How much do you need to earn for 3 kids?

[Diskneedisney]

Exactly that. DH and I are having some back and forth on the topic

i know MN can be a bit skewed with v large incomes but realistically in a 2 parent household (not in london) how much is the minimum gross salary that you think is necessary to live a good life, which includes a holiday abroad and maybe a uk holiday a year.

let’s assume no debts, no cars on anything on finance and a mortgage of £1500 a month. Childcare costs with government funding would be reduced. Let’s assume only one child in nursery. Then big standard average bills on everything else.

dh for instance thinks you’d need a combined income of around 130/150k a year to even contemplate 3. I think that’s a bit silly.

what do we think Mn- appreciate we are painting with a broad brush here

What do you think you'd need as a combined take home per month to achieve that? Work back from there.

I do think for that sort of life which is what we had when children were small and it was 2 not 3 children you are looking at 100k. We did it easily on 75k combined but our house only cost 62k 25 years ago, it would cost about 330k now. Plus nursery 23 years ago was I’m pretty sure £25 per day, this is up North.

I've got eight kids and earn £18k, my husband earns £48k. We manage but don't holiday in the U.K, we go abroad every few years.

Agree with your DH

We have 4 (ages 5 to 12) on £60k a year but our mortgage is only £600 and we don't (and never have had) any childcare costs. We have 2 cars but they're both over 10 years old. We go on a few caravan holidays in the UK and abroad once a year - this year is Disneyland which is costing £4k for 4 nights in the school holidays...

I think income doesn't matter so much in isolation but you cannot be cash poor AND time poor with more than 2 kids. It doesn't work, it's too stressful. I'm not particularly career minded and nor is DH.

We have four kids.

Between us we earn £40,000 ish.

We don't go on fancy holidays, have one car, but we manage perfectly fine.

We have six and live on one wage of approx 40k eldest 3 have now left home, you cut your cloth. Normal working class family.

To add to my previous comment - most people I know have 3 or 4 children and certainly don't own anywhere £100k as a family.

Well pretty much every answer so far is on the skewed 'mumsnet world' scale.

Let's mythbust.

For 3 kids you DON'T need:

A large 4 bedroom house
£10k to holiday twice a year (one UK)
£1k a month food
Driving lessons
To buy cars for your kids
Full time paid childcare (nobody heard of flexible working or family/friends?)
To pay their uni fees
Expensive phone contracts
Designer clothes for your kids bought new.

I'm a single parent with 3 kids (oldest a teen)

We have a nice mortgaged 3 bedroom house which is small but well built. There's plenty of room. In fact due to the constant cycle of sleepovers most weekends there are 4 or 5 kids staying here.

Food bill is about £600 a month. We eat well but shop mostly at aldi/lidl.

We holiday about 3 times a year with usually one Europe. Budget about 3500 a year for this with spending.

I'm saving a small amount for each child which will pay for either driving lessons or a first car/insurance but not both. They will all be expected to work and save just like I did.

My parents babysit a few times a month to cover work away I can't avoid. Wrap around care for the youngest two is about £90 a month.

Regarding uni/apprenticeships they will all be expected to self fund through part time work and student loans, the same as I did. In the real world that is very normal.

Clothes are all vinted for designer, and Tu/Primark for basics.

I earn approx £55k and consider us well off. On top of all the above I save about £5k a year in my ISA.

We have 3 (nearly 10, 12 & 15) & were on combined income of £55k p/a. Mortgage only £900 pm though not £1500.

We manage everything you state, although holidays abroad tend to be Eurocamp in October rather than Caribbean summer all-inclusive. DSes do plenty of activities including DofE, foreign school trips & exchanges etc. But we save massively in other areas, 95% of clothes are secondhand or hand-me-downs, supermarket shop only £60 per max etc. We sell lots of stuff on for extra income. I was a SAHM until DS3 started school so minimal nursery costs. Plus we get DLA to help with DS2 as he has SEN.

May have to rethink now as DH been made redundant, but hopefully he will find something before his payout runs out!

We're on a combined income of around £130 with two kids. We couldn't afford another without a dent in lifestyle.

We earn a total of around £200k a year with two kids. Frankly, that feels about right and yet we still get to the end of a month with nothing left in our joint account! We have discussed it and we don’t think we can afford a third child. Nursery alone costs £19k a year, we have never had and never will get any sort of grandparent support, financial leg up, inheritance or childcare help, so it is all on us. You can earn a lot less if bank of mum and dad gives freely! Be that time or money!

I grew up in a household eligible for free school meals so I do absolutely know that people can live a good life on much less than we earn. However, we will hopefully be mortgage free in 3-4 years, have decent pensions, have JISAs for each child that will cover university costs or first house deposit, and we will continue to enjoy holidays and experiences - this is what we live for (not being hugely material). I don’t want my kids to grow up in the shadow of financial insecurity like I did, especially as that persisted well into adulthood.

We are not in London. Have 3 teenagers and household income is aprox £100k
mortgage is £900 a month for a 4 bed semi detached. We don’t go abroad every year as ££££. Go abroad about once every 2/3 years. Don’t buy designer clothes. 1 car on finance which is nearly paid off, other car paid off now, spend a fortune on food!
I would say we live a normal life, and can afford to do stuff, cinema or escape room etc but we don’t go away a lot as need 2/3 hotel rooms now which just makes the cost of a weekend away insanely
expenisve (when they were little we could get away with all of us in 1 travelodge room!)
also will depend on what sort of children you have! DS1 has ASD so has never liked to do clubs or sports. DD on the other hand always did lots of things like gymnastics and music lessons and drama clubs and ballet and the such over the years - all needing kit etc.

we could survive on less than we do now but we definitely could do with more money. For example we are just about to start driving lessons for DS1 but we can’t justify the cost of buying him a car and I’m not sure if we can afford the insurance for him to go on our small car!

We have £85k combined and 2 kids. I wouldn't say we're particularly comfortable at the minute, but that's largely due to a large renovation project which is eating up a lot of the spare cash. Things should improve on that front later this year.

We have only holidayed in the UK but do plan a foreign holiday this year, hoping to keep it under £10k, but could be £8k or £9k.

I'd say at least £100k to be comfortable, maybe £110k. We're not into extravagant holidays but would be nice to do a foreign summer holiday and then another 5 or 7 days somewhere at a half term or Easter. Put some into savings for us and also the kids futures. Eat out or a takeaway maybe once a month.

If you have boys then your food bill when they're teens will be astronomical. We spend over £1k a month on food alone.

The interest on student loans nowadays is not like it used to be. It’s much worse

Our household income is a bit more than the suggested level from your husband. Our mortgage is quite a bit less. Clearly it is absolutely possible to have 3 children on much less. However, we enjoy being able to say yes to lots of lifestyle things such as savings, lovely holidays, hobbies, tuition etc. Once you have 3 you can only really do this with a significant income. We also have cleaner, Gardner and give quite a bit to charity.
So the question isn't really can you afford it, butbwhat kind of lifestyle are you asking for? There is not a right or wrong answer but inam always very honest with myself that I really like the help we have, nice holidays and being able to say yes to all opportunities for the children. We are also both planning to retire young.

Exactly this

We live in a modest 3 bed rented house with our four kids. They share bedrooms. It won't hurt them.

Holidays we stick to U.K., although we are saving up for an abroad holiday next year or year after.

The clubs and activities they do (armed force cadets and St John's) cost us a mere £12 a month.

Food - we meal plan, use olio, shop at aldi

Car - we have one 5 year old car

We don't do expensive days out to theme parks etc - we do lots of beach, forest, mountains etc with picnics and flasks

Clothes - Vinted

School trips - they don't like going on residential but if they did, we would be able to find the money.

Future university costs - IF my children decide to go to uni (unlikely for two of them) then student loans and a part time job will have to help them. My parents couldn't/didn't help me through uni other than letting me live at home for free.

Car? They'll have to pay for that themselves with a job. No one I know buys their kids cars or pays for them.

It depends on so many variables.
Does having the best hot water tap mean quality of life to you, or going to the hair dresser? I enjoy the hairdresser definitely as a rare treat but even if I could afford it I don't want to yo regularly.

Quality of life to me means having money to replace large ticket items, having a beautiful garden and house (that doesn't necessarily require money).
However children are unknowns, what has cost us more than anything is buying in help for one dc in particular in the form of tutors. That was a totally unexpected on going essential cost.

We were comfortable with the decision to have a third with a secure joint gross income of £140k, likely to go higher.
A combination of high mortgage, a lot of building work needed and all the nursery fees (no family/friend support) means that we’re definitely not cash rich at the moment, but hopefully by the time they’re old enough to notice holidays and want expensive presents we’ll be able to manage it, and we’re planning to start saving for university when they start school.

So for context we don’t live in London, our mortgage is £1000 a month (likely to go down when the rates come down, which they will. I work in mortgages). Childcare is about 800 a month, will go down to about 500 with 15 funded hrs in April and about 300 with 30 funded hrs.

i earn 53 and dh 57, dh is 35 and im 33. So we’ve definitely got room upwards to progress. We already have a 4 bed house, but it is a small one, all open plan downstairs aside from a toilet and then upstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms and as we wfh, we use one bedroom as a spare/ office. So it’s workable but we might need to move. We have a 7 seater car anyway for when we’ve gone on self drive hols with parents.

realistically we won’t be able to fund university for even one child. Luckily we live close to several very good top 20 universities and then several smaller ones.

we do highstreet clothes, im trying to get more into sustainable clothing and trying to purchase second hand where I can, other times we are really next, tu, marks (have stopped shopping for eco reasons)

husband is more on the fence with 3 than me, as he wants to save more. I think he should too but the kids aren’t really the problem, it’s his frittering money on breaking things, outsourcing work because he’s lazy or takeaways

It's not really about how much money you need, it's about the lifestyle you want.

Will you be able to have one more child, and maintain the lifestyle you have now, on your current income? No, probably not.

Will you be able to have a comfortable lifestyle, better than most families in the UK, with 3 children and your current income? Yes, definitely.

Well I already have two so the more than one ship has sailed but I will say, when I fell pregnant with my first we were on 68 gross then my second 76 gross with my second so despite having had two kids we’ve kept our lifestyle because we’ve moved forward in our careers quite a bit. And that’s been in only about 5 years

realistically the next jump for dh is around that 70k a year and me to be around 60k which isn’t too far off. I tend to move around to get the big pay rises

i agree with your second point!

If you have boys then your food bill when they're teens will be astronomical. We spend over £1k a month on food alone

That's a crazy amount of money on food. I have three teens/young adults (two boys one girl) and don't spend anything like that on food. I think it's been a bad month if we spend £600 (including basic toiletries and dog food), it's usually around £450-£500. And we eat well, although most of our shopping is done in Aldi.

Is that net or gross or each earning 55k?