AIBU to choose to be a single mother, and can I afford it?

[Shipofthedessert]

I’m approaching 40. I haven’t met the elusive Mr Right but I desperately want a child.

My main worry is money. Mortgage is £700 a month. Combined with childcare fees of around £1000, this leaves me with around £500 for everything else: car insurance, phone and internet, petrol, food, clothes, toys. I know some of these can be obtained very cheaply but some obviously can’t.

I’m also worried about the child not knowing his or her father and if this would impact on them negatively.

AIBU?

I’m a lone parent, my son is adopted (in family adoption, but I am estranged from my family) and I don’t really have a support network.

Despite it being an in family adoption I had to pass the same checks etc that other potential adopters have to pass, I did have more scrutiny financially as I had no one elses wages to rely on, having income protection insurance helped hugely.

You do have to be realistic, when he had been here a few weeks I needed emergency surgery, there was no one else to look after him, he spent a night on the childrens ward as I wasn’t conscious when taken to hospital so couldn’t give any phone numbers, luckily I had a boyfriend at the time so he was able to look after him, otherwise he would have gone into emergency foster care.

Think about time alone as well, I’m lucky I get one night off every 3/4 weeks as my cousin has him. When I’m ill there is no one to help with anything, work is generally the only time I get to see real life adults. As much as I love him, there are times when I fantasize about giving him back to get my life back.

a much, much higher risk of having a child with additional needs. How would you manage those? How would you cope if you had to give up work to be a full time carer etc too?
None of us knew the answer to thst first time round until it happened. And then the answer is you just DO cope because you don't have a choice. It's thst simple. If OP has to quit work to be a carer she can sell the house, rent and will then get help with everything financial anyway.

When did you last have your health MOT done by the gp? Is your own health actually good? Have you even had your AMH levels checked? or she could be 25, I prime health and her and her 28 to DH could get run over by a car in their first date night.

You can plan it all but plans don't predi t your actual life.

@Shipofthedessert do it. You'll regret not trying more than being poor for a few years

Just go on any of hundreds INCOME TAX CALCULATORS on google and put your 44k salary in - it will show you 2700 (in fact even slightly more) of take home pay. FFS my partner and I earn 43k combined and we take home 3000pounds every month lol No idea how you end up with 2200?? You surely not great with numbers I wonder now what do you to be on that kind of money

OP don’t be sat there at 65, childless, having not tried because MNers suggested it might not work out. Don’t be left wondering what might have been if only you’d tried. Try.

You would love to be a mother.

There will be help available along the way, you just have to seek it out through health visitors and within the local community.

Why shouldn’t you give a child a loving family? xx

Hi OP,

It’s not a good idea to not pay into a pension - especially if you’re getting company match - but at your age it’s a good time to do some pension planning so before doing all your maths on £500 why not sit down with your financial advisor and look at your pension pot and contributions. It may be feasible to reduce contributions down for 3-4 years whilst kiddo is in childcare.

Also you get a tax break on childcare I believe (but only 20% not higher rate) so that’s worth factoring in.

Your mortgage is extortionate, can you not move somewhere cheaper?

A £700 mortgage isn't extortionate, surely?

OP if you can't account properly for £500 of your wages and unsure whether it's pension or whatever taling that sum, then IMO you haven't even got your head screwed on enough to consider it.

Yes, sorry OP but this seems a bit of a red flag. I think you need to do some more in-depth budgeting.

Look at your payslip.

Check the gross is correct. If it is check your tax code.

If it has a T or K in it that will be the issue and you’re probably paying back a historical underpayment.

If it’s BR you need to talk to payroll.

You will find it very tight on £500 - why on earth wouldn’t you try to sort it out if it meant your plane was more feasible.

Everyone is chatting about finances but surely fertility if just as important an issue for someone TTC in their forties?

It's all very well everyone telling the OP to save up but in reality you need to have significant savings already if you can even hope to afford the fertility treatment needed to have a baby alone in your late 30s. Perhaps the OP has taken that into account and has it covered, she hasn't said.
I am the same age as the OP and in a similar situation. The high cost and low success rate of IVF/IUI is one of several reasons that I have decided not to go ahead and try to have a child, much as I would dearly love to be a mum.

So would you need to sort out a donor egg and donor sperm, kind of like a mix and match?

I suppose it depends on the area of the country I'm in the north west and my friends mortgage on a two bed terraced is 60 a month and it's perfectly big enough for her and her daughter. 700 a month is extortionate to me but maybe not if she's in London.

An easy way to find out if you cab afford to live on £500, is to out £1000 month in savings and try and live off £500 for all your Bills and food, without touching the £1000

If you cant do it, now, you cant do it with a baby.

Also sort out where the rest of your wage is going.

I suppose it depends on the area of the country I'm in the north west and my friends mortgage on a two bed terraced is 60 a month and it's perfectly big enough for her and her daughter.

£60 per month? Either she had a huge deposit or the house was next to nothing or that's interest only and she will have to pay a huge chunk at the end. My mortgage was only 70k and I pay £299 for a 3 bed terrace.

A £60 per month mortgage is barely nothing.

It’s not that I don’t ‘want’ a father in his or her life, but that I can’t find one.

I'm not saying this is you but I do think many people today - men and women have unrealistic expectations when it comes to relationships - we re sold the dream that we ll be swept off our feet and have this great life long love affair but actually real life couldn't be more different than that and sometimes people walk away from perfectly good relationships because they think something is better out there (when really there isn't) and that what leads to people deciding that they want to have children on their own (when they've had the best part of 20 years to form a lasting loving stable relationship with someone) they wake up one day and realise their biological clock is no longer on their side and all that time concentrating on careers/travelling/going out/enjoying a carefree lifestyle actually doesn't mean anything in the long term

Men these days are also notoriously hard to pin down to commit - seems like a lot of them have what I call Peter Pan Syndrome - an ambivalence to actually ever growing up and no concept of the passing of time and what that actually means for women and their fertility - maybe too many years of women being favoured in divorce has also made them cautious who knows - they also seem to think that the next best person/porn star look a like is just round the corner - on line dating gives you access to an unlimited pool of potential partners so why would you want to settle down with just one person

We re raised being told we can have it all whenever we want it and however we want it but when it comes to fertility in particular sadly we can't

All I'm hearing in your posts, and in most of the replies, is what YOU want and how YOU could manage. Where is the concern for this potential child and what is best for him or her?

And you've never met anyone in 20 years of adulthood? Sorry I just don't understand this unless you are obese/very unattractive looking or autistic/very very introverted
Lots of obese / unattractive / autistic / introverted people are perfect lovable and find their perfect match, what an odd comment.
Conversely, I know lots of smart, funny wonderful women who have never found the person they want to settle down with and have it last long enough to start a family, through no major fault of their own.

I don’t have unrealistic expectations; I’m just not very attractive, never have been

I have found this thread really upsetting so I don’t think I’ll return to it. Thank you.

Why shouldn’t you give a child a loving family?

OP isn't giving a child a loving family though.....it would just be her

My friend did this, and they manage happily - however, she has family help and also her child can come into her workplace as she owns it.

That's the mortgage all in not just interest, I've no idea how much the house cost or the deposit just that her parents paid the deposit and she pays the mortgage from 23 when she got it to her late 50s. It's a small house though on a main road so might be cheap but big enough for her and her one child, it's decent inside has nice kitchen and bathroom so not a shit hole.

I have 2 DC and I have no contact with my family. When they were small their father was very abusive so we ended up in a refuge, and then got moved completely out of the area, so I had no support at all from when they were 2 and a half and four years old.

They are 18 and 20 now and wonderful people, but bringing them up alone was very, very hard. If you fall ill, you have no choice but to carry on, with flu, norovirus. I remember literally being on my knees crawling to the bathroom, kitchen and their bedroom when we all had the flu when they were about 7 and 9. They still needed looking after. If you are ill, you are off work. If either of them is ill, you are off work. You end up missing all the school plays, sports days, everything because you just can't take the time. No back up when things get difficult, nobody to offer you a bit of help when you are struggling. Every single thing is down to you, running the house, remembering everything, organising everything, and it is utterly draining.

I absolutely adore my kids, but I absolutely would not have done it this way by choice. I would really think hard about what doing it alone actually entails.

2eternities £60 per month is not the norm. That's a tiny mortgage.

Ops, mortgage could be normal in her area of the country. Even in the cheapest areas of the country £60 per month mortgage is tiny. It's that unusual, theres no point comparing it to the ops.

Sleeping well the OP just said she's not very attractive (sorry OP) so I was actually correct. It's ridiculous to try and claim looks don't matter when attracting a decent partner. It's not the only factor but it's a big one especially in this looks status obsessed Americanised culture we now live in

The way I see it is the first 4 years are the ones that are tough financially.
I think your salary is fine you just need a financial plan to get through those first years.

Firstly, do you have decent savings? If not start saving aggressively

You should check if you can get a better rate on your mortgage and also extend the term up now, this will be bring the cost down and you can always shorten the term or overpay later if circa change.

Even if you took it down to £600 it would make a big difference.

Combo of savings and lower outgoings should mean you are fine.