aibU...probably?

[IknowImAnArse]

I am coming to the end of my maternity period with my second baby.

When working, I am a higher rate tax payer in greater london.

I can just about return to work when factoring in childcare costs, so basically I would earn £63 per month - full time. Husbands salary pays bills excluding food..just due to huge mortgage and a couple of hundred quid of existing debts.

It's all very jolly to say ah you are a partnership childcare costs should be split, however the opportunity cost of returning to work makes it pointless.

If I go back to work, I will be paying £22000 taxation for someone else to gain tax credits and
I presume have a greater level of disposable cash than me.

That really is an aside...

My real question is, am I being unreasonably to ask, does anyone else work for nothing (full time) for the future of your career, knowing that if you take 5 years out, your skills are obsolete?

How do you motivate yourself?

How do you not feel a little bit bitter?

[jenecho]

Btw i realise i contradicted myself by first saying the student loan and pension weren't relevant costs and then including them in my calculations. Essentially i think there are two issues, the first being the long term view of whether to go back at all, in which case paying off sl and building up pension are positives, and the second question of how many days is best in the short term for you to have enough money for food, in which case i would include them.

do you know when you will have paid off your student loan? You may suddenly get a big increase in your net pay if it is due to end soon.

[Littleen]

part time could be an option. Really it's down to you deciding which is the most important for you - if you are enjoying your job and wish to progress, it'd be a wise choice to go back. If you are desperate for those £63 extra per month, it would be wise to go back. If you're not bothered, you would have to consider what would benefit your kids most - staying with you or at nursery. I plan on going part time personally, as I want the career but also feel kids don't benefit from full time nursery as much as a mixture :)

[Thetallesttower]

I think you have had excellent advice about how to make this work- you say why not pay the full mortgage for a year or two, but having a mortgage break would allow you to get over the hump of double childcare, or you could do a 5 day week in 4 long days (if employer agreed) or cut childcare costs (there are people on here doing it cheaper).

If you managed to cut your childcare costs and say went mortgage free for one year it is more than doable, and given a mortgage is 25 years anyway, it is for a short time period.

I wouldn't give up a career in a sector you enjoy and that you would like to return to for the sake of temporary financial constraints. It's a bit different if you believe the job is incompatible with family life and want to get out anyway. I am now extremely glad I have an interesting career as my top primary age children don't need me as much and I can ramp up my career at this time point. I feel very sorry for people plugging away doing jobs that pay poorly part-time with no prospect of advancement, so if you have a chance to avoid this destiny I would grab it with both hands (all assuming you like to work, not everyone loves that path!)

[KateSpade]

'I will get a job in a supermarket'
I'm glad you will find it that easy, a few months ago I would have killed for a job stacking shelves!

I'm trying to get into a very hard industry which I've heard similar things about finance, so I'd say don't leave all together.

I went through a time if paying my nursery fees & was left with nothing at all too. & it worked out in the end, kind off. It's bloody hard, but worth it!
Good luck!

[FloppyRagdoll]

I paid to go back to work - in the country where we live, the lower earner can transfer their tax-free allowance to the higher earner; which meant that I had 53% deducted by the state off every eurocent I earned working freelance. By the time we paid for childcare and transport, we were paying more than I was bringing in. But it was essential to go back to work, as my DH was on short-term contracts, and if his contract hadn't been renewed, we would have had to rely on my income. (Which, of course, would have been much higher if I had become the main breadwinner.)

Once the children were older, I acquired a "proper" job, for which I wouldn't have been eligible had I not been doing the freelance work earlier. In my new job I was, in effect, doing exactly the same job as my DH. We had the same employer, an identical job description, but I was working on a different site. But because DH had 12 years' more increments, and because the t's and c's for the job had changed 10 months before I began, and because I had higher transport costs, my take-home salary was nearly 1000€/month less than his.

Just over 3 years ago (aged 48), I changed jobs; with the perks that come with this job, for FTE I would have overtaken my DH. (I had some health issues, so I opted to work 75%.) The impact on my future pension, should I live long enough to draw it, both with my previous job and my current one, is enormous. None of that would have been possible had I not been in it for the long haul when the DCs were small.

[Stripyhoglets]

It's worth staying in work in the long run in a career job because when the childcare costs go down you once again have a good income, but YABU to resent people getting tax credits as thy are only getting them cos they are On a very low income to start with, you and your DH would have more disposable income if you had a smaller mortgage, but that was your choice.

[maddening]

is your industry one where you could freelance or work from home so more around your dc?

I think you need to weigh up all your options - change the childcare/ change location - cheaper property,travel etc and maybe a better work life balance/change career etc or a combination.