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!

Term time deals leave you no time to work though - marking hundreds of pieces of coursework in the evening if your DC gets up at dawn is no picnic! Ask me how I know

We're both teachers & DH had retrained and was NQT when DD was born & it was extremely tight for the first 5 or so years (the free funding wasn't really there for childcare). I was PT but my school used to get me in for say 4 days for 0.5 so that meant childcare spread over the week.

We ended up with small gap of 18 months too - I only had 4 months off with DD then 6 months off with DS.

So what we did to manage was

• short maternity leaves
• childminder instead of nursery
• camping holidays/YHA
• never going out for food/drink & take picnics on days out
• old cars
• small budget for birthday & Christmas
• ask for useful things as gifts like PJs (they now like this sort of thing)
• have passes to things so you can have free days out once you have the pass

We have survived and things are better now they're older. Ours never ask for much. We're not poor compared to many & they know this. We just can't afford holidays abroad or meals out.

Yanbu OP. This is exactly what had swayed the decision that we won't have any more children. We have DS who is 4 and up until he finished nursery, we really struggled financially. I just can't face going through the nursery fees again.

As things stand now, we can afford to take DS on holidays and make sure we can afford to run a home comfortably. Another child would definitely be unaffordable for us, as much as I really want one.

@GrendelsGrandma

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.

Lumping everyone together born between 1946 and 1964 and calling them "boomers" is absolutely stupid.

Well what happened in my mum's generation was typically that the woman didnt work until the kids were all at school, kids walking themselves to school at 5 (so no prob with mum getting to work on time), and latch key kids to save on childcare costs. You could try that I guess.

Or wait til your eldest is 3 or 4 and more free childcare starts kicking in.

@2reefsin30knots

I agree with *@Phineyj* that at least one of you needs to be career orientated if you want to make a decent living as teachers. My DH has stopped at Deputy (for now) as being a Head would be too detrimental to family life. However, up until this job we have moved every 3-4 years or so for him to take good promotions. For this job, we looked for the best possible lifestyle package (good family house without rent, hefty discount on school fees 3-18).

That said, we only have one DC through choice. We could manage two, but we wouldn’t be able to give them as many opportunities or as much support with things like university later on.

I imagine it's different for primary but DH and I have found that he has never had so much flexibility in his schedule since he became a headteacher a few years ago. HTs rarely teach, or at least very little, and he has control of his schedule in a way that I never have up to the level of AHT.

I do agree with the teacher pp who say that you need to start thinking a bit more strategically. Are you both on UPS? If not and if you are eligible you need to start preparing an application for next year. One of you needs to get yourself on a promotion track. You need to consider increasing your hours to full-time in advance of your next maternity leave to ensure that you maximise your maternity pay. Or, of course, you can begin to consider your family complete with one child. Many people make this very valid choice.

I agree with you OP- it shouldn’t be this hard. A professional couple like yourselves a generation or two ago would be living an easier life than you describe.

bookofthewitch As a parent of the 80s i could afford to have as many children as i liked because i stayed at home, so no childcare costs. Life was very different back then, i could go a week without opening my purse now people constantly spend. We paid our t.v licence annually and our phone bill came in every quarter. Now it we have many more bills,take my DSD she and her husband have contract phones that cost £40 a month each, Sky, Netflix, Disneyplus , Amazon prime and Boadband , they spend more on communication and viewing a month than i do on food in a quarter. DSD is not unusual many household spend such amounts every month on the samething. So many families can't seem to go a day without nipping into a shop for a "top up shop" . Lunch or a coffee on the way to work and takeaways all add up, these are things we rarely did, now it is the norm. Back then we '"treated" ourselves once in a blue moon now treats are an everyday occurrence.
Back then the world demanded equality for women and the right for them to work because seemingly being at home with your children was the worst thing in the world, well women went to work children went into daycare and these new problems began. Once a couple were both working they could bid a bit more on a house they wanted, those that were selling houses thought this was a great idea and asked a higher price and the problem just got bigger and bigger until we got to this. Today most couples are struggling to pay rent/mortgage and childcare and most Mum's are doing 2 jobs, one outside the home and the majority of household tasks. Progress is not always wonderful.

@ThanksItHasPockets I agree for primary and I certainly found that already being SLT and very experienced in a difficult-to-recruit niche made it much easier for me when DS came along. When he was ks1 age I worked 0.9 and finished at 2.30pm each day so I could do pick up. I couldn’t have done that as a CT.

However, in 13-18 our observation is that the Head just doesn’t get school holidays anymore. It’s bad enough at DH level, but at least there is the expectation that you will be out of contact some of the time. Not so for the Head. My DH may look at that again once DS has left home.

Part of the reason we have a 3 year age gap

[quote 2reefsin30knots]@ThanksItHasPockets I agree for primary and I certainly found that already being SLT and very experienced in a difficult-to-recruit niche made it much easier for me when DS came along. When he was ks1 age I worked 0.9 and finished at 2.30pm each day so I could do pick up. I couldn’t have done that as a CT.

However, in 13-18 our observation is that the Head just doesn’t get school holidays anymore. It’s bad enough at DH level, but at least there is the expectation that you will be out of contact some of the time. Not so for the Head. My DH may look at that again once DS has left home.[/quote]
I wasn't clear - DH and I are both secondary. Interesting that this is your experience as it hasn't been ours. We have always regarded the days around exam results as working days and the governments' lastminute.com approach to schools announcements last year did not help but on the whole we are able to protect a decent proportion of the holiday, certainly greater than the 5-6 weeks' annual leave of someone in a comparable leadership role in another sector.

In our situation with 3 DCs we prioritised 1 career (mine) and DH became SAHP. This did mean things were very tight for quite a long time but DCs benefited from always having a parent present. This was in the faraway time before any sort of childcare support was available.

My career hasnt been stellar but has fed, clothed and housed 5 people. Being free of childcare worries I was able to make some career progression which wouldnt have been possible otherwise.

Once DC started in secondary school DH started to return to work. This bit hasnt been easy. The work he did pre DCs no longer exists. He went into a trade which struggled during an economic slump. He is now in a NMW job working 24h pw. The main thing for us is that he is getting his NI credits to get as near full state pension as possible.

Been there. It was shit. And web had parental help one day a week. Took until both were in school to see some payback. That, and being established in a work place was really useful.

Thought we were about to hit the golden years,as one has now left childcare. But the billseverywhere else went up instead.

Childcare is expensive, of course it is.

But too many people seem to want to be able to pay for it from their current month’s salary. And on top of that, they want to pay from current salary with one of them working part time.

I do not believe that two teachers prepared to live frugally as you say you do, could not have a saved a decent amount in advance of having children.

And yes, rent / mortgage can be extortionate but you have portable professions.

There are plenty of people who can’t afford a second child, but I’d say your issues are not saving enough first and then choosing to work part time.

It would certainly help school SLT if the govt would stop treating then as an unpaid part of the public health and examination infrastructure .

I am not SLT but I must have done, what, the equivalent of a whole extra week unpaid last April and May essentially running in-house A levels.

We have a 4 year ago - partially for these reasons. Also by the time they get to university/college age hopefully we don't have to support both of them at the same time...

Thinking back to my parents in the 70s they didn't even try for DC until my Mum could afford to give up work, no local family to help with childcare. Dad had a second job (coaching his hobby) and Mum didn't start working until the youngest was 7 and it was only part time.

I'm not so sure that times have changed that much beyond the horrible truth that housing is more expensive to earnings. I also think social media doesn't help - it appears everyone owns their home, has a car each, holidays etc. certainly I think it was far more normal to go without.

I remember my aunt said they only I had a bed and a sofa for the first year they were married as couldn't afford anything else!

I am a teacher. Came out of teaching until youngest started Primary so never had childcare costs. No free hours at that stage. Dh worked 9 to 6 in a very busy demanding environment. It was easy to budget food wise etc when l was at home so kept bills down. Cheaper holidays in off peak time. No extra bills around Netflix etc as not a thing then.
I slotted right back into teaching , no problem and bought back my years of pension while working spread over years so not too painful.
It was brilliant to be off each holiday as dc made their way through school as l see with my friends that is a huge headache.
By the time dc were college age our mortgage was paid and l was at top of salary. Not huge but helpful.
Don't panic. These things are doable. I would try if possible to time next baby to oldest startest free hours then school. Could your dh and you stagger coming home times each week to reduce childcare so he do long Monday/ Tuesday till late to do all prep and you do Wednesday/ Thursday.

I have to admit l did not have the horrible long prep hours UK teachers seem to do and my holidays were clear but it will work out.

@Phineyj

It would certainly help school SLT if the govt would stop treating then as an unpaid part of the public health and examination infrastructure .

I am not SLT but I must have done, what, the equivalent of a whole extra week unpaid last April and May essentially running in-house A levels.

Indeed - we were unpaid examiners last year despite still handing over fees to the exam boards.

I'm going back to work next week after a year of maternity leave with my first. I had originally wanted a second baby very close in age but cost of living is just so expensive. We are paying almost £1000 a month for three days of nursery. A second baby in the next year would just be too expensive.

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!

You're wrong to think that earlier generations had it easier. Your own mother may have had it easier but to lump a whole generation in that bracket is wrong.

In my own experience we had mortgage interest rates going up every month to around 15-17% to contend with. So even budgeting was ineffective as it was out of our control.

We didn't have the childcare that's on offer today which made working very difficult even when both our children were of school age. There were no after-school clubs, etc.

We struggled financially in order to have two children.

Some great advice here!
I do so wish we could get term time only nursery, would save loads. Our hours are so long that nothing in our area would work other than her current nursery or its peers.

I am M3 so not doing too badly in terms of actual salary compared to many but I probably wasn't clear enough in the OP that our mortgage is cheap for our area... the area is a very naice one and we only managed to get in by buying a run down house. I am aware this was a choice we made and it's probably a big factor but being teachers we really wanted the brilliant catchment area. We have had to spend money on things like a new boiler this year which has decimated our previously good savings and left us on a more month to month existence.

I think a lot of it is seeing friends having second, third, fourth kids and still living the life of Riley with holidays and cars and wondering why it isn't like that for us, but a lot of posts on this thread have given me pause for thought there that they will be either secretly better off than us, using loans etc, or discreetly saving money in suggested ways.

I'm finding this all very helpful, thank you

It will get easier nursery is a huge chunk. If others have family childcare it makes a huge difference. Not sure what you teach but tutoring can pay very well and would mean evening and weekend work no childcare costs.

Your friends will have a shit load of debt. I have friends like this, but the thought of living in constant debt makes me v panicky. I grew up with the constant threat of my dad losing his already low paid job. That's always at the back of my mind and makes me v cautious.

I am M3

How long have you been teaching, @bookofthewitch?