Anyone found that working full time when you have primary aged child isn’t that financially viable

[Kittencuddle]

So been sahp for years
do voluntary work and have a busy and full life
dh in high salary so no benefits etc

anyway a job has come up with the organisation that I volunteer for
it not well paid 25-27k per year
but I think it would be really enjoyable

ds in year 4
well half way through year 4

so he would need to go to before school club and after school club
I think this is over 20 quid a day
maybe around 25ish ?

id need a second car and it’s a 50 min drive each way
so no idea how much petrol is use a month ?
it’s Mon to Fri 9 -5
so even getting back to collect from after school at 6 could be right if there’s any road accidents etc
plus in holidays
I guess I’d have to use holiday clubs or child minder

so I’m just wondering how financially feasible this is

dh sometimes works from home but it’s not reliable so I’d have to have a child care plan in place

You don’t want to work do you OP?

Your child is both yours and DH’s responsibility.

Ha! You might have uncovered something there @Kittencuddle . Might be worth contacting some pressure groups to get the message across to MPs.

It would be normal for one parent to drop off and work later and the other to start earlier and pick up. At the very least you will avoid the need for breakfast club.

Or you (both of you) can request different patterns of flexible working (obviously might not be granted) - for example working 2 longer days and 3 school hours days.

You should still have plenty left out of your salary.

Well, your take home pay per day would be roughly £80-85 per day. Childcare is a joint cost so you'd still take home £70 or just a bit more per day. You can work out rough fuel costs, it certainly won't be £70 a day. Nearly everyone who can wfh can request some set days, unless dh is say a surgeon on call. It just may take some negotiating. But that would reduce childcare costs. Then same with holiday club - you can split your annual leave between the two of you to cover those days and use holiday club for any time you need in addition to that. Plus you are paying into a pension. Obviously, yes, you'll need a car, but would you need a car in the next few years as well with a coming up to tween/teen who will need taxing around?

That said, a job 50 miles away isn't the only option out there. If the fuel costs are too high, look for something more local that won't require the drive or the extra car. I don't think I was even making £25K when I went back to work after my first mat leave. That was 10 years ago, and I make double that now, so it was very worth it in the long run. And because they want to keep me it's been easy to negotiate flexible working, which means that we don't need any wraparound care. Dh and I can balance it between ourselves. We just use a bit of holiday club for school holidays when one of us can't take AL.

I would explore what other options you have and run all the numbers to see what's the best one.

I work full time and have a primary aged child. I earn 21.5k for 42 hours (52 inc commute). DP is self employed and earns around the same but a non driver so I do all the pick ups etc. We have no benefits or top ups. We have enough money to pay the rent / bills etc and have some luxury buys if we want anything. An extra 27k should be plenty enough.

Of course it’s financially viable, and almost 10k minimum wage isn’t a low wage, especially for someone who’s been unemployed for years. Tax free childcare can help with the childcare bills to make them a bit less. You sound like you just don’t want to work which is fine if you can afford not to, but you can’t really claim you will be worse off financially by working.

Of course you can do it. They money you're bringing into the family, your NI contributions and pension scheme make it worthwhile.

Remember you get tax free childcare so work out your childcare costs and take 20% off them (up to £2000 a year per child towards their childcare cost).

so if it’s £20 a day for school club that’s actually a £16 cost to you. If it’s £40 for holiday club it’s a £32 cost to you. Makes a difference!

Yeah totally hear what you are saying but dh hjenstly does have one of them jobs where he can’t commit to pick ups drop off she can’t even commit to what days he’s working from home as this can vary
if he has to go in, he has to go in
and we need his salary to live on

I suppose I thought I’d maybe go back to work when my youngest goes to secondary or at least year 6
And can be left at home alone a fair bit

but this job would actually be really enjoyable

i guess I’m
just trying to work out how much better of a month or a year we would be if I did do this

The costs don't come out of your salary alone, the child has 2 working parents who need to contribute, and if your DH earns more he should be paying a higher percentage of family costs

I found it depended a lot on the job flexibility of the other parent. My DH is emergency services so zero flexibility. Everyone would tell me he needs to help with childcare too & pay any childcare bills equally, but all his wages went on household bills so my wage would be the one to pay the childcare bills from and it wasn't viable to do so when I had 3 primary aged children, so I didn't work. The alternative was split household bills and childcare bills between us, but that doesn't magic up extra money. The total outgoings were still the same and so still not financially viable.

Once 2 of my kids were old enough to walk to/from school and spend an hour alone at home I went back to work. Youngest did after school club which was around £280 a month and because covid changed the way my office worked I never actually needed to cover holiday childcare costs as we could WFH.

I also have a wonderful friend who can do school runs if I cannot. DH works in London and I occasionally do as well. Once we were both there when the trains were cancelled. Was a nightmare!! We ended up getting my friends teenager to collect my daughter and go sit in my house with the other kids, whilst my friend drove 1.5 hours there and back to a train station we could get to completely using up her free evening time. Thankfully those incidents are rare and I do try to avoid London if DH is on shift.

That salary you have been offered is a decent amount, around £1500± a month and you can use tax free childcare as well so doable but it depends on the other associated outgoings.

With a child in year 4, I'd say you could be at least working part time.

Is your husband paying into a private pension for you?

I agree with everyone who says that this job opportunity is not really financially prohibitive - also that £25-27k is just a poor salary! And 50 mins is not an awful commute (unless it's like 4 miles!). Many, many families manage similar time/money with two working parents.

Maybe step back from the take home pay and consider the bigger picture:

• NI contributions
• Investment in your own future earning capacity and independence

Pension

• Your time/role/purpose once your child goes to secondary school

Also don't forget

• your child has 2 parents
• wrap around care is ok! If you can find it (school, high schools, sports centre, tennis clubs, cricket clubs, football clubs, field centers....)
• everyone has the right to ask for flexible working

Yes of course you can afford to work. Firstly reframe the childcare as a joint issue between you and your partner.

What job does he do?

You'd be a mug to work full time for no financial reward, and youd be distancing yourself from your child as well. He goes from you being the most important person in his life to you being someone he sees for a few hours a day when your trying to get out the door in the morning, leaving him with the people who are going to take care of him for most of his formative life, and then you pick him uo and night, bath himn and send him to bed.

In exchange, you give a lot of people a lot of money. But really, how much money do you earn? How much of what you cvalue in life do you get?

Our pay packet is not how much we earn. Its just a number. What we earn is how much of what we work for that we get to keep. It took me 20 years to figure than out, cos no-one teaches kids about money in school.

Great post

I know what you're saying. I'm a SAHP and my youngest starts school in sept. I was costing up my going back to work and it would cost us more than I thought in childcare.

That is with DH doing all the drop offs as he WFH and us using all our AL to split the holiday care. We'd still need at least 2 weeks of childcare to cover the holidays.

I've decided instead to retrain and then work for myself. I will be able to work in the evenings mostly.

Take the job. See how it goes, if it doesn't work for you and the family then leave again.

Lol. Why are parents so quick to walk away from caring for their children?
Is there honestly anyone more capable of looking after a child than its own parents? A care worker at £8hr with 10 other kids to look after?

You get what you pay for at the end of the day if you're going to leave your kids with strangers.

This is such a pointless message that gets trotted out on threads like this. The child already has two parents, but only one of them financially contributes anything

If OP goes back to work then of course it's relevant to consider the additional childcare costs against that additional salary, because they directly offset each other.

I'm going back to work this month with two in nursery. At £150 per day for childcare for two, I need to earn at least £30k a year to be able to work and break even. £20 a day is very doable on a £24-27k salary when compared to your current situation earning zero money and volunteering.

Yep. And if DS hasnt discovered that Mummy can leave and there's nothing he can do about it, he'll learn quickly enough. This isn't leaving DS in the softplay while you look around Ikea. If he's not prepared for it, this is leaving him for 10 hours a day with at least two, if not three differen sets of people.

Also bear in mind the number of years you will need this cost of childcare, the possibility for career progression and the fact you'll be able to go for a better paid job in 2-3 years' time as you'll have 2-3 years more experience. It's not just the money to consider but your bigger picture for a career plan. You'll need wrap around until your kids are teens, are you planning not to work until then?

It's not walking away from your children ffs. ITS NOT BEING DEPENDANT ON A MAN FOR MONEY OR THINKING YOU ARE ENTITLED TO DO SO JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A UTERUS.

*Kid is a teen, sorry, IDK why I added another child to the OP there, lol.