How can I afford this baby?

[a21g05r68]

Help, I’m new here and joined for advice. I am expecting a baby. It wasn’t planned and I’m not with the father who is on a very low wage. I am doing ok and earn £55k but live in London with no family nearby. I have a flat but it’s on a share to buy mortgage and I pay £850pcm. I have just been looking at childcare costs and I don’t know how I’ll afford it. I take home about £3k pcm which until now has seemed impossibly good but on my own I’m not entitled to any help (fair enough, I earn a good wage) but looking at nursery fees online they seem to be so expensive. One I looked at was £90 a day and another rated as inadequate was even £65. Between bills and the nursery costs I just don’t know what to do. Surely I can’t be the only person in this position. I have always wanted children and am in my mid thirties and didn’t think it’d happen for me so this is a miracle but I am terrified now.

Childminders are less costly. Have you looked into that?

How much do childminders cost? I’m in a cheapies bit of east London near to Canary Wharf - I’ve googled but can’t seem to find any pricing.

I'm not London so I expect it will be a bit more expensive there, but where I am they charge between £3 and £4 per hour.

My childminder in SE London is going to be £60 a day. We pay all year even during her holidays.

You’ll be eligible for tax free childcare which means a rebate of up to £2k per year.

5 x 52 x £60 / 12 = £1133 per month.
High but doable with your income and outgoings.

Childcare gets cheaper once they are 3 and you get some free hours. Also your spending on going out etc reduces when you have a baby.

I think you’ll be able to manage. Take a look at your local council website for a childminder list and email them for prices.

To clarify above in the calculation I took £2k off the total annual cost to reflect tax free childcare then divided by 12.

Is relocating a possibility? We moved from London to Yorkshire when ds was a baby, and childcare costs are much cheaper.

You should be entitled to tax free childcare too. That's 20% off the cost.

Could you ask one/both of your parents to move in with you to help you? Or relocated somewhere near them?

Could you drop a day or do condensed hours?

Don’t spend huge amounts on buying things for your baby, it’s tempting to go mad but they really don’t need much and if you get in touch with NCT National Childbirth trust, they regularly have sales of barely used clothing and toys, that will save you some money.

Childminders are usually cheaper. Eg I'm just outside London and childminders are £50-55 for a ten hour day, whereas nursery is £80-90.

Tax free childcare would give you £2000 a year towards it (you pay in £8000 over the year, govt tops up with £2000).

Could you do condensed hours at work so five days over four, meaning you only have to pay for four days of childcare.

Free childcare hours kick in the term after 3. That's reduced our bills by £400 a month. So, if you take a year of mat.leave then that's two years of it being extremely expensive before it falls a bit.

What about child maintenance from the baby's father?

Try and save as much as you can now and whilst on maternity leave. Tax free childcare makes a big difference. Not sure if you will get any child benefit on your income. I think it tapers off between 50/60k and then is £0 over that. Condensing hours would be good if thats an option. I use a nursery but in Yorkshire so £44 a day. A child minder would be cheaper but it's worth comparing the benefits of both options. We chose a private nursery because they are open 50 weeks of the year (closed over xmas) and you dont have to find alternate childcare if your childminder is ill.

We found our childminder on childcare.co.uk. Ones in your sort of area seem to charge around 55-65 a day.
Some charge hourly, ours does and it's difficult but I work less hours during the day and make up for it by working a couple of hours an evening when daughters in bed, and also doing some work from home on a weekend during nap time and on the evening. It means most days I can get away with only paying for 8 hours even though I have an hours commute each way.
And the tax free childcare will help bring costs down too.
It won't be easy but it is doable. We pick up just over 4k between us but have 1400 on mortgage to pay, (what feels like) ridiculous council tax costs, and 450 travel costs between us and we cope absolutely fine.

Thanks all, I guess somehow I’ll cope. I can’t compress my hours (I know because as a manager I’ve asked HR if my members of my team can do this - was a hard no) and there’s no way I could relocate. There’s only one office for my organisation and that’s in London. I might be better off if they’ll let me drop to 0.8 or 0.75 but I’m a head of dept so there’s only me doing my job. I thought I was quite well off until this. I have some money saved (not a huge amount - mostly my savings went on my deposit)

I’d do an audit of your finances and look at what you need to save to be comfortable for the next few years.

As others have said, second hand stuff or in sales for the baby. We have v little baby stuff due to storage and it’s been fine. Facebook marketplace
Is great for things like cots, high chairs and other baby stuff.

Do invest in something like NCT classes to make friends - it’s a random mix of people but will save your sanity on mat leave if you have mum friends to hang out with.

Is the father likely to be supportive? If on a low wage any chance that includes weekend working so he may be available to have contact days during the week instead of sending dc to childcare?

I am sure you will make it work. Are you able to do any working from home like PP mentioned? That would allow some flexibility. Do you have a big commuting cost? Save that whilst on Mat Leave. Do lots of free/cheap mum and baby groups when on leave to keep costs down. Most of our council run groups were free or £1. Will you be on leave in Spring/Summer? Lots of walks with the pram are free. Childcare is expensive but it is for such a short amount of time. I have gone part time to keep costs down, I looked at a lot of different scenarios before we got pregnant and working 3 days works best for us. Maybe do some calculations to see if 4 days would work out cheaper? Would that take you back under the upper tax threshold? Might make a difference.

Have a look at shared nannies. I'm sure that in your area there will be others in the same position as yourself.

Don't relocate. £850 a month for your own place in London is CHEAP. The insecurity and cost of moving won't be worth it.

I hugely sympathise. It would be impossible for me (I earn slightly more than you but my housing costs are considerably more).

How much is the father going to contribute? He HAS to.

Don’t panic.

The father has to contribute even on a low wage.

Will he be having regular contact? I know someone in a similar situation, the child’s father did shift work. He was able to swing it so he had the child mon and tue each week Instead if weekends so that childcare was only for three days. Maybe something like that would be possible.

Assuming you are in the early stages of pregnancy could you try to save £1k per month. If you take a years maternity leave then that would help you for the next couple of years until 30 hours of free childcare kicks in.

Or if living in London can you rent out a room for a few months until the baby arrives? Not ideal but would bring in some extra cash.