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.

It’s not just a case of affording it on paper but what you want to be able to afford for them. I would say we can’t afford more than one child and that is because if she needs extra help at school, I’d like to be able to pay for tutors or private school if she’ll do better in that environment. I would like to save and be able to give her a decent deposit to buy a home when she’s older because without our help there’s no way she’ll be able to buy. Having two, makes all of that harder and whilst you would find the money if you had two, it’ll impact your lifestyle and savings for your own future. We don’t want to do that. I don’t want to save hard to give two children a decent deposit on a house, to then expect them to be saddled with our care bill should we need it.

It all depends on lifestyle, of course. Many people are more than comfortable with kids etc on half that.

So let's stop with the "after tax, 100k isn't a lot".

It is a lot. It puts you ~ in the top 5% of earners in the world. Yes, you might live in london but having that amount of money enables that in the first place.

They don’t want to change their lifestyle. Their business.

That is a lot of money!
I'm aware we're very lucky in that respect especially as our jobs wouldn't really fetch much more in London, so may as well be in the North West!
We do make use of some tax breaks through the tax free childcare and our youngest gets DLA so that gives us a little more (in DLA and in tax breaks) and that allows us to pay our nanny a salary above average for our area, which works well for everyone concerned. I wish i could pay her 45k but that would pretty much my whole salary so not a chance sadly 😂

It's entirely up to them isn't it. On paper, I'm sure they could afford it. But at what cost, their current lifestyle? completely understandable if they don't want that.

For those who say, you can always afford children etc etc. I grew up in a family with 4 children, my parents could not afford to have 4 children. This caused arguments, stress, tension. I was aware of money, or lack of, and the stress this can cause from a very young age. We had many many happy times too, thankfully. But it has had an affect on how my decisions regarding children, from how many kids I want, to where I wanted to be financially before starting a family.

Everyone has their own reasons for how they live their life, it may not be as clear cut as it looks from the outside.

I am not sure how voting works, but £100K / year is enough to have kids.

There is a person on the thread about energy right now complaining that they’re “really struggling” at £100K. A peek at the national average salaries would tell you how fucking entitled that is.

if your friends don’t want kids for any reason at all then of course they are not unreasonable to not have them. But claiming it’s impossible on £100K when most people in the UK do is insensitive to the point of being repulsive.

Can anyone who earns say, 30k and has small children explain how they actually manage? lots of people say they do but the number don't add up

Usually there's one person who is a SAHP in that scenario so no childcare costs. I'm a single parent and I earn minimum wage but my child is school age so childcare costs are low.

I earn around that. I'm not a single parent and DP earns much more but I had a look at UC a while ago when we were going through a rough patch and they'd pay all my childcare costs if I was a single parent, basically.

A single parent on 30k, receiving £300 per month in child maintenance will also be entitled to claim about £260 per week in universal credit, £36 per week in child benefit and use the tax free childcare account. So it's not "just" £30k they'll have available, more like £50k pre tax depending on how much paid childcare they use. Still tight, but not as tight.

The £42k a year on childcare though…surely that’s only for a relatively short period of time? Unless you have twins I suppose, but even then it’s only 2-3 years.

We currently pay £20k a year on childcare (one at nursery and one at school) but that will drop massively once we get the 30 hours and even further when they’re both at school.

It’s not like you have to pay out £42k on childcare every year until they leave home.

But it's still an extortionate amount of money for 2-3 years and if you can't afford it you can't afford it.

Pretty much so. I am now finding myself in a position where I am explaining this several times a week, mainly to professional mothers with one or two preschoolers who are considering moving to London. No one believes me until they actually come and see for themselves. £1800 / month was the cheapest I heard / found.

Well with two and both of us working full time - it will be 1k per month till secondary or when we don't need childcare. So min. 12k for ever 🤣

Once you hit the magic £100k you’re not entitled to the 30 hours of funding, so you’re looking at paying that £42k a year for up to 4 years.

It drops a bit once they turn 3 and you get the 15 hours free but it’s not proportionate

It’s only 2-3 years if they’re very very close in age though?

We have a 3.5 year age gap between ours for this reason. Or you could just have one child.

Just saying that on paper it should be affordable. Not saying anyone should make that choice, obviously, if it means making other sacrifices they don’t want to make.

Yes I know but in the situation described in the OP they’d both be earning under 100k.

And it’s ‘only’ one extra year (admittedly an expensive one). It still drops massively once they’re at school.

The £100k cut off is single income though. You could both earn £99500 (£199k jointly) and still get it.

No right or wrong answer- having DC isn’t mandatory, it is very expensive. Maybe they just want to put lots in to their pensions or have a big mortgage?

Sounds very sensible, and not really any of your, or our, business.

So I suspect they could afford it by cutting down but are actually would be tighter than you might think for the high sounding household income.

eg hypothetically if one was on £60k and one 40k paying student loans and 10% pension they’d be taking home £3056 and £2200 so £5200. They’d get access to tax free childcare and likely some child benefit (pension deductions would bring higher salary down).

Say mortgage £2000, nursery (1 child) of £1700. That would leave around £1500 for everything else. Would probably spend around £450 for travel cards. Two children in childcare simultaneously would be an issue.

@Thebeastofsleep ah i see, so people saying they live off 30k actually bring in closer to the 50k that is apparently a high income.

That makes more sense

Not necessarily.

A single parent of 2 primary/ preschool kids, receiving no maintenance and not paying out any childcare (because they don't work) who is not in employment can get £1800 a month all in, which equates to a salary of around £27k.

They calculate that on a basic rent (greater Manchester) of £650 per month (2bed) which is unrealistic. But that would leave £1100 to live off, food, bills etc. But no childcare to pay.

100k is enough money to pay for family. It's just about the choices that you make. Of course you won't be able to afford private jet or villa in every country, but does it count as necessity? I think this is sufficient amount of money to have comfortable life, pay mortgage, go on holidays etc. In my opinion, people like to complain too much.

Yes you just described me. I'm in a council house now so my rent is low and Ive now childcare so 27k is perfect and I manage fine. but if I had to rent privately, it wouldn't be manageable because the rent cap is about £600 less than rent actually costs. and add childcare in and i'd need 50k

Where do you get those calculations? Is the UC including housing and childcare costs and how many children is that for? I'm a single parent earning minimum wage and I get £112 per week in benefits, that is for one child.