To work for £150pcm?

[iamdivergent]

Basically I'm pg with dc3. When I go back to work next year our childcare costs will be for a baby term time plus 6wks holidays and a 9yr old in holiday club for 6wks. After paying for childcare I'd effectively be working for £150pcm, DH works f/t so our normal costs are covered, the £150 would be part of any 'disposable' income each month.

DH thinks it isn't worth it but I think it is, we would have approx 3yrs of both DC being in nursery before dd2 was at secondary and too old to attend and by then dc3 would get funded sessions so the cost would drop dramatically.

So AIBU to accept that I'd be working for £150pcm for 3yrs?

If you're on the local government pension scheme, you'd be working for a lot more than £150 a month and that is worth factoring in

As twooter and tiredofsleep have said to me if it's a choice between one working parent or two the simplest way of working out how much better off you'd be as a family is - exactly as OP has done - net salary of second working parent less cost of child care. I love what I do - and I'm also the main earner so was always going to be full time. We did that calculation on DH's salary (he earned about 25% of what I earn). To us he would have been working for £50pcm. We then weighed in the days where DD might be poorly so he'd have to stay off to care for her and lose pay and the general stress level/convenience factor. For our family it was absolutely not worth him working so he's a SAHD. But he didn't love his job, and it didn't have great prospects so there wasn't much counterbalance to the pure financials. If he enjoyed what he did that would have been another important factor.

Yes I am part of the LGPS

Except the deducting it from the woman's salary also assumes that the woman will give up work and the man's working life will be unaffected. It cuts out any discussion of the man going part time.

Back on topic, is a career break an option in LG?

Not so far as I am aware.

Ask. Really. It may well be buried in your staff handbook or may be negotiable with HR.

you are not working for £150/month. surely nursery is a joint (DH & yours) expense. also, I presume you are paying into a pension. keep your career on track. I have seen so many friends struggle to return to work after being a SAHM.

going back to work was never about the money for me (we were worse off but surviving) it was more that I'd never get a job in the same field with pt hours. So short term pain for long term gain

If you're working 20 days a month then that's £7.50 a day! I wouldn't do it.
But if you will find it harder to go back in the future then it will be worth it in the long run.

albert I don't think it's helpful to assume that it's always a discussion about deduction from the woman's salary! We thought of it as deduction from the lower paid spouse's income (DH's in our case) as a simple way to see what the financial benefit to our family was of him working. We discussed us both working pt, but although my employer is open to it my job is challenging to do pt and again the money side doesn't work for us. He didn't have a brilliant pension or wider career opportunities (so differs from the op there) We had the discussion, carefully, and the result was DH becoming a SAHD. Although I appreciate we are unfortunately still in a minority I think it's quite a sizeable minority actually so there are a fair few families out there looking at childcare as a deduction from the man's salary. Plus everyone who looks at it as a deduction from both (which imo is a good way to do it if you both have careers that would be damaged by a break).

Exactly, Prosecco. BIL is a stad and looking to go back part time and doing the same way of calculating. I think it's people just jumping on it. Op has made it clear that it's all their money.

I love these surely childcare comes from both wages comments.
Are people really that dim?
Do these people have jobs.

The news folks.
!0 - 5 = 5, whether one person takes five or 2 people take 2.5 each.
HTH.

Yes - it's totally the case of the last posts. It's all our money - everything go's into and come out of the one account.

We both work for LA btw and are both in LGPS. It will be better in the long run if I do stay in work, it will just be a tough few years but we'll make it work.

Thanks for all the advice, pointers and thoughts.

Exactly, I'm not sure why people fail to see that. It's how much better if you are as a family, not about childcare being paid for by the woman

I can see why some people justify it that way if they both want to work, I do see how it makes sense.
It's the ones who think this makes the family finances better that are worrying tbh.
Fair enough split the childcare costs but learn how to do basic maths.

More like 12 days a month beep.

If you have a stable part time job you like, benefitting the family to the tune of £150 a month plus great pension, keep it.

I think we may be agreeing, but talking at cross purposes. The numbers stay the same whether you deduct childcare costs from family income or only mother's income, sure, but the unspoken implications of deducting from mother's income are problematic. I agree, also, that it would be equally unfair to defuct from a SAHD's income.

Anyway, good luck OP.