked - is anything I could do in terms of investments that can be deducted that could bring me below the threshold

Sorry but how can you compare a traditional patriarchal relationship arrangement to a more modern one where 2 people are equally committed to work and family, it just happens that one is earning more than the other? And that the highER earner is not the man?
…and yet here you are, only paying into the household pot what your husband asks for. It seems like you only bang on about the patriarchy when it suits you. You also bang on about how your workplace is like a jobs for the boys kind of place and yet you’re female and earning 1/4 million a year plus have had the benefit of maternity leave with what appears to be no loss of income on your return to work.
You are VERY fortunate to be in the financial position you are. However, you don't seem to be savvy enough to know how to reduce your disposable income in order to claim a paltry benefit?
Both my DDs earn over the threshold to enable them to claim free childcare hours. Neither of them are complaining that they should get free hours - they knew that wouldn't be the case when they had their children.
Your entitlement is very telling.

i would ask you how on earth you reached that conclusion but the last thing I want to do is start up another nonsense dialogue with you where you declare black is white etc. .

As noted- Trump is not hard working- he’s known to be very lazy. He’s not wealthier than other people because he works harder than other people , he’s wealthier than other people as a function of privilege. There are poor people all over the world working just as hard and harder than rich people all over the world. Being wealthy is not a function of how hard a person works, life is infinitely more complicated than that.

This.

So you want to learn tips for hiding / reallocating £160k income just so you can get free childcare??

The average income is £36k. At £260k you earn 7x the average income. Or way more that 10x min wage income. But you think you deserve free childcare??

In effect you are saying that you deserve more money more than people in poverty. As funding you for free childcare would take money from elsewhere.

Right

This makes you look pretty awful.

You don’t qualify for a full state pension if you work a few years part time. In fact you probably wouldn’t qualify for much if anything.

You’ve literally described someone who is hard working. Just because you don’t like his morals doesn’t alter that.