To think manageable London family life is now for the super rich?

[Notquitemanaging]

Defining manageable here as able to save a little bit and not be putting boiler repairs on credit card...

DH and I definitely privileged. Work in full time pretty well paid jobs - me a teacher, him in large corporate on well over median salary. We wanted to stay in London as both grew up here and so wanted to be near families and now wondering if that was just daft. Put all of our savings into family home deposit for fixer upper in zone four and mortgage 3.5 times joint income so big stretch but not completely mad.

Currently nursery fees for dd aged 2 and breakfast and after school club for ds 5 coming in at about 2k per month, will come down September next year when she can go to school nursery but currently finding ourselves over spending every single month and genuinely not doing anything like eating out, shopping for clothes other than kids or whatever, just things that come up with old house here and there (roof, boiler etc) I keep assuming we’ve messed up somehow and going over it all and can’t find a saving to make. Doesn’t help that we’ve put boiler and roof repairs on credit card so now but more going out each month on those.

Do wonder about the neighbours and if they’re all on secretly massively higher salaries, have a lot more family money or if we’re all in this boat whilst kids are small at least. I’ve been invited to a couple of things recently, just pub nights or whatever with mates where I’ve had to say I can’t afford it right now which feels awkward as a. Think makes people embarrassed and b. Suspect they think am maybe making it up but we really don’t have spare cash at all this year.

Does anyone recognise this situation? Not saying for a second anyone has a god given right to stay in London, wondering if is just generally understood now that to do this without major salaries like 100k plus or significant family help just doesn’t work... at least when kids tiny.

At the moment you have a lot of outgoings .Your income is good but not super rich! Look at it from a long term view .you have a house in London which many people would envy .Lets face it, the only way is up for Homes in the Capital . Many renters/ people buying in less desirable areas will have less equity in years to come.Snag is to be careful with cash in the meanwhile! Surely chums coming to you is easier anyway than a night in the pub? Have you a spare room ,could you let it out to a young professional ?maybe during the week only so you have weekends clear? Check the tax implications first obv .What about shopping in a cheaper supermarket /market maybe .In London you have many free attractions to visit ,can you meet chums for a coffee there instead. Look through bank statements with a toothcomb ,any cheaper deals on Energy maybe or things like Gym membership ? Good luck!

Daisy I agree entirely. When DS was born we were in rented one bed and realise not unusual. That said - I wouldn’t have described it as totally easy. Especially when he was walking we were falling over each other and never space for hanging laundry etc so would sort of put that in a cheaper yes but also challenging category of making London work W kids.

Our rent was cheaper as was one bed and we are v lucky to be in three bed house now. If we were renting 3 bed property round here it wouldn’t cost less than our mortgage and whilst 2 bed would by couple hundred still often service charges etc. Wish renting was cheaper but not sure it consistently is at all based on our experience.

If you cant afford to do things and need to borrow to pay emergency repairs you are living beyond your means. 2k on childcare a month??? Fuck me! Thats more than i earn. (Not a criticism, how are families supposed to manage? ).

I think for me, unless this situation was likely to improve relatively soon id be considering changing something. Where i live, we have lots of dfl's (down from london) who have been able to buy better houses, enjoy a nicer (thats the consensus- i only have one friend who'd move back) lifestyle and be less financially constrained. Would you consider a move out of London? If you teach you can move jobs and the cost of the commute would be offset by a smaller mortgage.

I have lived with the stress of financial difficulties and it nearly broke me. I didn't have options but it sounds like you do?

I have never lived in London, i can see why you'd want to though.

Tax free childcare schemes are good, are using them?

I couldn’t afford to live in London when I was earning £75k

Rent itself is not cheaper but we don't pay for boilers and repairs and all the rest.

I think what actually tips things into unmanageable is having a second child. With one child you only need 2 beds, only have a couple years of crazy childcare costs, easier to manage without a car and garden, etc. It's far more common in other large expensive cities for people to just have one.

You just need to hang in there for a couple years it will get easier!

It’s just a phase - the childcare costs will drop soon and you’ll feel like you had a payrise! Just keep swimming....

I can’t comment for London life but I’m in Manchester and it definitely wasn’t the case for us. I’m a nurse and I worked 3 days a week after having children. Childcare fees for both never exceeded £550. DH earns above median salary but not a high earner. Mortgage on current house was 2.5 times joint salary at the time, now we owe 1.5 times 8 years later. We’ve always had a holiday, not always abroad but usually and usually have 3-4 weekends away a year. We eat out twice a month usually and spend a lot on the house doing it up. We’re usually able to save £500 a month if we don’t spend on ‘stuff’ but never stop days out or eating out.
Unfortunately London is just so expensive in every way so it impacts on these things but equally you’re near your family and will have assets worth more than imaginable up here.

We live in a 2 bed flat with 3 kids. DH is a very high earner (but his income has grown massively in the last 2 years so it wasn’t always like this). We’ve struggled to save a deposit that will get us a family home near the school our oldest currently attends. Don’t want to buy a flat as we would be throwing away the stamp duty and other moving costs so we have just kept saving so that we only need to move once but it is honestly grim.

Part of the reason that we were set against buying a flat was that for the last few years an opportunity has been emerging for DH to move jobs to the US office and we’ve now agreed to do that. Housing costs much lower and taxes are lower. London is just insane, even in the suburbs of New York in Connecticut we will be much better off and for the price of our 2 bed flat in zone 3 we can buy a 4 bed detached in 2 acres of land with a swimming pool in one of the best school districts in the country!

I think most people in London are dishonest about where there money comes from and much of it is family wealth, especially those in arty/charity jobs that don't pay much. Otherwise I just don't see how it's possible.

The "two children in childcare" period is brutal, particularly in London as it does cost so much.

It is however temporary. We did it with ours, and like you - it was over £2k a month on childcare. But we did it and now I'm a lot further ahead in my career because I managed to keep it going while they were little.

Some advice: firstly, you say you're not handy. Have you tried? YouTube is an amazing resource and if you start each project assuming that you might have to pay for it, then you're not losing anything. We have a renovation project on the go at the moment (we're in z5) and we do give things a crack before calling in the professionals. Even something as simple as fixing a washing machine seal yourself, which I did with the help of YouTube, saved us £200 - which is definitely an evening in the pub plus babysitting!

Secondly, have you looked at childminders? If you find one who does wraparound for your school, it could end up cheaper and easier for you - only one pick up and drop off, your dc would be together and at between £5-6/hr they're often a lot cheaper than nurseries. Plus it's less disruption when your younger starts school. We found this suited us a lot better than driving all over south London to distribute children.

Finally, tax free childcare - you get 20% back on the money you spend, so it's definitely worth it. Not too much of a pain to set up and it will reduce your costs if you're not using it already 😁

You are in the worst stretch at the moment in terms of paying for childcare.

I would say most people I know in London manage by either having savings in advance that they run down for a few years, borrowing/going into overdrafts or for the very lucky, getting free child care from grandparents plus reining in spending on anything like leisure and holidays for a few years. Small kids won't notice if you don't go on holiday.

It will be easier soon when the youngest gets nursery funding and you will be glad they you both maintained your career momentum and have more disposable income.

I think this is not just a London thing- lots of families feel the squeeze with a second child in childcare

You mentioned spending money on clothes etc for the kids, so I just wanted to point out that if you join your local fb parents group you'll find that people are always giving stuff away. You can also buy huge bundles of baby/toddler clothes on fb marketplace for ~£10 and it's usually in excellent condition.

We had three children in a two-bed place. Having two children in a two-bed is completely normal in London where I am. However, I am worried about my DC. I can’t see how they will ever be able to buy anything, even the smallest of flats, in London themselves

@ThePlantsitter

I think most people in London are dishonest about where there money comes from and much of it is family wealth, especially those in arty/charity jobs that don't pay much. Otherwise I just don't see how it's possible.

Whilst I think this is true to an extent there is definitely a subculture of living in “underground not technically legal” places to get by. Not always suitable for families though, it depends where it is and how managed. I’ve got friends who have lived alternative lifestyles with young children and made it work. It can happen in London because the authorities pay less attention to planning permission, whereas a warehouse conversion in a small town with hippies living in it would get shut down sooner.

I left London for the pandemic and I’m not coming back. I do miss parts of my old life and friends though. There comes a time when it all gets a bit too much. Guiltily I was actually hoping the pandemic would be as catastrophic as it has been so I could work from home, I was wishing this back in Feb 2020 and it was. Now I don’t have to live the semi legal hippy alternative lifestyle - I’ve got other, more functional and comfortable options that include fresh running water and central heating.

@NightOwlMum oh yes I'm sure that's true too. I more meant people in giant (for London) family houses with children.

OP, another silly thing that turned out to be surprisingly helpful is growing your own, if you have a back garden and it is your forever home. London has its own microclimate, which is very beneficial for growing things.
I know it sounds a bit mother-earthy (I promise I am not one of these), but it really helps. Last year I tried to mark-to-market the harvest yield from my back garden, and it was in excess of £1500*. And it was managed alongside a full time job, as a hobby, for enjoyment.

*I mean, obviously there's an element of "opportunity cost" cheating involved here - I probably would not buy 20 kilos of plums or 10 kilos of cherries otherwise, or use a bunch of fresh dill or parsley for every salad. But it does improve the quality of life quite a bit, if you enjoy some dirt, of course.

I know quite a few who have bought relatively recently under key worker /shared ownership schemes. It depends what your picture of “family life” looks like. If you mean a house with garden with a bedroom for each child, no, I think that’s way out of reach for most. I also know some who live with their children in their parents’ home - an extended family life, if you like. Parents have a house bought ages ago, but with enough bedrooms to house their children and grandchildren.

You are just in that perfect storm of nursery fees, early years of mortgage, and house needing costly work. Those things can eat any salary, especially if you have (rightly) reached for the best house you can afford.

It will slowly get easier, especially if you get the 30 hours. In five years time you will feel the benefit of the current slog, and in ten years you will be in a pretty good position.

In terms of living in London obviously expectations come into it. Most of us could afford bigger homes and have more spare cash if we moved away - it just depends what is more important to each family.

When dc2 turns out to be twins (friend of mine) then you’re really screwed. 3 dc in childcare is so difficult, if not impossible, on even London average salaries.
Londoners are quite resourceful though and thankfully, we have lots that we can do for free.
With my friends and I, we manage fairly good social lives for ourselves and dcs by meeting outdoors a lot, taking advantage of free things, finding vouchers , using club card vouchers. We’re more likely to meet up for a walk than dinner and do more expensive things a couple of times a year.
I love it here and wouldn’t swap my lifestyle for a bigger house that’s not in London.

Thanks all for comments - do think is largely a case of we are in the trenches for a bit but love the local area and above all else being close to my mum as we can support each other. We are on the old childcare vouchers and was advised that was a better deal but going to check that again in case the newer scheme is better after all.

I do feel very lucky - my partner is fab, the local schools and resources like parks and community groups are also great and provide great free or cheap activities. I think it just is a case of hunkering down like pp said and accepting I’m not missing some kind of life hack :)

I totally get it OP - our childcare costs for the two years both of our kids were in nursery completely wiped out my salary and working expenses (traveling, lunch etc) as a full time band 7 (senior) NHS scientist so we were only living on DHs salary.

I only clung on to hold on to my career. It does get better though! We couldn't afford to buy a property then, we just couldn't get the deposit together, so at least you've managed to do that. We've done it since, once the kids were in secondary school, so there's hope.

I think it's just London life and the road you happen to find yourselves living on. I've lived everywhere in London... everywhere, before kids, with kids, and I've seen it all. DH and I rented for years before we bought. We live in West London and honestly, our house is a lovely and very loved dump. The kitchen hasn't been renovated since the 90s. It's a charming house that's falling apart before our eyes. How our neighbours afford basement conversions/lofts/extensions is the mystery I will never solve... all this while having two German whips parked out front. Some people are just incredibly well off, others rob Peter to pay Paul for their nice house, others come into family money. Our house really is a bit of a tip. But in order to make it into the home I'd love to live in would mean accruing a lot of debt. I'd rather have the out of date, battle weary house. It functions! It does what it needs to do. The bones of the house are excellent. And it means we have money for the shit that hits the fan like boiler repairs, roof leaks, collapsed fences, etc. And it's really important to be able to have the cash for that stuff because that stuff comes up more frequently than we think.
I think it's London living. If you want a small mortgage and a really nice house, you just won't get that in any London zone.

I always thought that fixer-uppers were for handy people - we've never bought one bc we are not handy and can barely assemble a flat pack stool. I think it's not really affordable to get tradespeople in to do all the work? Maybe you could put both kids in one room for a while and get a female lodger in to bring in a few hundred a month? I used to live in London and I knew lots of people who did that to help pay the bills. Sometimes it would be a lodger who only wanted mon-fri, because they lived far away from their jobs and went home for the weekend.

Sounds like your doing fine. Childcare costs will decrease. Sounds like you got a good deal buying when prices were lower (just think how mUch more the younger generations are going to pay in housing costs). If it is not the life you want moving is an option. You have choices. How often do you see your family?