To think we should be able to afford 2 kids?

[bookofthewitch]

H and I both work as teachers. Me currently part time after DD born 18mo ago.

We have always done everything 'sensibly', have reasonably cheap for the area mortgage and various other unavoidable payments for bills etc. Old phones on cheap contracts.

No childminder option near us and I would have chosen nursery anyway, however this is very expensive so me working only leaves us 200 a month better off. It is what it is.

How the hell are we struggling so much each month to stay out of overdrafts when we've both always done everything ' right'?

AIBU to think that as professionals who have both always worked since teens, never even had credit cards or extravagant purchases, we should be able to afford one more child instead of panicking that it'll tip us into debt or just mean we have to worry about money and bills forever? We haven't had a holiday since 2017, have one cheap car that we own outright, I never buy new clothes and wear cheap make up, we are vegetarian so try to shop as cheaply as poss... it's infuriating!

I feel like my mother's and even my late 40s sister's generations never had to worry about this and could happily have as many kids as they want. Both were SAHM for a few years too! I could never as even that 200 a month makes a difference to us.

Any advice also welcome!

Childminders are half the cost of nursery in my area - we couldn't afford our twins otherwise. The twins and an older child in before/after school the cost is around £2k a month on a "bad" month

Use term time only contracts with childcare (but if you are teachers maybe you already are)

Work full time

When we knew we were having twins we took out a £25k 10 year loan - this will be used to pay for childcare until 30 hours kicked in and the repayments are only £300 per month

1 car

No holidays

It’s difficult when you’re paying childcare costs but it’s not forever. Mine are 13 & 17 now so childcare is all but a distant memory. We spent a fortune on it though. Best thing to do is write down all income & outgoings and sort out how much you should have spare, then stick to your budget. I move £450 a month into Tesco bank which I use for my shopping, and move the money for any later DD’s / bills to another account and move across as bills come out. I save £250 a month for Christmas, birthday and car tax / MOT / tyres etc. if I didn’t do all above I’d just fritter it away. Also forgot to say I move x amount into savings on payday, not just what’s left or as above be very little going into that

Timing is every thing here. Our second arrived the year before our eldest started school. So whilst I was on Maternity, we just used the free hours and then he went to school and we just had to pay the fees for our youngest. I was part time until she started school.

I could have written your post when DC1 was the same age as your DC.
In the end, I adopted the "investment mindset" and surrendered to the fact that we would need to take on some debt for a few years in order to afford nursery fees for a second child, as well as a year of maternity leave. It felt counterintuitive as we had never owed a penny between us apart from a sensibly modest mortgage.

We arranged a 6 month mortgage holiday while I was still working and pregnant, and saved this money to cover costs while I was on maternity leave. We had been making overpayments on our mortgage, and our lender allowed us to use our pot of overpayments to pay the monthly mortgage payments while I was on maternity leave.
DC1 stayed at nursery for the bare minimum hours while I was on maternity leave in order to stay with their friendship group for a year before starting Reception and participate in the transition to school process. This was supposed to be the "free hours for 3 year olds" but our nursery's charging structure meant there was still a fee paying element, so we had to take this on as debt; we were a few hundred short each month. We gritted our teeth and put it on a low interest card for a year. It wasn't ideal and once I went back to work we were in a pickle as we were not quite breaking even when DC1 started Reception and DC2 started nursery and had to attend for enough hours to enable us to go to work. It took us until DC2 started Reception to clear the "nursery card", and it had been such a pain to keep switching deals (3 times in all). Possibly not the best way to do it, but it got the job done.
Both DP and I worked extra periodically in fields unrelated to our professional roles throughout this time in order to top up funds for things like Christmas (without being outing, think skills aquired prior to current careers such as book keeping or hair dressing etc which could be done "out of hours", although as a teacher, you'll appreciate how mad that is as we're always working!). A bit irritating sorting out tax and insurance for small additional income streams, but a necessary temporary solution for us.
Good luck, OP. Work out a 5 year plan, borrow if necessary, and all being well, and with no unforeseen expenses or adverse life events, you should be out of the woods soon after DC2 starts school.

I think your definition of "giving my children a decent life" is probably different to previous generations ' definition!

I hear you. I think costs are going up too, petrol, gas, electricity and food. It's really expensive to live and then childcare has always been expensive. I think now my dcs are older I spend a lot on activities .

@bookofthewitch could one of you work in a boarding school that has staff housing? They are not as easy to come by as they used to be, but they are still around.

DH and I are both teachers (maybe 15 years older than you by the sounds of it). We are both senior now so on reasonable salaries. However, DH has almost always worked in boarding schools and that is what has made the biggest difference to our financial position. We do have our own house too which we rent out.

I know you say you have a cheap mortgage "for the area" but is that £500 or £1,300? It makes a big difference.

Our mortgage is about £750 a month and we'd struggle to afford number 2 even if we wanted one.

DH and I are also both teachers. We moved abroad. So much easier. Childcare is much, much cheaper, child benefit is higher, we have more paid child sick days we can take and we earn more in general.
So, going through IVF at the moment. If we had twins, it wouldn't be a problem in terms of finances. We'd even be able to put all three through private school without having too much of an issue.
It was much more of a struggle with one in the UK. What helped was that DS's nursery was run by teachers. We had good term-time only contracts and were both able to go part time (0.8) to have him in nursery 3 days a week.

I would try and draw up a battle plan, to maximise what you can both earn with as little childcare as possible
For instance, teachers I know do things like

• tutoring (evenings/holidays /weekends)
• exam marking.
• working at holiday camps in the holidays

Most people I know (whatever their profession) find ways to work around each other while children are young so that they can keep nursery costs down and salaries up.

The stark reality for the vast majority is that it is just not feasible to have more than one child (or, in some cases, any children at all). The fertilty rate is too low, and this is putting pressure on the pension system. Childcare costs are the 3rd most exoensive in the world, and culturally we refuse to live in multigenerational households to share caring commitments (both up and down the generations). The whole thing will no doubt collapse like a debt of cards in a couple of decades.

You probably have to stick with one. Multiple children has become the preserve of the rich.

Mortgage costs a huge factor and commuting costs. We were fortunate that DH walked or cycled to work and didn't have to wear smart clothing.

Also the op hasn't mentioned whether they regularly saved up prior to have their first to know that they could live off their income post DC and to afford the initial costs of having a baby - equipment, furniture, clothing.

We bought pretty much everything 2nd hand. I find it how staggering how much people spend on a very expensive pushchair, cot etc.

Yanbu, it's ludicrous. I think a large part of the rise in anxiety is this financial kneecapping where you limp from student loan to just about managing to buy a house in your 30s then having a window of about 4 years to sprog before the fertility window closes, during which time you're supposed to somehow make progress at work in order for any of it to be affordable.

We should be demanding free/cheap childcare provided by the state imho.

However, I do think you have rose tinted specs about the realities of life in former generations, plenty of families lived in two rooms with no heating, kids slept tip to toe in a shared bed, struggled to buy shoes etc. As a schoolteacher you would have been sacked on marriage and expected to spend the rest of your life peeling potatoes and doing laundry without a washing machine.

I think part of the problem is the mass of boomers, funding and policies are skewed to them and politicians are not doing much to woo younger voters who want family friendly policies.

Someone has to buy the very expensive pushchair from new in the first place for it to then be available secondhand.

I’m still not totally seeing that things are so bleak on an income of between 2 and 3 and a half thousand minus childcare that the OP and husband would have to work in holiday clubs.

@ToykotoLosAngeles

Someone has to buy the very expensive pushchair from new in the first place for it to then be available secondhand.

@ToykotoLosAngeles I agree with what you're saying but a lot of people I know splashed out on an expensive pram, cot etc and then claimed they had no money. When in reality, they'd have had money if they bought second hand.

The reality is that since the Tories- teachers are no longer professionals. Professionals used to mean a job that requires qualifications and renumbered accordingly. The reality is that yes nurses and teachers do need qualifications but are essentially now lower working class workers. So no it is not expected that you should be able to afford a decent life. That was a political decision. Professionals today work in finance, law, IT and those who are successful entrepreneurs. I am not defending this but thats the reality. Public sector workers have been massive emproverished over the last decade or so

Excuse the typos

It's always expensive when they are young. Mine are at university now and we lived very frugally when they were small so i could stay home - rented small house, 1 old car no used much, no contract mobiles (one payg) no pay tv or streaming. It gets easier once they are in school, I went back to work and exh had promotions (public sector so takes a while). He now earns good money and is generous in supporting the dc at university but that costs a fortune!!!

@278466fgh3

The reality is that since the Tories- teachers are no longer professionals. Professionals used to mean a job that requires qualifications and renumbered accordingly. The reality is that yes nurses and teachers do need qualifications but are essentially now lower working class workers. So no it is not expected that you should be able to afford a decent life. That was a political decision. Professionals today work in finance, law, IT and those who are successful entrepreneurs. I am not defending this but thats the reality. Public sector workers have been massive emproverished over the last decade or so

I am no lover of the Tories like many of my profession, but this is not accurate or true at all.

Teaching was traditionally not very well paid - not necessarily badly paid, but certainly not hitting the dizzy heights of the private sector. However, this was compensated for by stability and a good pension.

What really impacted on the ability of a moderately paid professional to live well was rising house prices and I’m afraid it’s Labour and Blair we have to thank for that!

Besides, I do think the OP either has hidden debt she hasn’t admitted to here or she’s hugely exaggerating. Unless her mortgage is over £2000 a month they can afford a second child.

LastDays, I think you have to take OP's word for it. School budgets work differently; my school, for instance, has chronically low numbers on account of its location, so progression up the pay scale has not been guaranteed as it is at the discretion of the governors; we haven't been able to afford to progress teachers as a matter of course. It is a gorgeous school, and staff only ever leave in order to move up the scale elsewhere. I've stayed for a number of reasons knowing that UPS3 is unlikely to ever be possible.
My friend is employed elsewhere to cover PPA on the understanding that she will stay on MPS2 indefinitely. It suits her as the workload is significantly lighter so she is happy with the arrangement.
Another colleague works in a MAT where progression is conditional on meeting a ridiculous set of performance related targets, so is as rare as hens' teeth.
Pay progression definitely isn't a certainty anymore.

@Lastdaysofdecember

The root of high housing costs is Thatcher's premiership, when two things changed - dsale of social housing without replacement and mortgage loosening.

Childcare was absolutely an issue for my mum's generation, I remember being left alone a lot in the holidays and on Saturdays as childcare wasn't readily available or affordable. Think you've got some rose tinted specs on there!

Nursery has got more expensive round here since mine were little, but the "investment mindset" upthread is right. Before funded hours nursery is very expensive, but you just have to survive it. In the grand scheme of things it passes quite quickly. It's not indicative of what your standard of living will be when your children are of school age.

I don't think we could have afforded 3 childcare-wise though. 3 lots of nursery then 3x holiday childcare every day we work in the hols would not stack up for us.

Yes, but even on M1 - and as I’ve said I don’t know exactly what that translates to in terms of take home pay - Google says £1772 but it’s always lower for teachers.

However I’ve worked on the assumption that the OP is on 0.5 part time but the DC is in nursery for three days so if we say £1500 as take home pay for the DH and £750 for the OP. So £2250 combined pay, minus £650 nursery. That leaves £1600 for mortgage and all other bills. If they have a massive mortgage it’s definitely tight but that doesn’t quite fit with the living in the cheap area that OP claims they do.

And that’s assuming that they are both on M1 and I really think that’s unlikely given that OP presumably was entitled to enhanced maternity pay, so she’d have to be on at least M3 which is nearly £30,000 (obviously that’s probably rata.)

I’m a teacher myself and I know it isn’t hugely lucrative but nor is it breadline Britain.