When did money get less tight with small kids?

[CarryOnNurse20]

Hello
We are in very lucky in many ways and I don’t want to offend anyone living in poverty or really struggling so I’m sorry if I do.
I just wondered for those with other children if/when money becomes less tight. We have 2 kids (2 and 4)- eldest in school but after school club my 3 working days and youngest in nursery 3 days. I work part time (3 days a week) and DH has a decent job. But my goodness money is tight. After all bills and mortgage (we have a big mortgage- I worry about this a lot) we have around £220/week left for food and everything else including petrol. I budget as much as I can but we are just always skint, on the months I have to pay my registration fees/MOT bad service or whatever we have to dip into savings which are dwindling and we don’t have the cash to replenish.

I could up my hours although it’s a balance as we would end up paying a lot more childcare so wouldn’t be hugely better off. It also allows DH to work late on my days off etc and he’s progressing really well through the company and has had promotions which tbh has more impact on the house finances than if I worked more.

Do a lot of people experience a pinch point at this time in life? our salaries will hopefully go up over time and hopefully when we remortgage we could reduce payments. I shop around for deals for utilities and we meal plan/shop at aldi. We both have good jobs but life is expensive! We have one old car between us (no finance) etc.

We are lucky and priveleged in so many ways and Im so grateful to have my children I just feel I worry constantly about money. Does it end?!

@Carycy I agree or some friends do have family do childcare which gives them an additional £700+pcm which makes a difference.
I’m not bothered about keeping up with the Joneses but it’s gotten to the point where DH and I miss lots of friendship meet ups (think weekend away costing £400 per couple just for accommodation before anything else!). The others don’t bat an eyelid at the cost. They don’t seem to be millionaires so I don’t know what’s going on 😂

For us, a number of things happened to reduce our expenditure and increase our income.

Childcare costs reduced as our children got their free hours and then started primary school.

OH retrained in between DC1 and DC2 so increased his earnings. My salary has increased. Flexible working has helped to decrease childcare and commuting costs. Grandparents reducing their working hours so they can help with childcare during holidays. Equity in the house means you can get a better mortgage rate.

When the children were pre-school, I never felt things would were going to improve, but they did.

Older children are expensive. However, if you are used to paying 100 plus per week per child, you would surely be able to put this away every week and use for clothes, trips etc. We are used to being careful, as the childcare cost so much for the last 10 years. I know that the young person may get a part time job for driving and socialising costs, so it may not be too bad.

I think everyone says that teenagers are expensive as it affects all parents. Working and paying fulltime childcare is ecpensive, but it doesn't affect everyone as sime people have family help. I think the people who are not used to paying out get more of a shock during the teenage years. If you were always used to paying lots on childcare you could surely pay the same or maybe less during the teenage years.

I would love if we could use sone of the 10,000 annual saving on childcare for a family holiday, or indeed to go to the cinema or a show and eat dinner out. We never do this.

CarryOnNurse20
It is true what you say about holidays and friends not batting an eyelid at the costs. Some work colleagues have 2 dcs as well. They have a takeaway at the weekends, nights out with friends, a main holiday annually and one or two mini breaks as well. They and their dhs work in the civil service on the same grade as me. One let it slip that her father does after school care for dcs. We pay 200 a week for this for our dcs. If we had this money for our pockets like our colleagues do, it would be life changing.

When people have family help with childcare it makes a huge difference to finances. Often the people getting this help don't realise what a huge difference it makes financially.

Although we still have some childcare costs, when both DC started school this is when we noticed the biggest difference. When they were in nursery and preschool (free 15 hours) it didn’t help us as we used a childminder and they still charge for a full day if they also drop them off in the morning.

£220 per week, while not awful, is tight. I totally understand why you don’t want to cut out little treats like magazine and coffee and cake in the cafe. These are the things my DC loved when they were wee too.

It might help to save some money each week for birthdays and Christmas as another poster suggested. These are always going to be an issue and even if saved £100 per child for Xmas / birthdays it would help significantly.

Don’t want to derail the thread however, just reading comments on friends who save on childcare and have a lot more disposable income. A bit different but I often wonder how other people afford things that we don’t spend as much money on - new cars, holidays, lots of nights out, eating out a lot, decorating rooms that haven’t long been decorating etc.

Now that our DC are in school we could afford to do some of these things more but I feel that for a long time we had to be a bit more careful. DH says people rely on credit cards etc - is this really true?

We are not at all near the poverty line so this isn’t a pity post at all but it’s just I often wonder how other people can do it and we can’t (or couldn’t)

Your DH is correct. It's either credit cards or family financial support. If you have a decent deposit given to you, then you can find yourself with v small mortgage repayments.

We have always tried to stay away from credit cards unless it’s for a big purchase. Then we try to pay it off. Generally though we only spend what we have. Our house needs decorated desperately and I could never understand how other people did it. People we know who earn less - significantly less than us (family who are open about earnings)

You have my sympathy OP. We've got one 2 year old DS in full time childcare and a massive mortgage. Just had to spend 1.5k on life insurance and home insurance renewals this week and it was physically painful. Our flat is a fixer upper and while we've done all the urgent bits, god knows when we'll be able to do the falling down garden fence or the grotty, mouldy bathroom.

Sticking at one DC for now because there's no way we could have two in childcare and also pay the mortgage :(

I have lots of colleagues who have 25-30k of CC debt "I'll wipe it when we inherit" seems to be the attitude.

@QueenHofScotland

Don’t want to derail the thread however, just reading comments on friends who save on childcare and have a lot more disposable income. A bit different but I often wonder how other people afford things that we don’t spend as much money on - new cars, holidays, lots of nights out, eating out a lot, decorating rooms that haven’t long been decorating etc.

Now that our DC are in school we could afford to do some of these things more but I feel that for a long time we had to be a bit more careful. DH says people rely on credit cards etc - is this really true?

We are not at all near the poverty line so this isn’t a pity post at all but it’s just I often wonder how other people can do it and we can’t (or couldn’t)

I think a lot of people get family help. I have an auntie who pays her kids car tax etc every year, pays childcare costs etc.

@Hercisback

I have lots of colleagues who have 25-30k of CC debt "I'll wipe it when we inherit" seems to be the attitude.

Omg that’s a huge amount of debt. Not sure I could sleep at night worrying about that. I get nervous when I have £500 on my Next account

When I had my 30 free hours for my youngest. This is in Wales, not sure what the early entitlement is in England.

I think a lot of people get family help
I think a lot of people think people get help whereas the truth is more loans, credit cards and people getting good deals. Everyone always thinks everyone else is better off but then you find out most people are wading through the same you know what!!!!

@QueenHofScotland

Don’t want to derail the thread however, just reading comments on friends who save on childcare and have a lot more disposable income. A bit different but I often wonder how other people afford things that we don’t spend as much money on - new cars, holidays, lots of nights out, eating out a lot, decorating rooms that haven’t long been decorating etc.

Now that our DC are in school we could afford to do some of these things more but I feel that for a long time we had to be a bit more careful. DH says people rely on credit cards etc - is this really true?

We are not at all near the poverty line so this isn’t a pity post at all but it’s just I often wonder how other people can do it and we can’t (or couldn’t)

We do really nice holidays on credit card points. Put everything on the credit card but pay it off every month so there's no debt. It adds up really quickly. Back in the day we also did a lot of business travel and got reimbursed, so that was more stuff on the credit card.

We went to the Ritz Carlton in Grand Cayman all on points a few years back .

See @QueenHofScotland we have a similar debt on top of the mortgage, but - it meant we could buy a cheaper house (as it needed work) we took out a large loan to make the improvements and are clearing it over the next 7 years. Once that loan is gone, and childcare fees finished (2 years for CC fees) we will be in a much better place - but for the sake of a tight few years, meaning we could get a long term home and never have to move again - we really don't see it as a burden.