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Original poster

House/kids/marriage - in what order?!

198 replies

Jaimejaime · 19/04/2017 21:48

Which should come first?! Confused

DP is 32 and I am 23. We are engaged and currently live in a rented property where we have been for 3 years. We have enough money saved for a deposit on a house and with our combined salaries can afford a nice family home. However, this will mean using every last penny of our savings up... meaning a wedding would have to be quite some way away. We are also keen to have a nice long honeymoon together.

In addition, we are keen to start a family relatively soon (I always hoped to have my first by 25 and be married first) which is also going to cost us not only in purchasing all the necessaries but we would like to have some money saved up to make up for my maternity leave etc.

There is no way we can afford to do all 3 at this moment in time so I'm wondering how you all did things and how it worked out for you?!

OP posts:
MusicToMyEars800 · 19/04/2017 22:27

me and my OH have been together for 11 years, we have 2 children and are not married, so ours is kids first, now we are saving for a mortgage as we currently rent, and if marriage comes then it comes Grin I am 26 and he is nearly 27.

seafoodeatit · 19/04/2017 22:28

Marriage, kids and then house but I was heavily pregnant when we got married (we planned it that way). I think a house is more important than a wedding, I certainly wouldn't have spent large sums on it even if it had been an option. We couldn't afford a house until this year so spent 7 years in rentals but it worked out well. In your position I would buy the house first, have a small wedding and try for a baby very shortly after.

NennyNooNoo · 19/04/2017 22:28

can have my family complete by the time I'm 30, whilst I'm still full of energy and able to run around, I'll be happy with that!

Do you think those of us in our 40s are pushing Zimmer frames around? Grin

We did House first, cheap wedding a couple of years later, and then kids several years after that. Good idea to get the mortgage sorted while you've got 2 salaries. Also, finding the time to do up a house when you've got young kids can be difficult. Flash weddings and ridiculously expensive honeymoons are a waste of money in my opinion. I wouldn't have done it any differently, even though I had my kids between age 31 and 41.

expatinscotland · 19/04/2017 22:28

Marriage was important to both of us, so this came first. DD1 was born 13 months later.

Floralnomad · 19/04/2017 22:29

We did house , marriage and then dc but that was 30 yrs ago , I would like to think that my dc would think it was more important to buy a house than spend thousands on a wedding . Dh was 29 and I was 22 when we got married .

millifiori · 19/04/2017 22:29

Marriage. House. Kids. That order. Worked well for us. Think it's probably the least stressful order, but my DSis did it the opposite way round and it worked for her.

Piratesandpants · 19/04/2017 22:30

Your being ridiculous to say that you want a complete family by 30 based on the fact that you wouldn't have the energy to run around after 30. What evidence to you base that on? The mum's in the school playground in their early 20s look completely knackered to me. But certainly not more than the ones over 30.

AcrossthePond55 · 19/04/2017 22:33

Marriage, House, Baby. All within 10 months!!

skerrywind · 19/04/2017 22:36

Career, travel, house, kids, in that order.

meditrina · 19/04/2017 22:37

House as soon as you can afford it.

For the rest: marriage via cheap basic wedding, brill honeymoon then if you can afford it (because once DC arrive, it won't be happening fir a decade or so), DC. Push the boat out party for all you friends/relatives at your 10 year anniversary.

Do read up on the different legal status if marriage v cohabiting before you make any final decisions.

lampygirl · 19/04/2017 22:38

I think you can have a family in rented if that is what you want, but if buying is your dream you are better off trying to get on the ladder with the smallest family unit possible as it is much easier to get a 2 bed flat with the average first time buyer mortgage than a 4 bed family home with a garden. Hopefully earn a bit of equity and move up to something more suitable for your family needs. I do think a lot of people 'cant get on the ladder' because they already have a family of 5 and are trying to get all 5 of them on the ladder at rung 5.

Having bought a house with DP while not married, I'd not buy another until we were as it is less paperwork to be drawn up to split the assets etc should we ever split.

roundaboutthetown · 19/04/2017 22:38

Marriage, house, the party you want but for some bizarre reason are describing as "marriage," and then baby. Don't pretend a marriage has to be expensive, it's a legal contract - it's the party that is expensive and can just as easily come after the legalities.

delilahbucket · 19/04/2017 22:39

I had my ds at 22, unmarried, in rented accommodation, in a crap relationship. I wanted to do things differently next time and get married before more children. We bought a house and then decided to try for a child before marriage. As it happens, having a child has jumped the queue now because my eggs are running out early and it may cost us thousands on icsi in order to conceive. Marriage has fallen way down the list.
Sometimes our ideals aren't the way things are meant to be. You are young though op, time is on your side. Take your time having kids. Make sure you have stability and a career first. I would recommend buying a house. I was in a rented property for six months when the landlord decided he wanted his house back to live in. He was quite happy to turf us out with a toddler. I worked so didn't qualify for council housing or even help with moving costs. Things can change very quickly and you need to know where you stand when you have a child to support.

NameChange30 · 19/04/2017 22:39

"I feel that if I can have my family complete by the time I'm 30, whilst I'm still full of energy and able to run around, I'll be happy with that!"

You did imply that life ends at 30 Grin But I'm pretty sure having kids is equally knackering whether you're 25 or 35! But I suppose you're thinking of your partner being 9 years older, so he'll be 44 when you're 35. I still don't think that's too old. Depends on his general health I suppose.

CassandraAusten · 19/04/2017 22:40

For me, it was house, marriage, kids. But we were engaged before buying a house.

ghostyslovesheets · 19/04/2017 22:40

House - before I even met (ex) DH

Then house together

Then marriage

Then babies

category12 · 19/04/2017 22:40

Oh god, OP - go travelling, do wild things, run amok. Live a bit more.

GinnyBaker · 19/04/2017 22:43

I would not want to have a child without being married first, not for any moral reasons but for the legal implications.

Trying to decorate and refurbish a house now with a toddler, I'd say it would have been much, much easier to do it before DC Grin

I'd do cheap basic wedding, luxury honeymoon and then spend the money on the house, & have DC once the house is in a reasonable state.

(I had a really expensive wedding, I was young and impressionable and it was what my parents wanted, and I still shudder when I think of how much it cost and the hours I had to spend listening to friends of my parents bore on rather than spend with my new husband....I really wish I'd thought about a wedding more in terms of what would make it a really nice day for me rather than making it a 'wedding' if that makes any sense.

CoffeeBreakIn5 · 19/04/2017 22:43

House, marriage, kids. DH and I both had our own houses when we met so we sold one and moved in to the other one together. Our wedding didn't cost the earth, we had our 1st DC before our 1st wedding anniversary and our 2nd DC 2 years later. All in all I'm pleased with our choices/timing and money has never been short but this is because we established our careers before prioritising spending on houses and a wedding so our salaries had built up and we had savings. 5 years later our savings are pretty much gone after 2 years of maternity leave and a year of sickness (did not see that one coming) however, had we not been sensible earlier on we wouldn't have got through that.

I don't think it's the order you need to prioritise, I'd look at finances and circumstance and go from there. Maybe having children before you're 25 is what works for you, it wouldn't have worked for me as I was making my way up my career. I waited until I was 30 before having DC and that worked best for me.

DramaAlpaca · 19/04/2017 22:45

We lived together for a while, then bought our first house, got married a year later and had our first child three years after that when we'd done a bit of travelling.

BoomBoomsCousin · 19/04/2017 22:46

Is marriage important to you or are you mainly thinking of the big party? I would generally say house, marriage, kids. But the marriage is only legal protection really because generally your earning power will go down when you have kids and his will stay the same or increase. So no expensive party necessary - a registery office ceremony would do. But there are ways to protect yourself without marriage, you just have to be on the same page re: the importance of your financial security, so no letting his career take precedence just because he earns more (which is likely with 9 years more experience than you) and no him putting more money into the mortgage or buying the cars in his name or keeping the savings account, let him pay extra on other, consumable things if your salaries are uneven. So you could forgo the marriage, but you need to make sure you're protected (you should do a bit of ensuring you're protected if you do get married).

If you really want a big party, then I think you should probably not have kids yet if you'd put that before a house.

SaltedCaramelEverything · 19/04/2017 22:48

House at 23
Wedding at 24
Baby at 27

Definitely house first! Prices only go up so you can end up chasing your tail for a deposit - that you ever more but it isn't enough for a deposit. If we'd waited even 6 more months for a house, we'd probably be in a flat instead to be in the area we are.

Personally I wanted to be married before we had a baby - for the commitment and legal stuff. And knowing it was easier to save for without having kids yet. However my friends have been basically 50/50 on this. And as PPs say, you can do this cheaply and it still be amazing!

Babies are way more expensive then I realised 🙈 mainly due to maternity leave pay so do look into that (not to put you off - just wished I'd looked it up properly before I got a shock!)

OrigamiOverload · 19/04/2017 22:48

We moved into our house in April, got married in July and I was pregnant with our first by the following February. I was pg again by the following May. So in just under 3 years we bought a house, paid for a wedding and had 2 kids!

TBH I wouldn't change what I did because I have a lovely husband, home and family. I think it was a good order to do things in, my wedding is a very treausred memory and it felt like such an exciting journey was ahead of us (which it was!) We got lovely wedding gifts which we used to furnish our new home, that we still use every day (I know wedding lists are frowned upon on Mumsnet!) And, I'm slightly ashamed to admit that i feel a bit sorry for people who have to worry about their kids at their wedding, I am glad I got married before we had ours, as lovely as they are.

I would say cramming it all into 3 years was a bit stressful and financially tricky and I wouldn't necessarily recommend that pace!

skerrywind · 19/04/2017 22:49

Oh god, OP - go travelling, do wild things, run amok. Live a bit more.

Best advice so far on this thread.

You are very young OP- live a little and travel= you have years to settle down.

desksareimportant · 19/04/2017 22:54

House
DC
Marriage

I'm 29, DH 38. We spent 30K we'd been saving up for 5 years on the house deposit. Mortgage much lower than rent so we saved up for another year before TTC, happened straight away.

It was important to us to have somewhere stable and affordable to live that wouldn't mean having to move again after DC (we could have afforded a wedding and a flat, but no space for DC!)

We were going to wait to get married in a few years- we had a small cheap wedding but we wanted something all our family could come to; however events overtook us and as DH is European being married will speed up my application for citizenship when we move to his country. I'm a bit Sad we didn't get the big wedding we wanted but hey ho.