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 !!

@MissRja

Also to add my DP is not a particularly high earner. But we are just over the threshold to have any help from UC if I don't return to work. However, as we all know bills are going up ,so what spare cash we may previously have had is now being eaten up by cost of living increases. We have made cut backs with me being on smp and even with that things are very tight. Our maternity leave savings won't last forever Hence why I want to return to work , so we can have a bit of extra Income. However its not looking to work out that way unfortunately

You won’t get any tax free childcare contribution ONLY if ONE of you earns more than £100k

So does he?

Otherwise you’re being stubborn about fact you’re not entitled to anything at all
When you are

Sorry to be dense but what's this £100k childcare thing you're all on about? We save into childcare vouchers? Is there something I'm missing out on? Thanks

You should be entitled to tax free childcare. Have you looked into this? Do your calculations again once you have.

When I returned to work after having my eldest I worked evenings and weekends so that my partner and I worked around each other, so we didn't have childcare costs. As soon as he was in, I was out. Then I went to Uni and my childcare grant covered the nursery fees. Another 2 kids later we've done the same again with working opposite hours, until now, because having stayed in work i finally earn enough to be able to pay full time nursery and childminder, plus school club fees. We don't get any unpaid help and family life is great.

If you want it to work, you'll find a way. If you don't want to, then you won't.

YANBU. But don't give up work. I did and a few years later heavily regretted it when I essentially had to start my career again wage wise. Earning the same as I did when I was 20.

Keep your foot in the door, then, when your child gets funded hours at 3, you may find you get a promotion and are MUCH better off. Short term pain, long term gain

@YoYoYoYoSup

Sorry to be dense but what's this £100k childcare thing you're all on about? We save into childcare vouchers? Is there something I'm missing out on? Thanks

If you don’t have childcare vouchers provided by your employer You don’t claim UC or any other benefit And neither of you earn over £100000 You are STILL entitled to a tax free childcare contribution from the government

Around £3,250 annually
This would b based on 2 children and annual bill of £15k as per the OP

If you are looking to retrain and go to Uni is it worth doing it now instead of sahm. Run the calculator for that - you’d get student loan and might be entitled to help with childcare etc.

If you are unmarried you would be unwise to give up your job.

THIS in flashing neon lights. You would be barking to give up work if you don’t have the protection of marriage for you and your children. Find a compromise but keep working.

And yes, of course childcarers needs to earn their own living wages. The irony is that whilst childcare feels extortionately expensive, often those doing the job get very little themselves and probably can barely afford their own childcare.

And this. I don’t understand why people are shocked that childcare is expensive. Of course it is. The nursery workers are qualified professionals who need to be paid a living wage. Salaries are the biggest single cost for a nursery, and it’s a tough business to make money at. Nurseries have to be heated, cleaned, furnished and maintained.

It’s a shame that your childcare plans (I assume they involved a family member doing it for free) fell through, OP. It is hard to plan for that.

.

I would suggest going to uni now, many of them have an attached creche/nursery with reduced fees for students and you would also get a student loan.

All those that keep saying childcare costs should be split 50/50, surely then the OP has to contribute to the mortgage, council tax, food bill, utility bills, phone bills and so on. So not going to be any better off.

It depends if you're putting your trust in your current set up continuing for a long time or not ie. Dh not dying for a while, not leaving, not being made redundant. If you're happy to put your trust in this, give up your job. If you're a little more pragmatic, I would recommend staying in work, whether it's a 'career' or not. And if you're not married, then you would need your head read to give up work.

Have you considered domcillary care? They are crying out for staff, and it is easy to fit around commitments. If you get a good agency you can really make your hours to suit.

The problem of looking it as a whether better off overall as a unit when you aren’t married is you aren’t legally a unit.
In op’s scenario she gives up work or works very pt around kids. He carries on working unhindered by childcare responsibilities.
In 15 years time they split.
He’s on £60,000 a year she’s on £10,000 with limited prospects as big gap in cv.
He has no obligation to her she’s just his ex girlfriend. He’ll just pay child maintenance for kids and as self employed may find a way to pay bare minimum.
If married and separated then at least divorce has a mechanism that can take into account sahm sacrifice eg award her larger financial share and his pension can be split.
I know it’s easy to get bogged down in here and now but I wouldn’t contemplate sahm unmarried.

@Dixiechickonhols is 100% right.

Do not give up work or even go part time unless you a) get married and b) come up with an agreement for DP (then DH!) to cover your lost pension contributions.

Even then it's risky. I went part time and massively damaged my career as a result (I'd say I'm at least 3 years / £15k behind where I would have been by this stage, and I know for a fact that it's directly due to going part time because my boss told me!). That would have been fine, but my DH passed away so now I'm the sole breadwinner and really struggling.

If you were working you’d be paying NI towards your ‘old age’ pension though

Your "stamp" is paid if you register for child benefit, you don't need to be within the CB threshold. This is until the age of 12, I think?

@peachgreen sorry to hear that.

One of the reasons my mum drummed into her daughters that we need to work if we had children - and the lesson was understood by her sons and step-children too - is that she was a widow and a sole bread winner for a bit. She really struggled even though she luckily found family members who provided childcare. She did remarry otherwise I wouldn't exist.

Martin Lewis has worked out that 1 in 29 children lose a parent before the age of 18.

Why so many comments about NI contributions? If you claim child benefit (even “claiming” it at the nil rate due to £50k/60k+ salary) you get NIC credits up to your youngest’s 12th birthday.

Why do people keep saying you need to work for NI contributions? If you claim child benefit for child under 12, your NI contributions are covered.

Yes Op can protect her state pension entitlement but it’s private pension she won’t be paying into plus no entitlement to his.
peachgreen Sorry to hear about your DH.
Op wouldn’t be entitled to bereavement support payments (widows allowance) either if her partner died. It’s a lump sum £3500 and monthly payments £350 for 18 months. If he’s self employed he may not have death in service or any/adequate life insurance, definitely something to think about Op.

Can you go to uni and retrain now? Would you be entitled to student finance? I did this when DC were tiny and I got a grant for childcare on top of the maintenance loan. DH was on low pay then though. You could also then work evenings and weekends if needed.

If student finance is not an option and as your current job does not offer much progression, how about just working evenings and weekends in hospitality or similar until you can retrain? I did this after university as were properly broke and DH was doing super long hours in his new role and we couldn't afford childcare, nor find a nursery open enough hours to allow me to commute to where there was work in what I had trained for.

If you aren’t bothered about current job long term then I’d look for evening or weekend work so no childcare costs. Perhaps related to field you want to retrain in.

There are a few things here:

As someone else said, can your partner not get flexible working? Also what reason have they given you to say no to FW? Unless you are in an industry where you must work certain shifts there is almost always a way around these things. You could ask for a few days a week FW and he could ask for the other days. That said, as a manager it is a right pain in the arse to fit FW around a team if many staff want FW patterns.

Can you work evenings (6PM-12)? That way if you live with partner he can have the child for those 6 hours and you wouldn't need to have childcare costs as high. Of course this will leave you having to juggle getting up and sleeping etc and will leave little time for the relationship.

Who would be earning more if both of you were working full time? Could he take time off and you work if you would earn more? Not always viable but its certainly an option.

I assume you are getting child tax credit? If not, do it. I think its £80 a month which doesn't sound a lot but it adds up over time.

Is there anyone who you know who could split childcare with? For example, You have a few days off a week and they do and you then look after each others kids on the alternate days?

Unfortunately this is why me and my partner took years to have kids. We had to be assured that we had a fall back in case we didn't have childcare. If we couldn't have met the cost we wouldn't have had kids, though I was somewhat indifferent and she wasn't all that maternal anyway!

Get him down the register office and get married asap

He has no obligation to her she’s just his ex girlfriend

This is generally not understood...until it's too late.

Working contributes to your pension and if your youngish what you pay in now can make a big difference, simply because of the time left to retire. If you don't work you are missing out on employers pension contributions (effectively savings) so that should be added to the finamce case for working.

I do early morning work in a supermarket 3 days a week including Saturday. As DH is home on Saturday and I only work mornings we only pay for 2 mornings a week.
The plan is to keep this job until next year when DS turns 3 then change jobs, hopefully go back to what I'm trained in.
It's not easy and honestly I think you might be unrealistic wanting to do Monday to Friday, on reduced hours and term time only. Those jobs are like gold dust.
Evenings, early mornings and weekends mean a, reduction in childcare costs, or even none at all.
If you need to work then you need to be flexible.

Your husband should be paying for childcare expenses proportionally to what you're paying.

Keep you hand in the professional job market if you can.