AIBU- Can't afford to work

[MissRja]

Just trying to work out a return to work after having a baby In December ( also have a 4 year old in full time school ) unfortunately, my original plans for childcare have fell through, which now means we are looking at paid childcare. My current job have declined My flexible working request , which means I am looking for another job. Due to school pick up/ drops offs I am looking returning on reduced hours over 5 days or term time only. Have worked our I will be bringing home roughly £1200 after tax per month. Nursery fees will be £1100 for a four week month, or £1375 for a 5 week month. This does not include before / after school club fees. If I was to use my wages alone to pay childcare fees I would actually be losing money to work , especially when factoring in petrol , work clothes etc. Surely this can't be right. How in this day and age can I not afford to go to work !! Its ridiculous. The whole reason I am going back is because we can't afford to live off DP wages alone , but it doesn't seem like it will make a difference if i do go back to work. Am i missing something here ? What does everyone else do to work around this ? Would love to hear your experiences / advice !!

If you are looking to change careers because there is little career progression in your current role, it's probably
not worth going back.

Take a break from working outside the home or see if you can work opposite schedule to partner in a different job. That's what we did and it worked ok.

Looking back, it was tough financially and physically getting through until school age but we did it and are now in a much better position.

We were in same position OP so we had to work different hours than each other so we could cover the childcare between us. It was a crazy few years of that and to be honest looking back I think if I had to do it again I'd just not work

@Dixiechickonhols

Onlyfools I’m sure you’ve checked but you’ve reminded me of a recent post where someone (nurse) was contemplating opting out of pension due to childcare costs and it transpired she lost all her death in service benefits if she did this which she hadn’t realised. Obviously all schemes are different.

Oh thanks for that-I’ll check. I do have critical illness and life insurance separate to work, but will check.

Just to reiterate again, my DP is not a high earner. Someone asked if he earns 100k. Neither of us earn anywhere near that much. I wouldn't be posting or worrying so much if we did tbh!
I've never actually considered the implications of not being married - will definitely be looking into this so thanks everyone. I've honestly never thought about it.
I will also consider shift work etc, it's just hard to find much when I'm looking.
Also to clarify DH does contribute to the household... it just makes sense for me to reduce hours etc as he is the higher earner and to be honest we need the income!
I do want to work , I have always worked. It's just shocking that it seems that when working it out I would lose money.
I wil speak again to my employer but they are being quite difficult, for example , reducing my daily shift from 8/9 hours to 6 hours (9-3). However this means I will be paying full days childcare for 6 hours
I will definitely look into tax free childcare as well so thanks all

If you are nit married, then please DO NOT STOP WORKING.

In that case, yes, HE will have to pay half of the nursery costs (or maybe a proportion of his income like for any other expenses?)
But you cannot make yourself dependent in someone Wo being married.

I've never actually considered the implications of not being married - will definitely be looking into this so thanks everyone. I've honestly never thought about it.

For a wedding you want a registrars office with 2 adult witnesses in attendance asap.

You can get a church blessing, similar to a church wedding ,OR have a reception - so an excuse for a party - years later. It's best to do it when your children are all school age so they can be part of the wedding party. The ones I've attended have been really cute because the children are so excited their parents are getting "married".

Also to clarify DH does contribute to the household... it just makes sense for me to reduce hours etc as he is the higher earner and to be honest we need the income!

As your DP is self employed it makes absolutely no sense for you to do that. You need to protect your family's income.

The pandemic has shown that people who are self-employed incomes can just disappear overnight with absolutely no help from the government. (There was a group of people who couldn't get furlough or any of the self-employed grants.)

You need to find out the cost of alternative childcare e.g. a childminder for both your children.

Then sit down with your partner and have a serious talk.

He now has 2 children and he cannot just leave all drop offs and pick ups to you. I have used various trades as well as working and knowing men doing various work, who have worked out with their wives/partners how do deal with drop offs and pick ups.

I don't know what your DP does but if he comes home every night then he can sort out either starting early or finishing late, so he sorts out the children part of the day. After all he's their father!

So depressing how it’s always the man who is the higher earner with travel etc so couldn’t POSSIBLY commit to school runs etc. Strange how women manage not to be in those completely inflexible positions when they decide to have children, yet men apparently can’t. Why don’t men think about this before they have kids and why don’t women make them? Where would we be if all these jobs actually were as inflexible as we’re told they are? Because neither men nor women would be able to properly parent their children so most adults couldn’t work.

Something just doesn’t add up.

Not trying to have a go at you OP - it’s a society thing - but it’s just so depressing to read the same scenario over and over again.

Women taking the hit, over and over again.

@Labelmaker just because you stop working when your children are young doesn't mean you instantly become incapable of getting a job/lose any qualifications or skills you have if your husband runs off. As a single parent you can claim child maintenance from the child's father and there are benefits that help those who are struggling. I'd hate to live life thinking, oh must live like this and make it harder on us just in case my husband bails. I'd just deal with that at the time.

The sweet spot on a low income can be to try to find part time work (preferably evening and weekend, or otherwise around the higher earners hours) and earn an amount around the 12k mark annually so that you continue in work, but aren't losing masses in tax/NI, and ideally keep costs of paid childcare to a minimum.

Most people do simply take a hit for 2 or 3 years when they have a second child, it is 100% worth it longer term for the family finances. You see it around year 2/3 at school, when the families who continued with 2 parents in work start to be massively better off than those with a SAHP.

@TiddleyWink

So depressing how it’s always the man who is the higher earner with travel etc so couldn’t POSSIBLY commit to school runs etc. Strange how women manage not to be in those completely inflexible positions when they decide to have children, yet men apparently can’t. Why don’t men think about this before they have kids and why don’t women make them? Where would we be if all these jobs actually were as inflexible as we’re told they are? Because neither men nor women would be able to properly parent their children so most adults couldn’t work.

Something just doesn’t add up.

Not trying to have a go at you OP - it’s a society thing - but it’s just so depressing to read the same scenario over and over again.

Women taking the hit, over and over again.

My DIL is the higher earner, my son works funny hours so he is there for all pick ups and some drops offs so it isn't always the man who is the higher earner.

@TiddleyWink I don't think it's necessarily the man not being arsed, employers seem to be a lot less flexible with men and don't expect them to need to change hours or take any kind of leave. We need a massive societal shift!

[quote HappyMeal564]@Labelmaker just because you stop working when your children are young doesn't mean you instantly become incapable of getting a job/lose any qualifications or skills you have if your husband runs off. As a single parent you can claim child maintenance from the child's father and there are benefits that help those who are struggling. I'd hate to live life thinking, oh must live like this and make it harder on us just in case my husband bails. I'd just deal with that at the time.[/quote]
The husband running off or not running off isn’t relevant. What makes the difference to a woman’s career prospects and future wealth is the years out of the workplace.

You don’t ‘instantly become incapable of getting a job’ or lose your qualifications when you become a SAHM but you impair your desirability as an employee. You’re on the B list behind people with no gaps in their CV.

Several posters have acknowledged this on the thread: one said that she effectively went back to entry level after having been a SAHM. You try getting a decent finance job if you’ve been out of the workplace for even one year: everyone wants very recent experience.

The OP may not care about that, though.

@TiddleyWink I agree. I work in a department that’s primarily women and they all say that their husbands jobs are soooo inflexible so they just have to do both school runs themselves, so if any meetings get scheduled then oh dear no can do, Mabel will have to step in. Some of them have husbands working for the same organisation! IME a lot of men just aren’t bothered and are happy to not rock the boat with their employer. It’s really annoying though and makes me want to work in a department full of men instead!

@getyourarseoffthequattro No. Men say their employers are less flexible.

[quote RetireReady]@getyourarseoffthequattro No. Men say their employers are less flexible.[/quote]
Maybe the men you know! When dp put in a flexible working request it was declined and his line manager asked why he would possibly need to do the school runs when I was there. Wanker.

It's the gap in employment that makes it harder. Any gap.

[quote Getyourarseofffthequattro]@TiddleyWink I don't think it's necessarily the man not being arsed, employers seem to be a lot less flexible with men and don't expect them to need to change hours or take any kind of leave. We need a massive societal shift![/quote]
On the other side, the reason why women got more flexibility etc.. is because they carry on asking instead if throwing the towel and say ‘they don’t want to’.

So yes we need some societal shift but it’s not going to happen if men don’t start asking for it. As in loudly asking and demanding as men can be when they want to.

Not everyone gets tax free childcare though, so they? I think it depends on DH salary? I understand should consider childcare as a 50/50 cost but as a basic calculation, the cost of childcare can easily exceed a wage. Which is insanity, I think.

@OnlyFoolsanMothers are you not UK based? Since 2019 all companies have to contribute minimum 3% unless you earn a vv low wage. If you earn more than UC level then even more reason for you to keep paying in an cut back other areas

@TiddleyWink

So depressing how it’s always the man who is the higher earner with travel etc so couldn’t POSSIBLY commit to school runs etc. Strange how women manage not to be in those completely inflexible positions when they decide to have children, yet men apparently can’t. Why don’t men think about this before they have kids and why don’t women make them? Where would we be if all these jobs actually were as inflexible as we’re told they are? Because neither men nor women would be able to properly parent their children so most adults couldn’t work.

Something just doesn’t add up.

Not trying to have a go at you OP - it’s a society thing - but it’s just so depressing to read the same scenario over and over again.

Women taking the hit, over and over again.

Not always the case at all. I earn 5x what my DH earns and he has all of the flexibility. My job is flexible too, but he is self employed and completely manages his own time.

Everyone needs to shout about it @TheNameOfTheRoses

Although a lot of women want to be the main carer / leave work / go part time.

It probably won't ever happen but I personally believe things would be better if it did.

Mine are laser now but I definitely worked for negative money for 15 months until eldest was in school. It was the only way I could stay on track with my career (plus the kids enjoyed it and thrived there socially). I only worked three days a week and they were in nursery for two full days and it still took more than every penny. They’re secondary age now and those days are thankfully far behind us. It’s shocking how much it costs and risks losing so many women from the workplace

Laser? Older!

It’s shit, we have a childcare crisis and yet again it was ignored in the spring budget. How many times did Sunak say he wanted to support hard working families? Families can’t work without childcare, so who exactly is our government supporting? They want to look at how Canada, Sweden and Germany are running things!