What does “financially secure to have children” mean to you?

[Conflicted121]

I have read so many threads where people have discussed being “financially secure” when considering starting a family and being nosey, I wonder what this means to different people.

I know childcare is a major worry but do people think past this?

For disclosure, mine are all older now but we have never had more than 3 months overheads in savings. Debt is low. Drive 20 year cars. We found childcare expensive and so I took a career break to be a SAHM. That was the hardest time and I went without more often than not but i loved it.

So when people are talking about “financial security” are they talking about keeping up the holidays, cars and sending DC to university or is it simply being able to afford the cost of everyday living.

Afford the cost of everyday living and childcare.

To be fair if you wait until you have all your ducks in a row you may miss when you are able to become pregnant.

Enough income to meet all the cost (food, clothes, bigger house, childcare, school etc) plus six months buffer in savings.

I don't think of financial security but financially ready, so basically we can afford the childcare costs plus the extra food etc and still be able to save and go out for food and carry on with our lives.

We didn't want to have to change our lives too drastically, our dd fits into our lives

I have no idea. I had children age 20 & 23 and just about scraped by. Now they are heading towards high school I feel financially secure. Not at all when they were babies though.

For me it means owning a home and being able to afford the mortgage and bills ideally on one persons wage. Including any debt payments or car finance...etc.

We can comfortably live on DH wage and (just about) manage on mine so if one of us were unable to work suddenly we would be ok)

Life insurance/ income protection is a must!

Small pot of savings (I would say one months joint salary) and career stability obviously.

It’s ok if you have less as long as you have a plan. Im genuinely disgusted by how many people I know who have had/are currently having children with no financial plan for maternity leave. It’s like it suddenly hits them a couple of month before birth... oh god I won’t be able to afford to live. 🤔

I don't think there is any such thing as 100% financial security but I guess some folk like to think there is

To me it would mean both parents would be capable of paying all outgoings by themselves if one became unable to work or had to leave the relationship. I don’t think being financially dependent on another adult is financial security

Personally I also think it’s about security (specifically for the woman) I refused to TTC until after we were married as I wanted all the security that brought. But ofc you don’t need to marry as long as you make sure you have ALL the correct paper work in place to make sure that if he runs off with his secretary (nobody thinks it will happen until it does 😒) you aren’t left homeless with the kids!

In our case it was - married - both in ft permanent jobs we'd been in for a while - 3/6m wages in the bank as savings.

We were renting (still are) are but I wanted to be 'done' by 35.

Im glad we didnt wait as I physically found pregnancy really hard and got so ill even as an otherwise fit and healthy 28 year old (DS) and 31 year old (currently pg).

Current plan is to buy by 35 - I think having DC helps us be more sensible/motivated in that respect.

For me personally, it meant no mortgage, no debt and at least £1000 per month income after all bills and living costs.

Not necessarily financially secure for us, more like we could meet the additional costs of child care, an extra mouth to feed and all the tat a child requires. We were also prepared. We did our research and budgeted for our kids.

I do believe some people are guilty of not researching the cost of having kids. Women I work with did not know our company's maternity policy and were then shocked when they were not eligible for the enhanced package and had to survive off SMP. People don't research Child care costs or any benefits, tax credits etc they're entitled to until they have a six month old and suddenly realise they're not magically entitled to what they thought. I appreciate unplanned and poorly timed pregnancies happen, but I've seen a lot of people who have planned children without actually doing the financial planning and preparation too.

I wanted to be able to afford childcare mortgage and bills on my salary only for financial security against job loss. Savings weren’t important, they come and go. We had to refurbish a family home and all savings went on that plus we acquired debt

I wanted to qualify professionally for security too. Don’t understand families where the female has no qualifications or work experience, 3 children then somehow surprised she can’t start working a school hours job at 40.

Savings enough to cover mat leave. Enough money to buy all the necessaries for baby. On top of existing financial commitments (mortgage bills food). In my case owning my house not renting but not everyone can do this.

100 % financial security means:

1.. Marriage
2.. Mortgage with insurance cover for death, redundancy, income protection
3.. A job with a decent maternity package, a decent redundancy package and death in service benefit
4.. ditto 3 and for DH (Just in case)

I agree with fatted- lots of people don’t seem to research the costs. I notice lots of people wait until the free hours kick in for their second but don’t find out exactly when they kick in (term after 3rd birthday, not on 3rd birthday!) and get caught that way

It all depends really. I had my first at 22 and was given literally everything I needed, not that you really need a lot for a newborn.
It depends on your outgoings, expectations, lifestyle etc.

I am time rich for my kids, that has always been the most important thing to me. Money, pah, I pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads. I don't pay unnecessary costs, as I see them. Don't pay for someone else to look after my children, a cleaner etc but it's each to their own.

For me it was being able to meet housing and bill costs comfortably and have money left over to put some in savings and meet expenses like school trips, clothes, educational visits, decent food etc etc. Basically meet the extra costs of kids without every day being a struggle.

For me it would mean being married so that if it all went tits up I could claim a minimum of half of everything.

For me it was being able to pay all bills including childcare on one wage if necessary, plus having decent savings. Probably overkill, but I knew my pregnancies were likely to be high risk so wanted to be prepared for a potentially lengthy period of not being able to work out be a full time sahm.

Bare minimum for me is finished with school and have at least a couple of years of career established.

Strongly preferable is the ability to live on one parents income in the event that life throws you a curve ball and you end up with a special needs child who needs a sahp.

Wow. We must be very financially insecure according to those standards!

For me it's about being able to flex your hours and working patterns to survive the early years.

We're pretty poor but we have enough flex that I can ebb and flow with being self employed around the children. Ds2 was in hospital last week so we both took the week off- I had one child, dh had the other.

So on the whole we don't have loads of money. Haven't saved for maternity leaves, can't really afford childcare, etc, but have been able to cut our cloth accordingly at the time of need.

Helps that our mortgage is low at we bought at 22

Afford to live and pay childcare. Cars are essential for us but I’d forgo holidays for the time that we need full time childcare.
I can’t worry about whether we’d have the money to send them to university as it’s too far away but if we can afford full time childcare fees then I’m quite confident we could afford to help with university although I’d expect DD to get a loan for fees.

To us being financially secure enough to have children was making sure my OHs wages were enough to comfortably cover all of our bills and then some. Basically we look at it as his wages needed to cover everything from mortgage through to fuel for the car as I'm only entitled to smp, so we wanted to make sure that could be used as more of a backup plan alongside savings should anything happen to either of our jobs over the next 9 months.

I would say a joint income of at least 40k. Enough that you can afford food, clothing, school trips and hobbies and still have a small amount to put in savings for hothnyour emergencies and their uni / house deposit in later life. Obviously that figure would vary a bit depending on location and frugalness. But 40k would be the lower end I imagine. Also 5-10k for start up costs / conyingency would be ideal.

Just enough money so you don't have to use taxpayers money to raise them, I guess.