To ask how people afford to have a family...

[TiredMumma88]

DH and I earn £57k as a household.

Outgoings are c. £2.5k per month (household bills, travel, food and childcare).

DS is 19months old and we'd love to have another but cannot for the life of us see how we could afford it.

PILs have DS a couple of days per week while we're at work so we only currently pay for 3 days nursery, but after doing some major maths - whether I go back to work or not after we still won't have enough to pay the mortgage...

How do people do it??

Many will rent rather than have a mortgage, they have usually short term unstable tenancies in not very nice houses, they struggle massively, and have little to no financial security.

You're lucky to afford one child outright, and be a home owner, many don't.

To be fair looking at that quickly , your outgoings are very high (but then so are your wages). But you should still have over £2k a month left for 2 children to attend nursery only 3 days? Seems enough to me!! But then I’m living on min wage ish lol

Wow just realised your current childcare was included in your outgoings. £2k is defo enough left over to pay for a second child

Cut your outgoings.

What do they go on, have you got time to wait until your toddler is at school?

Childcare costs won't be forever.

You’d more than be able to manage imo. Plenty of others do so on less.

Cut down on your luxuries. By your calculations you'd have another £2k left s month after outgoings. What are you spending it on??

I’m in roughly the same financial position as you and we have two children. If we’d written it down on paper before I fell pregnant the second time (sort of planned but far quicker than we’d expected!) we never would have had a second.
I think you underestimate the lack of social life you have once you have two children which saves a huge amount of money! You spend weekends at parks with picnics and going for walks that are free. Better budgeting with food (nothing like having a child watching you eat to make you cut back on the expensive, unhealthy rubbish you’d normally eat!).
It just sort of works.x

Your outgoings are high. Maybe that's unavoidable for you, but many people don't have outgoings as high as that.
DH and I have bills of around 1.4k per month to include mortgage, various insurances, electricity and oil, gym membership, and a car on the never-never.

Can you stretch your mortgage over a longer term to cut the payments?

Your mortgage must be horrendous? Like 1.2k of that?

Otherwise that's a solid enough income!

DP and I earn £50k ish as a household. Total outgoings including nursery come to £1700 a month, DS will get 30 hours nursery from April, and that's when we will try for a 2nd. Using the saved fees towards my SMP only leave.

Spacing children to account for free childcare in many cases

They don’t. The rely on the state to provide for a family. The costs of raising children are so high that the vast majority couldn’t affect rd even one child if they paid for everything themselves.

You have £2k a month left fun money and you don’t think it’s enough? That’s plenty to live on and pay for more childcare.

@Racecardriver what, so you think everyone who isn't on a £50k salary can't raise a child without help from the state? What a load of bollocks

Op you need to cut down on luxuries

It is hard to compare the £57k income and the £2.5k outgoings because the £57k is gross (presumably?)

How much per month do you jointly take home (after tax, NI, pensions, student loans etc)?

If your monthly net income minus the £2.5k doesn't leave enough money for the second child's nursery fees, then things are too tight to afford another baby right now (unless there is come kind of help I'm not aware of).

In that case, what will happen to the figures when you get the 30 funded term time hours for your first child (term after they're three)? Your nursery should be able to tell you what your bill will be when the funding kicks in. Maybe you will be able to afford the second once the first is 3 years plus?

Is the £57k before or after tax?

Basically, people space out children to make best use of free childcare hours. And then cut down on expenditure where possible.

You could do an interest only mortgage whilst you need to pay for childcare.

It doesn't look as though you are particularly short of money. What will be the large expenses caused by having a second child? Obviously losing one income for a while will have an impact. Could you move to a cheaper house or is this because you live in an expensive location in the first place. Children per se don't have to be expensive.

Your dc will get funded hours from 3, some people I know timed their dc to avoid double nursery costs.

You are a home owner with a big mortgage (??). Some people have much lower incomes and dc, they have lower out goings.

They don’t. The rely on the state to provide for a family. The costs of raising children are so high that the vast majority couldn’t affect rd even one child if they paid for everything themselves

Do you have any kind of evidence to back this up?

Wait until you get some free childcare at 3 or your older DC is at school?

What racecar said,

@feafultill have you looked at school fees recently? Even at cheaper schools they would be crippling for most families. The vast majority don’t earn enough not to rely on state schools, free hours childcare, nhs, child benefit etc. Some to a greater extent, some to a lesser extent but in order to support a multi child family one needs to either be a high Warner or willing to take on a lot of debt.

We chose to only have one child because we both work fulltime and could not afford the nursery fees/wrap around care for two.