to wonder if there's anyone else who can't afford a baby

[GoldCloud]

I and not pregnant, would like to be, but know we can't afford it. It's really getting me down. Our combined income is £55k, but the rent and bills alone is around £1600 a month and we can't afford to drop down to one salary. And then there's food, commuting costs etc. Going back to work would wipe out the majority of my salary in childcare fees and we have no parents willing to help us out with childcare either.

Moving to a cheaper area is out of the question, as DP needs to work in London for his sector. We already live an hour away from London (via train), and the area is relatively cheap compared to other towns. To live in a cheaper area we would need to move about 30 miles away and that's out of the question due to jobs.

I know this sounds self pitying but I don't understand how anyone can do it unless one or both are on a great salary and they have parents on hand to babysit. I know people say no one is ever financially ready for a baby, but there seems to be lots of people who manage even more than one child, a nice house, holidays, and even with the mother on a part time salary. How?

GoldCloud look at updownleftright 's post.

You can afford it. So it doesn't have to get you down.

MN saves the day

OP, our income and bills are almost identical to yours and we've got two children. It is absolutely possible. I only got basic maternity pay for 9 months and I'm the slightly higher earner too.

You have enough income now to save some to cover the shortfall on maternity leave. As long as you're not frivolous, you can afford nursery fees too. It won't leave a lot over to be fair but it's so worth it! We managed fine and actually we were on about £7k less when we had our first and it was fine.

Coventry is an hour away from London by train! You could find somewhere much cheaper to live

I live on Leic ester which is also 1 hr by train to London but has cheaper cost of living than SE so there are other loca tions you could look at to reduce monthly costs.

Beyond that it really is about deciding what is important to you and making it work.

When i had DD, my DH was on £17,000 and i was on £28000, during the pregnancy we saved as much as possible to account for the drop in income during Maternity leave. I stayed at work till 1 week before i gave birth, took only a tiny amount of annual leave and went back to work full time when DD was 9 months old. Because i'd saved AL i had the last month of mat leave full pay and still had some to use.

Childcare cost twice what our mortgage did so that was a huge outgoing till the 30 hrs came in, then i was saving about £700 a month.

Because i stayed full time ive also been able to progress my career and am now on £50,000 which has made a big difference to our household income and covering childcare costs now shes at school and needs holiday care.

Our household income is less than that, our bills are more, and we have 2 children and live a pretty decent lifestyle. Not amazing by the standards of many on here, but it’s good enough for us.

I doubt you really can’t afford it on the figures you’ve mentioned tbh.

Yes sonlypuppyfat, and a bargain monthly travel cost from Coventry to London of only £762 per person

And while my parents help out with babysitting for nights out they never looked after them while we worked as they were both still working FT themselves until my youngest started school.

I also only got stat mat pay so I started saving before we started trying. I was really sick when pregnant so never went out and never spent money, which helped me to save more. We bought a lot 2nd hand. I only bought new baby things in the sale. Before having the baby I had enough clothes right up to 9-12 month size as I wanted to be comfortable that I wouldn't need to buy much on mat leave. They were all either sale purchases or 2nd hand.

I planned to only take 6 months mat leave then return part time, which cut down on the amount of savings I needed.

I basically saved enough to completely counteract my drop in pay when on mat leave, so it was as if our income didn't drop at all.

Now I'm part time (4 days). We have no family so need to pay for childcare. It's expensive but doable. We have cut back and don't eat out (hard to do with a young child anyway), also we will probably only have 1 child. We no longer go on extravagant holidays, we go for a cheap week in the sun outside of school holidays.

So the overwhelming answer from all of us posters is - you can afford it!

Yey! - you and your DH now have an exciting night ahead!

I feel you OP; our joint income is about 61k however our bills (exc food, fuel etc) for the house are 2.2k. This leaves 1.4k after tax for everything else.

As soon as we have kids and both back at work full time, after tax free childcare we will still look at a nursery bill of 1k per month.

Leaves £400 per month for food, petrol, clothes etc. It won't be fun, but it will be a case of cutting cloth accordingly. Also, I will be saving as much as I can before kiddo arrives to give us a safety net for miscellaneous expenses.

Due to the cost of childcare we can only consider having two if we wait until the first is at least 3 (30 hours childcare) or in school. Which sucks. We also do not have parental support for childcare, as we live two hours away.

If you have a look at your expenses, drill it down to the penny, I think you can make it work. It won't be fun and will be a massive lifestyle shock (such as you can't just put something on a card without thinking about the cost) but if you really want to have a child, you need to make it happen.

That train things quite expensive then

Childcare here would be £1300 for a child under 2. That's full time for 20 days a month.

I don’t understand why you think you can’t afford it OP. Based on the figures you’ve given you clearly can. What are we missing here? What is your salary and what is FT nursery?

Xpost. So you have enough left over to cover that.

@ILoveMaxiBondi My salary is about £1350 a month, so £1300 nursery would wipe it out. And I don't think we would have enough on just DP's salary considering commuting costs and food etc.

Nursery doesn't cost that much tho?

Also you're talking about going PT so you'd not need full time nursery

Remember you get tax free childcare which also helps with the costs

That's ridiculous! The crèche next to my work in central London is only a tiny bit more than that!

Maybe in this case a move closer to London would benefit you. Childcare would be cheaper, commuting cheaper and this would more than make up for the extra rent you might have to pay

But add in child benefit and tax free childcare. How much is DP’s salary?

You also won’t be paying for holidays at nursery and you and your DP can stagger holidays so your child is there even less.

So you’re taking home about £16k a year. Your DH must be taking home about £38ish. Minus £20k for bills and £16k childcare that leaves £20k a year!

Are there some other hidden costs of living you're not mentioning? E.g. paying for private health insurance, running a spendy car, still paying off student loans, overpaying pension, credit card debt, big mobile bill, TV package, Deliveroo habit, fancy holidays, daily Pret visits…?

My DP & I have a similar combined income and even more eye-watering commuting costs, but we're expecting our first in May. We've been saving, cutting back, decluttering and eBaying, and buying the bare minimum of baby stuff – 99% second-hand except mattresses & car seats. Plan to BF (free!) & use hand-me-down reusable nappies (also free! And hopefully not disgusting!

Yes, future childcare is terrifying but it's not a permanent cost, so we're saving, scrimping & budgeting for those years.

Who is the highest earner? If it's your DP, Can you be flexible about what you do for a living for a couple of years? I worked condensed hours and weekend work in a care setting in the NHS with an enhanced weekend rate. They also offer childcare vouchers which helped. I only needed to find childcare for two days then which really saved money. Not sure if that kind of work is your bag though and if it will kill your career. It did halt mine for a while but now getting back in to the swing of things. We are in what you are on now and expecting no 2 soon, but do have help from the grandparents. We were on less for our first (was more like 35k). I still worry about money too though.

@Jackshouse do you not pay for holidays at your nursery? We pay for 50 weeks a year, the nursery is closed for 2 weeks. So regardless of whether we are on holiday or not we pay

What you need to focus on is that your circumstances can improve after having a child.

You may be entitled to child benefit, 30 hours of nursery once the child turns 3 and tax free childcare. Plus, you or your OH may find better paying jobs.

You or your OH could get a job locally. It may not pay as much as London, but if you take out commuting costs, it may not be signicifacntly less.

We had to pay out £1000 a month on childcare. It’s sounds scary, but think about where you are spending - work lunches, morning coffees,going out with friends, beauty treatments. It’s wmazing where your money goes....

I had a baby in London with less than that, we survived in tax credits and housing benefit. Fortunately it was under a labour government though. I wanted more children and a better quality of life so I found a solution to leave London. That’s what you need to do. It might require retraining or looking for jobs that could be done from home.

I think you’d need change your priorities. Your husband must take home at least £1800 based on you figures. You could move closer to cut out commuting costs and your husband could cycle to work instead. You could get a cheap 2 bed for £1200 in cycling distance and you could just about do it.
I’m in London and nursery fees are £1900 a month where I am! You could survive on very little for the first couple of years and then go back once you get some free nursery hours.