To think £100k household income is enough

[Olive180]

A friend told me tonight that her and her partner have decided not to have kids, mainly because they can't afford to. Even though they're earning £102k a year between them.

Just for background: they own a 3 bed flat together with a £1000-ish per month mortgage (at least she mentioned that's how much it was a year ago) and they aren't big spenders, not into flashy stuff, quite homely and humble. She's very eco friendly/minimalist and buys stuff second hand when she can. So I don't think they're frittering their money away or anything.

Can you really not raise a family well on £100k a year? They do live in London zone 6.

Childfree by choice here. I'm continually judged/questioned when I say I don't want kids.

It's probably just one of the reasons they give to to get people off their backs.

One of our reasons is because of the environment but on here as an anonymous forum, I've been ridiculed for saying that. You say she's very eco too so it could be another factor she's just not sharing.

But she doesn't need to explain their decision to anyone. There's nothing wrong with them deciding not to have children. It's fine.

@SlightlyGeordieJohn
What does that £42000 cover? Is that full time Nursery for multiple children? I don’t live in London so I’m curious what the going rate is for nurseries.

It may be that they have thought about the sort of parents they want to be. Perhaps they don't want to put a child in full time childcare so they both go on working at their job which will bring the 100k. Perhaps they have a vision of how they would want their child's future to look and feel they can't provide it. If only more people really thought about it then going ahead and having more and more because they think love will find away or just like babies. So many times have I seen on here people debating having another child and saying it would stretch them so much and impact their existing kids and many replies are "go for it, you'll manage somehow" 🤨

But children are expensive. Friends without them have had a much better quality of life than us.

Depends also on how the income is split between them. If it is 70K her and 30K him, and she wants to take at least some maternity leave and not rush to the office whilst still bleeding, yes, can be impossible.
Childcare in London is easily £2K / month. So that's that. Twins, for example, would be unaffordable on 100K.

We're on about this with about the same size mortgage in London. And it has been quite an adjustment since having our DS. We are much more stretched now and will definitely be sticking to one child primarily for financial reasons. So I think their reasons makes a lot of sense. Equally they may just not want to have kids and it's the easiest thing to say.

Yep, it’s so boring. Always said by people living in areas where completely bog standard terrace house costs £120k not £600k, nurseries and travel expenses are much lower, and they’re in receipt of things like child credit despite saying they doing accept any benefits at all

They obviously just aren’t fussed about having kids, and want people to mind their own business about it, which obviously hasn’t worked here. If they don’t want to compromise their lifestyle for kids that’s fair enough. I agree that they absolutely could afford it if they wanted to though.

This was my first thought too.

Of course they can afford kids unless their circumstances are truly exceptional. So therefore I’d not have any sympathy if they were bleating on about it. If they just mentioned it when asked then they probably just feel uncomfortable saying it’s not a priority for them?

They can't afford it if she's on £70k a year and would only get SMP 🤷‍♀️

They have different priorities.

Of course they can “afford” to, if they want to.

They don’t want to.

And that’s perfectly reasonable.

What a Nosey Parker you are! Live and let live.

Our child care bill is £42,000 per year in London.

I thought you were making that crazy number up then I did the sums and realised it's only £85 a day for each of two children, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. So yes, perfectly possible in London, pretty much the going rate, even in outer London. Wow. I'm speechless.

They sound very responsible. You need two very well paid jobs and a decent insurance policy to protect against out of work. Too many people have kids they can't afford and expect subsidy. Much of the issues with today's cost of living crisis is people set that earning bar too low with not enough margin. Energy and food costs in real terms aren't high historically we have just had an era of very cheap food and energy. Yet returning to normal bounds creates a crisis.

In my book you have children you fund them, no hard working families emotional blackmail or it's not the kids fault ect.

drivetosurvive
yep that was my first thought on this topic. Agree completely

Essentially you are saying here that only wealthy people should have children. Bollocks to that.

OP, I'm guessing that you are inferring some kind of judgement from your friend's comment. Perhaps you do have children on similar or a lower income?

This. ‘Afford’ means different things to different people. And that’s absolutely fine.

Perhaps they meant that the environment cannot afford for them to have a child if they are eco conscious.

It looks like having a child is the same as adding 58 carbon tonnes to the environment each year. To offset that would cost £60 per month per child.

That's why it's often same price to get a nanny in London. We decided to have stick to one kid. We earn 120k between us, even split but can't afford a house so only have one and live in a flat. It is ridiculous but genuinely with childcare plus mortgage money is tight. Even now we are out of nursery years, childcare bill still adds up to 500 per month because of holiday clubs etc. We are certainly much worse off than my partner's juniors on 35k.

They just don't want kids.
Money is obviously not the real issue. If they really wanted kids and earned 25k between them they'd have kids.

We chose to have one child as we knew we couldn't afford to provide the childhood we wanted to provide for more than one child. We have a healthy family income but our child costs an absolute fortune. Private music lessons, sports, frequent holidays, theatre trips and nice restaurants as we are all foodies. Children can be as expensive or as cheap as you like, but i do think a 100k income will be severely impacted by a child and they've clearly taken that into consideration.

This.

I also find it quite unpleasant the way there are so many posts these days on here which involve intrusive finger pointing about how other people choose to manage their finances.

Personal financial management is only ever partly about money: unless you’re on the breadline it’s also an emotional thing: ie it’s about what you value enough to spend money on.

You might decide that having children is the best way to spend this money. Your friend might prefer to spend it on foreign holidays or expensive suits. Neither of you is wrong, it’s a different set of priorities.

Your post implies that having children should be at the top of the list of priorities for anyone who can afford to do so but this is presumptuous. Not everyone wants children enough to massively damage their earning potential or restrict their disposable income.

Let people prioritise their money as they see fit as long as they aren’t hurting anyone or demanding bailouts. It’s really none of your business.

If they wanted kids that much, they would take the financial hit. Perhaps they’re just not ready or have other reasons?

I put off having kids for years, and used to include finances as an excuse, but really wasn’t ready. Regret leaving it so late now though.

Most people will find there is never a good time to have kids so if they do want them, they should get on with it!