to wonder how large families cope?

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

As DP has just started a new job (paying a bit more than his last one) we have been looking at our finances. With already one toddler in the house and a baby on the way, I am really panicking about money. The pay rise has put us just out of qualifying for HB. So all we get now is CB and some tax credits. But the pay rise isnt equal to the amount we have lost IYSWIM.

Im not judging anyone at all. Im genuinely interested in how families with two or more DCs cope when only one parent is working and those wages are pretty much the only income?

Surely when xmas and birthdays come round its a struggle? We live in a modest house, the cheapest we could find for what we need. We have went down to one car as DPs job is closer to home now. I make meal plans etc and stay within a budget for food. But at the end of the month there is basically nothing left. DP has holes in his shoes fgs!!

How do people live reasonably comfortably without getting into debt and still manage to save a bit each month for a rainy day?

Well it sounds good news for your DH's career, so that's excellent. With regards to yours, there is no reason why, in the future, you can't work and improve your career prospects at the same time. When my eldest DD was little, I spent a year when she was aged between 6 and 18 months working 20 hours a week and then with one day per week at college, plus working evenings at home too, to retrain for a new career. It was well worth it as it really did up my earning potential. If you have retail management experience, there is no reason you couldn't get supervisory roles, even working evenings and/or weekends. My friend works evenings four days a week from 7pm - 11pm for a large supermarket, and after originally starting out on the checkouts, is now supervisory level, and hopes to progress into management once all her DCs are at school.

No - YANBU.

We have three dc's and will be losing our child benefit next year. Live in London. I know we should be comfortable on a salary of 60K but we feel squeezed - big mortage (shit house sadly), high heating costs (no double glazing or carpets) and high commuting costs for DH. We also need to run a car as I can't do my pt job without it. Insurance and running costs are extortionate.

The main thing we need to cut out of our budget is activities for the children. At the moment we are spending £350+ per month on music lessons and Judo for two of the children, and maths tuition for the third. The Judo could go, but it's the only thing ds2 does. Our son is musically gifted and I would rather starve myself than go without piano lessons for him. DD will fail her GCSE maths without the extra help.

Really I should work f/t, but ds2 has ASD and just can't cope with after school or holiday club. He can barely cope with school. It's very, very hard for parents of children with S/N to find affordable and suitable childcare, so I'm stuck working part/time.

That was supposed to be not :o

Ephiny - not initially its when they get older IME that third DC expense kicks in when they need shoes, transport paying for, uniform though handing some down does make that slightly cheaper, plus slightly more food stuff like that plus it is more time out taken out of work to look after them.

We have 5 DC and live on DH income. We manage as we have a smallish house, share one car, wear supermarket clothes and usually holiday in the UK. We tend to go walking for days out. We eat out rarely. This is fine with us. The kids don't go without and been on all except the ridiculously expensive foreign school trips and also they have been swimming lessons and brownies etc which are quite expensive with several at a time doing it. Others wouldn't like to compromise. We get by pretty well overall although not planning more!

We have 3 and one arriving soon. We have no treats apart from Sky and Internet and we eat vegetarian and I meal plan this weeks grocery bill was £58 so I have £2 left for milk if we need it, sometimes as a treat we will have meat and once a week we will have fish. This week we have a chicken gifted to us.

Christmas they get 10 toys each in their stocking pocket money prices and a main toy the costs no more than £15. And I shop around to make sure things are bought as cheaply as possible.

They all get a joint Saturday treat no more than £5 normally around £3 and this can be sweets or a book or something from Lush.

Petrol for us is a killer, we try to fill up no more than twice a month and limit journeys. Summer holidays are fine we YHA it for a few days and go to parks, lakes and forests for walks and picnics and paddling.

We are also planning a move to lower our costs further when new one arrives and my dh is the only one earning. Its hard but the love of the dc make it so worth it, everything is for them and I don't mind. If life was easy we wouldn't appreciate it as much. :)

My mum used to put oats in her mince to eke it out. Managed to avoid that so far

Foad - well done to your DC, hope something presents itself even if just an ebay triumph.

I have thought about working p/t and doing a course. But what in? What areas out there need more workers or have good job prospects? My head is pickled with the whole thing.

I agree Xayide, I found when DD was a baby she cost less money but tax credits award more for babies. When they get older they need shoes and clothes so often. Then theres school fees and they eat more.

I feel for you Shag. I wouldnt want to give up those activities for the DCs either. When DD is older I hope we will be able to afford to nurture her interests. Thats why we probably wont have another. So we can afford to nurture the ones we have. Its such a shame though. I always thought a family of three DCs would be perfect. Sadly it isnt to be!!

wannabedomestic I actually find it easier to spend less per week if I shop on a fortnightly basis, as then I take advantage of offers. For example Sainsburys and Tesco do two punnets of grapes for £3 when they are normally £2 each so I get two and keep them in the fridge and they are fine for two weeks. Like I said, I don't buy much meat. We eat a lot of vegetable curry, pasta bakes, homemade soups, homemade cakes and biscuits, Quorn, vegetable lasagne, that kind of thing. I buy own brand cereal for breakfast. Rarely buy crisps and if I do they are just value ones.

If you buy a whole chicken for say £4 you can get 3 meals and a soup stock from it.

1. roast the whole chicken for sunday roast. Do lots of veg so wont need lots of meat.
2. half the remaining chicken with any leftover veg and mash plus a bit more veg, onion, tinned tomatoes and oxo cubes in the slow cooker for casserole.
3. the other half to make chilli/curry/stir fry/fajitas
4. bones and scraps to boil up and strain to make soup stock.

I make the meat stretch by adding lots of veg (freezer full of frozen veg) and we have a bread machine. Bread always goes down well :)

We have five DCs, although pfb has now left home. DH earns 15K and we get some tax credits. We manage, we live in the north east and we are lucky in that DH bought the house before prices shot up so the mortgage is just to say manageable. We live hand to mouth, and one big disaster would push us over the edge, but we muddle along. We slip a teeny bit further into the red each month but so far, whenever things have got really desperate we've had a bit of luck that has saved us in the nick of time - things like an unexpected inheritance of £1500 just after the boiler went bang. We might be in bother this month as no2 son turned 18 so they've stopped the tax credits that were for him iyswim. I am waiting until DH gets home to check the bank as I can't face doing it alone, to see how much they've taken off us.
It probably means we won't get any more camping this year, we do several three day trips through the year usually. The house is falling to bits round our ears, and the DCs only get school trips if my parents pay for them. We are dreading DD going to senior school next year as we can't afford the bus fares, and don't know if we'll qualify for a pass or not and will probably have to do battle with them over the uniform too as we can't afford to fork out silly money for the regulation issue things. When the boys started seniors they wanted things like £17 for a pair of tracksuit bottoms that only came from one shop and were crap quality, and the damn things didn't even have the school badge on or anything.
We have no savings at all, and aren't ever likely to have any barring a miracle.
We aren't destitute or anything, but we aren't remotely well off or even secure really - one major expense would see us in deep shit.
Foad how far from the grammar school do you live? There is a free travel scheme thing out there, but it relies on the distance from the school in a straight line, or does here. It might be worth looking into.

I think you could reduce food bill easily. We spend around £50 and that's all organic from Waitrose. We don't snack though and I dot buy lots of cleaning products, just a bit of Ecover then lemon juice/ vinegar. Also have an ecoegg so no more buying washing powder etc. done mainly on environmental basis but def saves a fortune

It also depends where you live. We are c London and therefore I don't think we could survive on one wage, infact I know we couldn't, would have to move elsewhere.
Agree with out posters, can you work a few evenings or at weekend? Or set up a business from home? What about training as a childminder, then you could work from home with your children

I do a lot of similar things to you hexagonal. Is food more expensive in N.Ireland, where I live?

I suppose that next weeks shop will probably only be around £50 but then you have a bigger family. I also do bits and pieces in pound shops eg toilet roll and cleaning products.

Food waste is minimal also. We have two dogs (our only "luxury") so they eat the little that is thrown away.

We sold old clothes. We are trying to sell our old dining table. I have books I cod sell but apart from that theres nothing else.

We dont go on holiday and have no plans to. I am literally racking my brains thinking of how to cut the outgoings down and Im at a loss.

And foad- you should get a Travel pass providing the grammar is nearest grammar. So it doesn't matter if you live next to a comp school, as long is their isn't another grammar it's fine ( my youngest sister still gets as there isn't one in town, only one over subscribed comp, so ren though other town has 3 grammar to choose from it doesn't matter which she went to)

I think you should have applied by now though..

What is an eco egg?

Just thinking, we also got rid of the tumble dryer :(

I cant work now as I am 28 weeks pregnant. Once the baby is born I will probably take six months at home with it and then get a p/t with a view to going full time.

DSis has 5DC and BIL is on a similar salary to your DH - above HB threshold but able to get tax credits. She is a sahm and spends a lot of her time making up for the lack of income - lots of shopping around (often to several different shopping areas in one day as different shops/markets are cheaper for different things), lots of home cooking, sewing and gardening. Holiday is always a camping trip in the UK, one car (but only use for longer journeys as bus is cheaper locally). Very few extracurricular activities, buy most clothes on ebay, they don't have many gadgets but do have lots of toys (but often given by relatives at birthdays). Usually go for own-brand or cheap versions of items (food, toiletries, clothes - though for some items like shoes it's better to pay more). Never buys snacks or drinks when out - always carries sandwiches and bottles of water.

It's not an easy life and I have to admit I am far too lazy to want a big family. There are times that I fritter money sometimes but with just two dc you can afford to do that, and sometimes it's nice not to worry about every penny or going for the cheapest possible deal. I think if you are dependent on things like tax credits, where policy is changing quickly, you have to think very hard about whether you want to make the sacrifices necessary for a bigger family.

I wouldn't have thought it would be more expensive wannabe. If anything I would think it would be pricier here as we are in commutable distance to London. Where do you shop? I tend to shop mainly at Asda or Sainsburys. I like Aldi, but it's such a faff getting there and I prefer to have it all delivered.

5 children and one income here, we dont have any childcare costs as i dont work, it would be impossible with dp's shifts anyway.

we bought a house in a cheaper area so the mortgage is ok, one car.

we budget with food etc and school trips are allowed to be payed in instalments so we do that rather than one big payout.

holidays in the uk and this year we are going during term time (dp cant get time off in the school holidays so its been allowed) but that alone makes it much cheaper.

we are lucky to live near the coast so lots of free days out to the beach! lots of parks etc, to do big trips like legoland etc we get vouchers etc.

4 boys means i can hand clothes down, ditto bikes etc and my children dont mind second hand, they do get new as well.

christmas we buy things a bit in advance and budget but also we dont go mad on xmas and bdays, some people spend hundreds on each child, we dont do taht, we did get an xbox last xmas but that was a joing family present and then the kids got smaller presents each, including a second hand bike for ds1 but he was very happy with that.

its a case of budgeting and arranging direct debits etc for a time that is good for us, and then paying for things at the right time of the month ie music lessons, clubs etc for the children.

it DOES get tight sometimes, but we manage :)

I shop in asda. Its the cheapest and closest. We buy own brand.

This year the tax credits are providing us with the ability to save a little. Next year DPs wage will probably put us out of qualifying for them too. So I havent a clue what next year will bring as costs keep getting higher.

The cost of chilcare will mean that if I do work it will probably be adding very little to the overall income.

DP used to cage fight. He is considering going back to it to make money. Obviously thats not ideal!!

I honestly think it comes down to choice really.

Financially, if I was to give up work, my DCs would have to give up football, swimming and music because it cost a fortune.
We would have to consider every single penny spent, 3 sets of school uniform, 2 grammar so the list is as long as your arm would be nigh on impossible unless we was to go without something, no more thinking "oh it's late, let's get a takeaway"

I guess I am selfish tbh, I admire and respect people who sacrifice a lot so they can be at home with their children.

The tax credit thing is a flaming nightmare, my sis has just got her award and it's half what she was originally receiving. She is genuinley worried how they will cope.

This is an Eco egg

www.ecoegg.com/products-page/eggs/laundry-egg

Honestly is great, we were a little dubious but brought at discount price at ideal home when first launched and def works

I've got ecoballs and I was dubious even though I undertood the concept - but they got raspberry stain out

I guess I just wonder if people are really happy living with the constant money worry over their heads?

Obviously we would all love to have more money or atleast enough money, but is having a few hours a day with your DCs and partners really enough to satisfy you? Is having more children worth the added stress on the budget and the family (ie working longer hours)?

I am beginning to really dislike living in the uk!!

wannabe as I said earlier, would it not be possible for you to work evenings or weekends to fit in around your DH's hours? Shifts in a nursing home (these jobs are very easy to get)? Supermarket work? Bar work? Cleaning work? I know they're not following a particular career path for you but needs must and all that. If it gives you an extra £300 per month in your pocket then it would all be worth it.

Or as has been suggested by another poster, train as a childminder. Training is free in many areas, and registration costs are minimal.

Just because you do something else in the short term it doesn't mean you can't do your career plan in the long-term.

And I definitely think you could decrease your food expenditure :)

foad ,not sure about your area but in ours if its further than 3 miles to school you get a free puss pass