What can we do to get through the next few years financially?

[Marigo]

DD 3y and 13mo twins.

Combined income of £70,000. We take home £4200 a month between us. Mortgage is £1400 a month. DD has funded nursery hours now which will bring nursery down to £2100 a month. But still that’s £700 a month for insurance, phones, food, nappies, petrol, car running costs. I just don’t know what we can do. We can’t do it. I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Thanks all. You’re right - I hadn’t accounted for council tax and utilities in the OP either.

I’ll look at zeroing pensions for a few years. That should bring in an extra £250ish I think.

Unfortunately we don’t have family in a position to offer practical help with childcare but we could get over the awkwardness and ask for money. I think FIL would help and maybe my mum too.

DH is convinced our situation is unusual. I don’t think it is - it’s just normal for these few years with small children.

I was in your shoes. I worked one day. My earnings covered childcare (a nanny) for one day. We were better off with me not working for the rest of the time. I now work 21 hours over 3 days. The next door neighbour and the cleaner picks up my kids from as I work down the road. Instead of afternoon clubs we have a cleaner/ general person who dies everything. The twins are 8 now and my oldest 10. It works well.

I earn less per hour but my job is interesting and ensures we pay less in childcare.

We budgeted for a similar thing Similar thing (almost happened to us) as my son was a fertility treatment baby so we were considering possibility of multiples. We decided if we had multiples we would extend term of mortgage (not what your husband wants to hear but hey ho, if he wants to eat), we got two interest free for 2 year credit cards for insurances, emergencies etc to go on, husband has condensed hours to 4 days so less money on petrol and nursery.
I know you don’t want to extend the mortgage term but I think you’ll regret having stress during these happy baby years if you don’t!

Why on earth are people suggesting an au pair? Au pairs shouldn’t have sold care for one under two, let alone twins, and they are not meant to be a full time childcare replacement for nursery or a nanny

No wonder so many are badly treated if so many people think it’s acceptable to hire an au pair for 3 under 4’s full time.

If you can’t spend less, earn more. When was the last time you or DH asked for a payrise OP? Seek promotion.

No it's not unusual, just unusual to go for DC2 and end up with surprise twins which then massively increases childcare cost. If your nursery fees were less you could afford it.

Weigh up carefully the pros and cons of stopping pension payments whilst you are relatively young versus reducing your mortgage.

You and your DH need to sit down together and look at a realistic budget, hopefully when it means he can never go out or have hobbies he may realise the insanity of not reducing your monthly mortgage payments!

You don't need to get an au pair or reduce your pension! You just can't be mortgage free at 55!
It makes no sense at all. Interest rates are very low. Essentially that's the best way to borrow money (aside than from family obvs which is a good idea) You can probably still have it paid off 5 years earlier than most people these days.
Does your husband really want to put you all (with 13 month old twins!) thru this kind of stress now? Tell him straight.

This is a major issue amongst parents of multiples. We are back on another child because we are terrified of having twins again (or more!). Most people don’t worry about their when planning a pregnancy!

On the plus side you have more options than most and I agree, you can’t have it all. For a few years something has to give.

One good way to look at it is seeing childcare as a fixed cost until all the children no longer need it, rather than a monthly amount. Add up the likely childcare costs until the twins start school and then the cost of wraparound care until they’re old enough to not need it. Let’s say for arguments sake it’s £12k.

You could extend your mortgage for that amount and extend the term long enough that your monthly payment doesn’t increase. Put that extra money in a savings account and use it each month. Or you could look at how much of the £3.5k you’re currently paying in mortgage and childcare you can afford, and extend your mortgage by less.

You’re really looking at a couple of years added on, if that.

Or you condense hours, take an extra amount of leave, get a childminder instead etc. Only you know what compromises you’re happy with but you have to make some somewhere.

I loved my job too, albeit part time but I’ve recently had to take a few months off and may be unable to return. My twins are both autistic, amongst other things, and I’m currently focussed on trying to get them into specialist schools. They need all my focus right now. I didn’t plan for things to go this way obviously. Unfortunately we can’t plan for these things.

Sorry I'm getting irrationality annoyed at your husband op! I'm off to work. Good luck anyway.

Only thing I will say about nursery is that with 3 under 3 the chances of 1 being ill is exponentially higher-that is where thinking about a nanny might be better, as they can look after sick baby alongside siblings! A nanny might be ill as well, but at least you can set up her contract to first 3 days unpaid, then SSP only-at nursery you will usually have to pay full amount. Good luck!

No I agree. DH and I have a fire fighting mentality. He works from home and does what he can to help. If he insisted on us struggling for 5+ years so that we could pay off the mortgage a couple of years sooner, it wouldn’t go down well.

Sorry I am really tired and realised your childcare will be £25k per year.

Could you halve that via a mortgage extension? It will only be that insane amount between you going back to work and the twins turning 3, then it will drop again for a couple of years then reduce dramatically once they start school.

Oh yeah, my twins started nursery in January and until June there was barely a week went by that at least one wasn’t off sick. It’s a real problem with twins, you end up with a staggered effect where someone is always sick. A childminder is definitely better in that situation. If I’d been working full time I would have been fired!

Is there any scope for a job change or a move to somewhere that offers wfh or flexi hours options for either of you?

I’d be furious as a parent to ask for monetary help so that the offspring can be mortgage free in their mid 50s
Is that really an option
I would just think you were living beyond your means and wouldn’t be at all happy to be asked.

Your situation isn't unusual at all and I think your DH is more than a little bit naive about the reality of life with small children. Three children cost more than two and you're both so far only used to one.

Honestly OP, you will have days when you're on your knees with exhaustion having been up half the night with dc, hoping it's just grizzling rather than dc coming down with something that means nursery won't take them, then spent the day in work worrying that you'll have to cancel your meeting/presentation because nursery may call to say one's had a very runny nappy so can you collect now. Having enough money to buy a ready prepared meal or order in might just be the difference between breaking down sobbing at 7pm while having a screaming row with DH over who's more tired versus getting through another day.

You might think I'm painting a very negative picture but this stage of life is hard. By having some little bit of financial leeway you can make it more manageable. Being able to afford to take the dc somewhere on a rainy November Saturday rather than staying in faffing about with lentils to make your spag bol go further while they bounce of the walls from boredom, having a spare tenner to meet a friend for coffee and cake once in a while, ordering their winter coats from the couch at 11 pm for delivery to your work rather than spending your one day off trawling charity shops to find something suitable. It's these little things, which some would dismiss as unnecessary luxuries, that can make a difference to getting through these early years with your mental and physical health (and your marriage!) intact. Yes people 'manage' on a lot less than you but they do because they have to. You two don't have to so why do it?

I had twins. We did cut our cloth for a few years. Looking at your sums, the nursery fees have you over a barrel - but not forever.

I worked just two days a week then and used a childminder (no way we could afford nursery for two as our combined income was £40k in 2008 then and mortgage £800 per month). The childminder was FAR cheaper than nursery.

We had one old car then which we shared.

Once they were at school nursery I upped my hours.

Then I was made redundant (and we really had to cut our cloth then).

I 'only' worked 16 hours initially having been FT before because the travel and childcare costs meant it wasn't worthwhile. I could only do this because my employer was flexible.
My career took a hit, no doubt though.

DH is wrong to think your situation is unusual he needs to change his expectations. At the stage you're in we went interest only on mortgage and minimum pension contributions. Kids are now older and we are shifting a much higher percentage towards that. Ask him what the thoughts are behind mortgage free at 55? Is he worried about ill health, does he dislike his job and wish for the freedom to retrain/step down without a mortgage..figure out what that's actually about and find a different way to address that anxiety...

It seems madness to me to pay Over £2k a month to have someone mind your children
Isn’t the obvious answer for one or both of you to go part time and cut your childcare costs
I know. I’m a dinosaur . I come from a not too long ago era where one wage supported a whole family
( my son in law does that and my son)
It just seems that there is your solution.
A couple of years off with your children until they get free nursery or schooling.

Have just been thinking about it and I know a huge number of twin parents and I don’t know any where both parents work full time while their twins are pre school age. Some work four days a week but they have family who take the kids two or more days a week. Some couples work alternate days so they never see each other or days / nights and nearly kill themselves never resting. This is the reality of twins for people who don’t have joint earnings that allow for two in full time nursery.

Yours do so if that’s what you want you’ll unfortunately have to find a way somewhere else. Extending your mortgage is the obvious solution and when this period is over or your pay increases you can go back to overpaying or reduce the term again. In fact if you have the ability to extend the term I would do it now while you’re both still on a high joint income - you just don’t know what the future holds with twins in tow and if one of you has to stop working you won’t be able to extend it. You can always overpay when you can, or save to pay off early and give yourselves some flexibility.

We extended our mortgage amount and the lower rate meant the same term and only £30 a month more in repayments. We were planning to use it to extend the loft but now I’ve had to give up my job we at least have a stash of savings should anything else go wrong. We wouldn’t get that deal now even though we can more than afford the monthly payments.

God the amount of people urging them to give up work or reduce hours

Clearly many roles don't permit this, and if neither of them wish to be stay at home parents, people should accept that. I certainly wouldn't have considered it.

Op you just need to sort out the financials, the mortgage is going to have to be reduced for an interim period. Keep working and do you. Don't listen to the "dinosaurs".

How fucking rude.

Not many people on their deathbed think ‘I wish I’d spent more time in the office’.

No but they might think "I wish I had spent less time being utterly beside myself with financial stress and able to enjoy my kids being little" . I certainly do.

God the amount of people urging them to give up work or reduce hours

And how old are your twins Bluntness?

There’s a reason I don’t know any twin parents with preschool twins where both work full time. Because twins are fucking exhausting, and because the costs of more 40+ hours a week childcare for two is more than most people earn themselves, especially if you add in an older child.

OP doesn’t have to give up work - she has other options, where many don’t. But you can’t magic away the problems and costs.

So reducing hours or taking a year off to are one of the options available to them. The repercussions of all options need to be considered.

That may be anti, but not everyone is well-suited to spending every waking moment with young children (especially three, three and under), and it can fuck your future earnings / job prospects in some cases. I'm a better parent for having some childcare in place for my toddler.