To ask what earnings you would recommend for this lifestyle?

[Howmuch3]

Hello everyone,

I have namechanged as I am writing this with relatives here and don't want my usual name known.

We are currently on holiday with not much to do at this hour, so have been discussing about how expensive life seems to be becoming and it led to a conversation about earnings before children.

Long story short, I want to ask you ; how much do you think a couple in the South East should be earning before they have 2 children?

The lifestyle said couple would want for their family is ;
2 foreign holidays a year (1 big - e.g Mexico and 1 small - e.g Cyprus)
2 cars
4 bed house (average price is £300k )
Childcare for 2 kids
Activities/school trips for kids
Disposable income for the parents
Savings

If you have this sort of lifestyle(or better !) or know those who do, please let me know what you recommend. Also, would you delay having kids to reach that figure? Financial security for myself and my kids is very important.

Thank you

We are in the south east on 70k joint income and have nowhere near that lifestyle. We have one DS, a 3 bedroom home. We pay for 2 days a week nursery and lots of activities for DS. We have one holiday a year in Europe and 2 cars on leases.

I haven't read everything but quite interesting to see some of the estimates!
We are in the North West to understandably that makes a difference but still on 80k joint income (both FT to nursery cost FT too) we have a pretty nice standard of living. Probably the equivalent of 2 foreign holidays per year, 2 nice cars, quite a few activities for the kids (3 children although 3Rd one has only just arrived:)), savings each month and disposable income for us. We don't tend to think too hard if we fancy something (within reason). Presumably the main difference is house price, our 4 bedrooms detached house is only worth 200k.
Imo a joint income of 120k should be plenty even in south East given the above. I would definitely not put off having children tho, we had them quite early on but I'm fully satisfied with the lifestyle they are currently enjoying and indeed have enjoyed so far. Having said that I'd rather do some sacrifices on my expectations rather than risk not having children... After all you cannot plan for every eventuality, you can wait 10yrs to have children to have financial security and once you're there you could lose it through various circumstances...

Waitrose I was tempted to post a zoopla link but decided that wouldn't be wise! We're a village about 5 miles from Rye, East Sussex.

Thanks Ispy I'm on it!

Living in the SE I had a child when we had a combined income of about 20k, saved up, bought a house, got better jobs etc etc. That was almost 20 years ago but imo if you wait until you're in the perfect position then something will always come up. Good luck OP

It's difficult to predict because your life changes so much when you have kids. We earn that, we don't have 2 holidays a year as with kids, they are just shit. We did it when we had one child once, an abroad one. I swore I would never do it again. We are off to a caravan park in cornwall instead. My husband earns in excess of 100k but the holiday's simply arnt worth the stress

My Dh earns 65k
We have no mortgage as I bought very young and paid it off. 3 bed semi
1 hol abroad averaged 3k
1 hol U.K. 1k
Plus several travel lodge type weekends a year.
2 kids do several clubs each
Can afford meals out fairly often 2 a month.

We save approximately £400-500 a month. Now mortgage has gone.
Live in Herts.

Again, Thankyou for the responses. Apologies I can't respond as fast as I would like.

For those who have asked; my partner and I are early-mid 20s and have a combined income of £65k in Herts.
The conversation I mentioned came about because a relative thought my pernter and I were ready to have a child soon/year from now. I disagreed for the reasons I've discussed above.

Really interesting reading everyone's opinions and how they have managed their family budgets. I'm amazed by how people can make the same budget do different things !

We have a joint income of £250k but we could probably have afforded the desired lifestyle when DH was a single earner on £120k, if we'd been living out of London (but within the SE). We have been careful not to allow lifestyle creep as described by MMXV - we save 50% of our income but miss out on some of those lifestyle essentials by avoiding car ownership, having one partner work p/t from home and moving closer to family so no childcare/cleaner bills, and sticking to high street brands for clothes/cosmetics. We just don't get the peer pressure to spend on certain things.

We do splurge on holidays though - we all love travelling so for us it's worth it to go abroad every year to see somewhere different - yes the dc's wouldn't have cared when they were younger, but it made things more interesting for the adults. They are teens now so we are getting used to having to pay adult prices for all 4 of us - definitely something to factor in for future costs!

Herts can be affordable if yr willing to live further out My advice is buy as young as you can even if it's small to start. I'm 46 and paid ours off 2 years ago. My dh salary increased a lot over the last 5 years so we are reaping the benefits now. We may move again at some point but kids through the local senior school first

We have a big 4 bed house, 2 cars, 3 children and a total household income of £40k. We live a decent lifestyle but we have no childcare costs and we only have one annual holiday in the UK.
I used to love my holidays abroad but they were worth sacrificing to have my children.
Obviously with childcare costs for two children you would need significantly more income than we have. And your monthly mortgage payments are a big factor in how much money you need to be comfortable.

Do you really need 120k to fund that lifestyle?

Most of my Close friends don't earn that.

Well actually now I come to think of it, many of them have older kids: i.e. First about to start secondary, only one car, and only one holiday. That can easily be managed on 60k.

But I now realise that wasn't what you were asking. Your description is kind of the ideal, the pinnacle.

How are you both going to get jobs of 60-75k?

Based on your previous posts though oblomov, I have a feeling your age group are old enough to have got on the property ladder pre boom? Forgive me if I have added a decade when I shouldn't have. But in the south east in particular, there are people who bought their first property 15 or more years ago who are able to live the sort of lifestyle that someone with twice their salary just starting out now couldn't dream of.

With that in mind, I'd also disagree strongly with the OP that the cost of living in the north isn't much different. Unless you want to live in an Alderley Edge type enclave, it really is.

Budgets do vary in what they can achieve, depending on your priorities, Howmuch. (Sorry, I know that's a bit obvious really!)
I don't rate new cars, for e.g., so long as it's reliable and safe, that's all that matters to me, so I'll keep cars for ages. But I spend a lot on food because that IS a priority for me.
Holidays - well there's a tricky one for me because we have one pretty damn expensive holiday a year (3 of us fly back from Australia to the UK every year - but the flights are the worst of the cost as we stay with family and friends once we get there) but that is a priority (and also one of the reasons why I'd say you might want to re-think the overseas expensive holidays! Flying with tinies isn't always exactly fun...)
I don't do expensive clothes/bags/shoes and I don't spend money on "pampering" - so that doesn't really come into our budget at all.

Far and away our biggest expenditure is food, and DS2's childcare (not a relevant cost because different country).

But horses for courses - other people wouldn't have those priorities and might need more income to cover their perceived (or actual) needs.

True Elisa. I am older. And am coming to the end of my 'house age', rather than starting out, like OP is.

Our income is considerably less than your ideal - we have a joint income of about £85k. We have a largish 4 bed semi in the SW which is worth about £750k and is now mortgage free. We own 2 cars outright - one newish and one about 10 years old. Both of our DC are secondary aged, and so no childcare costs, and we take a few holidays each year e.g. Skiing in winter and eurocamp in France in the summer plus several long weekends/weeks at eg Centerparcs. We were very lucky to buy our house when we did as the value has increased alot and we never had a large mortgage. The DC have definitely got more expensive as they have got older as have the range of school trips they want to go on. I wouldn't wait til you reach your ideal though, it may never happen and as you get older, more can go wrong. Good luck with whatever you decide.

we realised the earnings are less up North but cost of living is not that much different
We fibmnd theres a massive difference.
Parking is 30p for half an hour/60p an hour, markets etc are cheaper, resturaunts are less.
I was in the SE last week and paid £5.70 for a pint! £3.75 for a flat white coffee.

Food and petrol is thr same but houses are cheaper and rents are cheaper.
We're looking to buy a 4 bed house/big 3 bed semi and it'll cost 200k in a nice area.

Aside from that, id cut the 2 holidays a year etv

We do all of the above on 95k per year

I think a lot of the difference is big city/small town rather than north/south, except for housing of course.

In the centre of Leeds it's a lot more than 60 p an hour for parking and pints and coffees aren't much cheaper than your examples Maisy and we don't even go in the real trendy bars, where they are probably comparable.

I've worked in London quite a lot and didn't find most day to day living things that much more expensive. Public transport is probably cheaper and infinitely better so you can actually use it and live without the expense of running a car.

I'd say 150min in the south east. House prices aren't cheap but you need to factor in disposable income, socialising, clothes, whatever.

I think there is a difference between comfortably affording children and wanting to maintain a certain lifestyle.when you have those children. You can comfortably afford children on much less but you wouldn't be having two hols a year or socialising so much,

In addition, house prices are expensive here. And if that's the case you're looking at a bigger mortgage and higher monthly outgoings.

We're on 115k combined and can't afford all of that so I'd say nearer 150k.

Minimum 120k a year. More if you want to save substantially.

We're in the SE and on 100k combined. Pays for 2 cars (we are about to scrap that, though, and go down to one shared car), 2 holidays a year of the type you mentioned, kids activities, social lives and decent clothes etc.

We only save very modestly, at the moment, though. Our mortgage only has another 8 years on it, as we bought years and years ago (but average 4-bed house price is 700k in my area), so hope to boost the savings when our mortgage is paid off.

But I'll be honest...very, very few of the professional, decent-earner families we know can do all of those things you mentioned. The SE and London = expensive housing and living costs. No getting away from it.

In my town

4 bed house would be 550k at the cheapest so depending on your deposit you would have quite a mortgage each month.

Childcare for 2 would be around 9k if both schools age and nearer 18k -24k whilst both in nursery.

commute to London is about 5k which is what most of the people with 4 bed houses do

Cars and holidays are how long are a piece of string.

We found our grocery bill went up by about 20% with each child (food nappies etc)

This is a terrible thread that makes me very sad. OP do you want children or not?

You cannot say yes but only if we can have two holidays a year and a 4 bed house.

You might have a child who is unwell and needs expensive care. You might struggle to get pregnant and need IVF. You might get post natal depression and not be able to work for a while.

Having children cannot be a purely financial decision, definitely not one that is based on maintaining a luxurious standard of living