How can it be possible that we would be so skint!

[BasinHaircut]

Just doing some sums to basically work out whether we can ‘afford’ to have another child. We can, but I’ve just worked out that even though DH and I bring home £4500 per month net, PLUS childcare vouchers of £385 per month, once paying another set of childcare fees 4 days per week, after everything was paid out each month we would have £750 left over for food, petrol and other spends. There would be 4 of us to feed so let’s say £300 a month, plus £100 petrol. £350 for all of us for anything else.

How is it possible that we would have so little? I know it would be short term (until free 15 hours kick in and then better again once they started school) but what the fuck???

Going through our expenses it’s only things such as amazon prime and Apple Music that we could feasibly claw back each month. Nothing that would make a dent.

We are lucky I suppose that we own our house, have renovated it already so not expecting any big expenses in the medium term. But still, even Xmas would be a real struggle!

This is not a stealth boast I promise, I genuinely cannot understand how we can have so much coming in and still not even have enormous go to justify a takeaway if we have another child.

Thanks glitter, that’s interesting.

just that’s what I don’t want - debt.

I think we can afford it too, would just need to reprioritise a bit.

@Basinhaircut I would wait 6 months or so and build up some savings first. Then provided you get pregnant straight away you still have 9 months to add to it. That way if anything big crops up after you have an emergency fund available

I do know what you mean, we never seem to have money despite having a relatively high income - my money pit of a house doesn't help, nor supporting one at university and another on a means tested bursary in the Navy.

I'm pretty sure if Op or anyone else started a thread saying On a household income of £80k a year what lifestyle would you expect to have most of the count yourself lucky posters would certainly imagine they could have a reasonably comfortable home, a second child, be able to replace household items and clothes when the need arose, have a holiday other than bloody camping in the UK and god forbid, the occasional day trip with the dc or meal out with friends.

It really is a race to the bottom on these threads. So many posters seem determined that if people aren't living in grinding poverty then they are incredibly lucky and should be grateful (never clear who they should be grateful to). It's as though poverty should be accepted as the norm and anyone expecting more than barely scraping by is ridiculously entitled. It's a very strange mindset.