Dh has asked me to find a job. I don’t want to

[moneyunsure]

We have quite a lot of debt. Dh thinks that if I work we can clear the debt quicker. I think we just need to budget more.

I think that I’m better off at home looking after the dc (3 school age and a baby). Dh thinks I could manage working school hours but this would then mean we would have to pay for nursery and also I want to be at home with the baby and have anxiety so I don’t want to work.

I have argued that I can save us as much as I’d potentially earn by cutting out all luxuries and having an even smaller budget and just cutting back. So financially the outcome would be the same ??

It is true Blutness, that's what they are supposed to do.

Having a SAHP is only fine if the other parent is happy to bear all the financial responsibility in the family.

This. OP he's worked since he was 15 and supported you you've had 20 years of not working. I have severe anxiety too but I work because I need to for the wellbeing of my family. You need to work. I know its shit working with anxiety. But you have to get over it like I did because I don't expect my DH to suffer because for me.

Call centres have shifts in the evening usually 4pm until 8pm or 5 - 9, even 6pm -10 pm at some places.

What about a cleaning job? Or retail work? Supermarkets are often looking for weekend and evening workers.

@MyOtherProfile So if your husband was in pain you would let him suffer for 6-12 months, or demand he pays you back for the private health care? If so then you can't love them much to prefer they went through pain.

gummy Someone had to pay for it, and at the moment it isn’t getting repaid. He’s not being unreasonable trying to increase the household income.

Estate agents need people to go around and show properties on a Saturday morning?

Why have you had 4 kids if you can't afford a reasonable life without getting into debt?

I was able to work full time with small babies. I expressed the breat milk at work which worked out fine. I boughto ne of those insulated freezer bags and kept it fresh on the journeys home with an ice pack.

Some comments are harsh. Think 1/2 nights a week would be enough to get a little bit extra money in but when u are ready.
I worked when i had 3 kids on my own one was a prem baby as my husband was in the army i have had another 2 and diddnt go back to work ,we have a disabled child so this makes it extra hard but if i needed to work then id do nights ,i used to do 5 days a week so ive done both working mum & stay at home.

PMSL at MadCatLady's post!! Not sure where OP or MCL is more unreasonable.

Totally agree with you WithGraceInMyHeart as a couple they've made those decisions. Mental health is very serious and my gall bladder pain was worse than child birth, made me vomit it was so bad but the doctors put it down to indigestion for months. There's no way I felt like working when one my my 3 kids was bf and less than a year-end I knew loads of other families that made the same choice. Also, with that many kids there is a lot to do, fragile mental health in the mix and I think you've got enough on. I think a combination of yours and dh's approach may work? I dont think that is too big debt, it needs putting on a 0% card and chipping away at. Definitely budget and get good deals,anybody that doesn't is daft. I did jobs for cash in hand that fitted in with my kids, so i did a lot of babysitting, a lot of holiday care for school run parents that I knew, taking other kids to school, unofficial childminding, adding 1 or 2 kids into my day with 1 baby didn't make any difference and the cash really helped. I also tutored and marked exams when my dh was home from work, is there anything you can teach others? I also ended up as an unqualified worker at my youngests preschool when they started there, any thing that fitted in with my family and earnt cash.

Ah Op. Hope you don't feel too battered by some of the rude and unkind responses on this thread. Pay no heed to keyboard warriors. I feel like you have had some good advice on here from some kind people so probably no point repeating. That debt is not horrific but it's a fair whack so a plan to pay it off would probably make you both feel better. Babysitting in the evening pays well and usually easy enough. 2 or 3 nights a week for a year would take a chunk out of that debt. How about advertising an overnight babysitting service to shift workers once baby is weaned? You could be flexible to match their shift pattern. Just a thought. I hope you find something that works for your family and also for you. Good luck.

but when u are ready

But going by OPs posts and myriad excuses, she is never going to be ready is she?

There are SMSA jobs here (dinner lady) that are advertised monthly by the schools.
£8.50 an hour for 3 hours in the middle of the day is £25.50 a day.
A childminder here for that time period would be £12-14 a day.
You would be making £13ish a day, so £65 a week.
I don’t think £260 a month is to be scoffed at.

I think you've both buried your heads in the sand for a while in regard to the finances. You taking control might well help the situation but i suspect if you work out how long it will take you to clear the debt on minimum repayments you are in for a nasty shock. It sounds like your DH has realised you are not really managing and is panicking. You should start looking for jobs now on the basis it is likely to take a while to find one and better to do it now than when things really hit the fan with an unexpected bill.
In the meantime going through the finances is absolutely the right thing to do. You sound like you are scared of the work place rather than lazy. Look into support the job centre can offer, start asking in local businesses. You might not have experience on paper but you manage 4 children and that in itself must take a fair degree of organisation. You need to boost your self esteem and what you can write on a cv. Is there anything locally you could volunteer with (community projects always need help, or even the school - being able to say i am secretary of the hall committee shows responsibility and is something to talk about at an interview) . Make getting the job the plan for 4-6 months but do something to help the process now. You can't carry on like this forever

That's a closed minded and ignorant thing to say, though, quizqueen.
Contraception could have failed.
Not everyone believes in abortions.
Their financial situation could have been entirely different when they had the four kids

I think you are getting a hard time on here.

Your debt was a needed expense. It's not as though you were living it up and spending on credit cards for holidays and meals out.

You have four children, one of which is a bf baby. It's not realistic to go out to work, it's really not.

That said, you husband must be feeling the stress of paying it back and be worried or else he would not suggest you work just yet.

A PP said about childminding.
It won't bring lots of money in but it's a reliable steady trickle. You won't be able to have young ones as your ratio will be wrong with the four you have.

If you register with Ofstead and advertise to do school pick ups, you could walk an extra two children home with your children and feed them tea. It would be an extra £50-70 pounds a week, tax free (below your personal tax allowance).

Would mean you can stay at home with your young ones and only have the extra 2-3 hours work a day. It's work you are doing anyway with school pick ups and tea time.

That extra £250 a month will soon pay off your debt.

Other ways to bring in money is to take in ironing. Our local ironing lady charges £9-11. She was doing it whilst she studied as she could watch tutorials and seminars whist she ironed.

There are things you can do that won't impact your time with your children.

You need to get back to work for yourself if nothing else. Anything could happen..your. DH could leave,have a breakdown himself,get ill, get run over by a bus or get fired. You need a plan B,especially with 4 kids. Fair enough if you feel unable to RIGHT now due to childcare costs and the age and needs of the baby. But you need to start looking into it and consider options and possibilities. You need to look into gaining some qualifications or skills since you are at home anyways as that will improve your chances when you do start looking.
The longer you leave it the harder it will be... and at some point in the next 18 years you might end up solely responsible for supporting at least one child and yourself.

If OP feels she could cope with it, and has the space then childminding could be an option but there are some setup costs involved (although with 4 kids she probably has a fair amount of equipment)

Ratios depend on where you are in the country - here you are a max of 6 (including your own) of whom a max of 3 under 5, of whom max 1 under 1. So could potentially take two pre-schoolers. But it's not an easy option or one which is free from impact on the rest of the family or the house. It's worth investigating demand in your area, and what CMs are able to charge. Here it's about £5.50 per hour

Around here, childminders are busy - but that means they won't take children for just a few hours in the middle of the day (as it basically blocks a full time space). This is very area dependent but it's a limitation for school hours work if you still have a little one.

@GummyGoddess a fine example of a non sequitur there!

@Sinead100 I am not lazy and we did see if we could afford children. Thank you for your generalisation though. It is possible to see someone's point of view without being in the same position.

I don't think it is feasible at present for you to get a job. 4 dc, childcare costs, baby, mental health issues, no prior job/career experience make this too much of a mountain to climb.

So use this time to budget and do one/several of the ideas given to pull in some extra money. Cleaning, babysitting, dog walking, selling things etc

Sit down with dh and plan a timeline to get back into full time work. 2- 3 years. Nursery costs will be reduced by then and this gives you time to retrain.

You will need to work full time so plan for this. Part time is hard to find and is what people with established careers negotiate for. There are more full time jobs so don't even start considering part time! Focus solely on full time.

Pick a job or career that interests you and has plenty of jobs available. It doesn't need to pay highly but the jobs need to be available.

As well as retraining for a career start to train yourself to be confident and career minded. Posture & confident voice. Challenge yourself to do things you haven't done before. Work on your work wardrobe- charity shops etc

In a couple of years your dc will all be ready for full time before/after care and nursery. They will be absolutely fine.

You have not worked much or had a career before so you don't yet know the payoffs that come from having a job/career. Money as well as confidence and something outside the family to focus on!! You are a capable woman who organises a large family. Start planning for a meaningful job out for the home for the next 20 years that will support your family financially. You do need the money as relying on one person earning (and being in debt) is not fair to any of you. 😊

The posters who are agreeing with OP, are clearly the same as her. Lazy and far too quick to procreate without thinking through if they can afford to do so.

Ok, if that's what you need to believe. Crack on.

Meanwhile, the DHs proposal of school hours, term time only work that will leave them in profit after childcare costs for a baby is still not a particularly realistic one, and it may well be the case that OP isn't actually able to make any real improvement to family finances at the moment via work. Particularly if the DH isn't up for solo childcare when he's not working, and we don't actually have that information either way yet. She wouldn't magically become more employable if the people pointing these facts out were all higher earners supporting their whole households.

I do think the house cleaning sounds like it would be worth investigating OP, only thing is that if you're doing it during the day when you need to pay for childcare, you'd have to find a way to try and organise sessions in blocs. If you get an hour here and an hour there it might end up costing you more than you make. Especially if the settings near you charge more for an invididual hour than an hourly rate over the day, iyswim. Again I wonder if weekends would work better.

Stick a note up at the kids' school, dog walking, school runs, preschool pick ups, ironing, babysitting, all possible in school hours with one at home or when DH is home