Where do I put the 3rd kid?

[Laverlyjarbely]

I really want another child.

we can afford it, especially with the childcare funding.

we have a large car. But it’s our house.
it is a 4 bed, and probably in the future we’d move but for the short/ med future. Not sure where we’d put the 3rd. So as I say 4 bed, but a small 4 bed. All open plan downstairs and 2 double and 2 singles upstairs.

2 dcs have the singles, and we have a double and then the spare/ office is the other one. Both of us wfh, me 3 days and dh 4.

if on mat leave dh would need a quiet place to work and take calls.

remodelling the house is out of the question. It’s a new build so garden is small already, no no real extension. Maybe a small conservatory, but if well move in the med term is it worth it? Maybe garden office, but small garden would it look weird just plonked there? Plus if moving, do i want to?

do I make some of the dcs share? We have a girl and boy so not sure they’d want to share now. They are both still v young, nursery and preschool age.

where could the 3rd go?

I don't think you've got room, tbh. It would be fine if you didn't need the home office space, but you do.

I would use the BTL money to buy a bigger house within the next 2 years if i was dead set on the 3rd baby. I don't think it's fair to put the two older kids into a shared room to accommodate your want for another baby, especially as they get older. Also what do you do if you yearn for a 4th after the 3rd comes along? What if your 3rd is twins?

I'd just work in your bedroom or downstairs or whatever and sack off the office. I used to WFH 4 days a week and didn't have an office. Either that or work on site as you've said you can but personally I'd rather work at a kitchen table than go on site!

So I inherited it but It needs to be done up, when it is, I’ll approach a lender and say this property is worth xyz, I’d like to take out a mortgage on a 60% ltv. They will then give me the 40% for instance, that I’ll then use to buy another property at auction and so on and so on. (The 60% ltv is just a for instance)

ill create a Ltd company for the properties too, or have them in trust for the kids. Haven’t decided yet

I have 3 in a 3 bed, although don’t work from home so don’t need an office. I have split one large double with wardrobes down the middle so they each have privacy and their own window. Not ideal but works ok, lots of kids share a room.

I’m in mid 30s as is dh and we take home 110k, plus 15% bonus each (well dh can go up to 35% but conservatively). I think earning wise it’s fine, I’ve moved up quickly with 2 young kids, there’s no suggesting that would stop. I get my experience and move up doubled my base in 5 years. I think 110k is fine for 3 kids tbh

Then it’s twins and we definitely don’t keep one of the rooms for an office and we probably move a lot sooner

Sure it’s fine but your two existing kids will have less to accommodate a third child. And you already said you can’t help at all with uni and they should live at home? So five adults in a home that can’t accommodate 3 kids?

sounds like you have a great career, you also need to budget in holiday camps, after school care etc unless you have a ton of family support.

I also said that we’ll move in the medium term, so 5 adults wouldn’t be in this house?

plus if the dcs go to uni by one of our btl they could live there, or we could sell one and buy another with the money by the university that they want to go to and rent out the other rooms to friends/ other students

My 12 yr old and 5 yr old still share. They love it. Once they get fed up we will put up stud wall and add in a door as it’s a large room. They’ve shared since youngest was a baby. When he was able to get out of his cot, he’d climb in with his brother. Most mornings they’d be cuddled up asleep together when we went in. They loved it. Still do.

After school care is £6 per kid and we tend to use annual leave (dh has 40 days Al and I 30) DM likes to come up and stay here and there so she’s more than happy to watch them and then a few weeks holiday camp, it’s about £20 a day, now obviously the older that they get, the less they need it.

We went down the route of BTL once. Never again. Tosser stopped paying rent and refused to move out, landing us with the costs of keeping the mortgage on that going as well as our own. If that’s your only plan, have a back up.

I'd rather give more space, time and opportunities to the ones I have than squeeze in another

But that’s not the point of the thread. You do you and I’ll do me

Yeah that’s the downside or the risk but the private rental market as a whole is booming and you can get insurance to cover the cost of unpaid rent. Not housing benefit, no pets and 2 months rent as deposit and Robust landlord insurance. A lot of people make a lot of money. You just got very unlucky. There’s always the option of just flipping it and taking the income.

🎻

You have nothing to worry about with a 4 bedroom house.

I have a 3 1/2 year old, a 2 year old and a 9 week old baby.

We have 2 bedrooms - at the moment I sleep with the 3 1/2 year old and our baby in a room, while husband sleeps with the 2 year old in a room.

The three children can share a room for a while while they are smaller.

Once they are older, we'll do a loft extension, we plan on adding 2 more bedrooms.

Yet you’d think from reading some of these replies I’m living on the poverty line

I sound like my Dad but... when I was a kid, all four of us shared a room (three boys, one girl). [1979-1984 babies]. 😆

The thing with going to university is that you can't always study the course you want at your local university, which means that you have to move away to study. DSis aced a first in a programme that is offered by one institution in the whole of the UK, 250 miles from our home town.

So if you are already saying that you can't afford to support your two DC to go to uni in another town, you really shouldn't be having a third.

It's mumsnet - there will always be posters who like having a dig.

Also, quite a lot of people think anything more than 2 children is abnormal.

We went to the park today and I got 2 strangers commenting on separate occasions: "That poor woman has 3" and "3 of them!"😂

But going away to uni is a privilege, esp as parents are expected to pay about £500 a month per kid. For 2 that’s £1000 a month, how many parents can actually do that? Plus that’s IF they want to go.

plus that is 15 years away. We can’t afford it right now. But hopefully with 15 years dh and I will be much further up the career ladder

Unfortunately we couldn’t sell either as he refused to go, even when we had a buyer ready. He was a professional person employed locally. Anyway, just glad it’s behind me. Check out that insurance closely too, we didn’t find it helpful.

Increasingly, you can't get a decent job without a degree.

What parent would shaft the career chances of the two kids they already have in order to have a third?

I think we live in a time and age where it's increasingly possible to have a good career without a university course.

Yes, if you want to be a lawyer or a doctor you need to go to university.

But for a lot of other things you can have alternative qualifications or can be self-taught.

My brother for instance studied computer science and works as a programmer. A lot of his colleagues however didn't study computer science and chose different routes into programming.

That’s fundamentally untrue, the big 4 have now removed the need for a degree from most of their jobs. More and more firms offer degree apprenticeships (this is the future for many gen alpha). We live in a city with 3 redbrick universities close by, and several post 92 unis and other second tier unis. There are ample to choose from.

plus I have my second property that could be sold for a HMO in whatever city they want to go to if that is the only program in the country. The other rooms would be rented to friends/ course mates/ fellow students to cover the mortgage