to ask whether 55k is doable for a family of 5?

[DoWeStayOrDoWeGoNow]

Please do not hate me for asking if your family income is considerably less than this.
It is neither a stealth boast nor is it me being goady.
It is simply not wanting to go from the frying pan into the fire without thinking things through properly, especially with Brexit coming up.
My partner has been offered a job with the above salary - after tax that would be 3326 pounds a month (although I am not sure with pension payment, car lease and the like whether that would be a final figure but it would be close).
He is in his late 40s with 25 years experience and is the sole breadwinner. There are five of us - in theory, I would be working but only if son's SEN can be accommodated in the state school system. So cannot rely on me bringing in a wage and iirc 55K is above the threshold for child allowance.
Family of 4 living in the Northwest cost of living without rent was estimated at 2185 - there are 5 of us but in theory, in a band A terraced house, we can do it. Well aware it depends on outgoings whether we are nofrills and primark we are compared with waitrose and zara we're not.

Why am I asking?
Guilt.
My partner would be taking a massive paycut to do this as well as effectively demoting himself. I would ask in the Living Overseas section but I suspect, particularly with Brexit as it stands, I will be asked what on earth I am doing.

But....there is no 'right' time to come home.
If we don't return now, then when?
I have no job here where we are, no pension rights, some friends but no real ties, my parents are not getting any younger, my son needs to come back to a school system where I can better advocate for him, my eldest is scared she won't be able to manage the A-level equivalent here, my partner and I have been unhappy here for a while now but are also aware of reverse culture shock and time is running out.

Any advice? Please be gentle with me, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place right now and trying to do the best for all my family.
I guess I am asking what you would do and whether any similar sized families can confirm that those figures are within our means (Not asking you to divulge your financials, simply whether you could live comfortably and within your means on that amount).
Thanks in advance

A gap year could be a good year to reacclimatise before uni, to work and build up her savings and maybe travel a bit. Maybe some relevant work experience.

She would sail through German! They start to look at uni decisions fairly soon after starting 6th form but they will help her to look at optioms. Art/history or German atg uni or any combination of would be the obvious choices!

My dh earns less than this but I also work so our joint income is more. Family of 6 and we are comfortable but not well off - holidays every two years eg, always too much month at the end of the money.

@DoWeStayOrDoWeGoNow
Me and my DH are in the same position, although we will be returning to Ireland not UK in the summer.

We are doing it as money isn’t everything and I honestly can’t stand living in the ME any more, it’s horrible.

There are so many unknowns but the thing is if it doesn’t work out, you can always move after your DD goes to college. Best of luck

If you only have £50k equity then the chances of having a CGT liability are miniscule. You only pay CGT on any increase in value. Even then the gain is apportioned between the time you lived in the property and the time you rented it out and there is also an additional allowance for the rented out period. Once you are back as UK taxpayers if you are joint owners you each have a CGT tax free allowance of over £10k (This is in addition to the normal PA of £12kish).

I know nothing about the SEN provision in Germany, so wouldn't comment on that, but provision in the UK is kinda hit and miss. Some schools are actually very good with SEN, some are dreadful and some in are in between. So you would need to do some research on the schools in your area. It also depends on whether your dc would be able to be in mainstream with support or has to be in special school. Either way he will need assessment for EHCP.

It sounds like the child with special needs will have problems anywhere he goes so I would make the decison based on what is best for the older children not for the son.
Please don't write off your youngest as suggested, he deserves as much help as any other child to reach his potential.

Thanks again to all of you. I will show DH this thread later tonight. He is not in banking, no, he does sales and product management. He works hard and just wants what is best for us all so it is not the case that he will resent me for the move. And he will make a good go of the new job, he has a strong work ethic and is good at what he does. It is fair to say that I am the one in the relationship who more often sees the glass empty, he is a better person than I am in that respect.

It’s doable. Not sure why you are talking yourself out of it.

TornFromTheInside is spot on.

Your DH’s German is surely fluent if he is working there? Can he not work through the SN system with you? Or get someone to help you with that - a friendly ex pat? Are part of any ex pat groups? Can your DD to international school if she doesn’t like the German system? St George’s do a British curriculum no?

In the northwest, with zero childcare costs - is this a trick question?

If your daughter is already 17, and you came home tomorrow, she won’t be eligible for Home fees at an English university until she is 20.

Are you eligible for German citizenship? Wouldn’t it be worth getting that before leaving? I’d do that and then go back to the UK. The salary is absolutely fine.

I think that before you go much further you need to know what the total income you will have each month is. On top of the salary ( and you need to know proper calculation of net, including pension and other deductions) you will get child benefit and maybe somethign to support your child with SEN, that is the figure you will have to grapple with.

I live in the South West, here house prices are quite high but £55k is reckoned as being a pretty good income, as it would be anywhere outside London.) It is not really a question of whether you can live on it but can you afford all the things that you consider as essential and see a better future on the horizon. A modest house a modest car for you and holidays would all be possible from this income, but obviously not luxury living.

It’s doable. Not sure why you are talking yourself out of it
Because I'm scared of the unknown. It's as simple as that.
I loved the UK, I still think of it as my home. But I don't know how much it or I have changed in the interim.
I don't want to screw up my eldest's chances when I know how bright she is.
I don't want to let down my youngest.
The only one I'm not worried about atm is my middle one as she is young enough to cope in either system.
So yes, natural fears added to Project Fear added to not wanting to make another mistake has left me somewhat anxious which is why this thread is so useful both in terms of a kick up the bum along with reality checks. I am definitely making that now.

It's possible to get a mortgage to retirement age with no real issue, and sometimes beyond. So a 20ish year one should be very doable, if you're late 40s. There won't be much CGT on 50k equity if you sell, and you won't necessarily need a particularly big mortgage either. I don't know exactly where you want to be, but there are lots of 3 beds in the north west in the 100-150k bracket. Obviously if you want a more expensive area it may be more difficult.

I'd say you'd be very comfortable although not be able to have an extravagant lifestyle.

We are East Midlands and DH brings home £2200 (although we get child benefit of £150 too) and our bills are £1000 and we manage to go on a self-catering holiday in UK 3 times a year, oldest DC do Beavers / gymnastics / swimming lessons without it even being a thing. We probably don't eat out much and run one car but don't budget or meal plan for weekly shop. I imagine your DH will bring home £3000 ish after pension contributions so you would have scope to cover higher bills / mortgage than us and hopefully take into account your DC being older and costing more!

It sounds like your DC would be up for the move and their lives will have been enriched by living abroad so don't worry about the sunk costs - you can't turn back the clock. You are wise to consider the implications of Brexit but we simply do not know at this stage what will happen in the medium term and probably won't for a long time.

In the North that is more than enough. DP and I bring in similar and have 4 DC. We live comfortably and that’s with a mortgage and substantial council tax.

That is correct tippexy, she would have a gap year then I guess would be more mature than her counterparts.
I was kind of eligible for citizenship chariots, in that residency/language competence/citizenship test I could have done but not sure whether financially I would have been accepted as relying on DH's income. But I left that far far too late and now would need to relinquish being a Brit which I won't/would never have agreed to.
DH/kids - Irish heritage, so not applying for German citizenship.

Gosh don't evny your decision OP, but given that the most important thing is you want to come home to the UK, will help guide your other decisions.
fwiw, I live in France and everyone is panicking abut Brexit for different reasons.
If you have Irish passports, then your older DC have the option to use their german and live in Europe at a later date.

Check the Uni thing. Brexit is obviously a potential spanner in the works, but I understood EU students got 'home" fees at UK Unis?

The years in Germany havent been a waste, unless you think of them like that. Sounds like 4 of the 5 of you have a second language, you have experienced something new, and hopefully have some savings.
We are looking at coming back to the UK in the next 6-18 months. The bit that worries me is the cost of getting set back up on the UK (or shipping everything a third of the way round the world).

Not much to add but wishing you well. On the mortgage front, after my dad passed away my mums mortgage period ended and the old style she had was interest only. She didn't have the endowment in place to pay it off as it was worthless. The bank gave her an additional 15 yr term at 60 based only on a state pension income. Pretty sure banks will lend in your circs, a broker could help if you struggled to find a deal. £50k is a fairly decent deposit in NW.

Hi Op

I can’t help with the decision to return to the uk other than to say timings are never perfect and you’ll just have to weigh up pros and cons I suppose?

But regarding your daughters a levels and future plans - she can easily go to university with those a levels (if she wanted and with the fees etc). A degree in something like history (if she chose that) is so very easily applicable to many jobs - just because she did that wouldn’t mean she had to do a specific job.

I myself did a history degree and work within the buying sector for a very large retailer in the uk - in theory my degree has nothing to do with the actual job I do, however it gave me all of the necessary transferable skills I needed

On the flip side if she didn’t want to go to uni then her a levels are still broad enough to open various doors for her.

My advice is to look at the skills they give her when thinking about career etc rather than boxing them up into their subjects and restricting them that way

Hope that made sense

OP, missed the fact that you are currently in Germany. I have a disabled child myself and know quite a bit about Germany and the German system.
Don't know the nature of your DS's SEN but do some good reaseach about what awaits you here. From what I know, you are probably in a far better place over there considering having a child with SN.

You get very little here and will have to battle hard for everything. School support can be a huge battle. Therapy (OT, Salt etc is minimal). There is very little/next to now school holiday and wrap around childcare for children with disabilities. Most families I know with children with complex needs have one stay at home parent because support is so appealing that you don't have much choice.

Are you sure that you have no pension in Germany? The usual situation with SAHMs is that an amount is added to your pension pot for each child, and I think your children were born here? But this may depend on you having worked here, I am not sure. You could have a look at www.deutsche-rentenversicherung.de, it is available in English too, and they have a hotline. And if you cannot claim the points for the children, then perhaps DH can, and have them put in his pension pot.

As for the SEN, my children are in the German state system, and one of my best friends children has SEN. He is going to school this year, and I have picked up quite a bit around the process from her. Did you look at Förderschulen? There are a lot of options for children with SEN, and if you are not sure how to navigate them, you could ask your Kinderarzt for some contacts. The city you live in will have a Schulamt and if you make an appointment there, they will be able to advise you. Also google support groups for parents of SEN Children. Difficult to say without knowing what city /land you are in, but there is a lot of choice and some support out there.

Me and DH spent 4 years in Germany then had our DD and moved back when she was 6 months old and have been back in the uk almost 3 years.

A friend and her DH are moving back very soon from Germany to the UK.

It is doable and as long as you are on the ball with setting everything up and ensuring that you've applied to 6th form it will be fine, just busy.

I worked in a Kindergarten and I know how your feeling about the German system not having any provisions for any form of learning disabilities. I had one child who's parents are brits decide to go home as he was very clever but because of his behaviour the German system would have left him behind. (It was already happening with the German teachers in the kindergarten)

Your children will have lots of advantages having German as a second language.

Uni is not the only way to achieve. Colleges do a lot more degrees now. Plus with the gap year your child can have more of an idea of what they want to do, so they don't waste time and money on a degree that is useless. Plus they can always go to uni in Germany.

Would the new job help with moving costs? This helped us when we moved as it covered removals and flights.

It's such a hard decision but at least 2 out of 5 of you have made a definite decision. With you Ds needing more flexible schooling that's 3 of you.... there is never the best time to move. You haven't wasted your time in Germany. You children have a gift of a second language and a different culture. Something that can't be taught

I have a child with SEN who struggled with language acquisition. I knew there was no way he could manage 2 languages.