Third baby finances - Advice please

[Sunnydayhappyface]

Hey all,

I read in many posts that the argument against having a third baby is the difficulty on finding hotel rooms, that in airplanes someone sits alone and that there are no discounts for families of 5 in attractions.

Surely these are valid points but to me not justifying enough for not having a third baby.

Space and a car are something to consider but again not a huge problem.

To me, things like university fees, school fees/activities/extra tuition support if needed, save to give them money for a house deposit, buy them a car and help with their wedding are the big things that at the moment I am struggling with.

Also, surely nursery fees are a lot but if you space kids cleverly it’s not a big deal in my mind. Also this stage lasts only a couple of years!

Am I wrong?

AIBU - Sorry I don’t agree with you

AINBU - You are correct and to the point

You're wrong. In my opinion. I thought exactly the same as you, thought it was such a trivial cost compared to raising a child etc but I was wrong too. Not being able to find hotel rooms is extremely annoying if you are used to going away a lot. It doubles the cost and means the parents have to be separate too.

Life is expensive and sometimes that 3rd child cost just tips the balance into us not doing that activity/trip out etc.

It even sounds trivial having written this out! But life would be a lot simpler on many levels with just 2 children.

For me I can afford to give two children a good life, holidays, clubs, hobbies, university, driving lessons etc. I wouldn’t be able to do that for 3 so I wonder why I’d bother.
Also, yes nursery fees are short term, but for those three years you’re paying them, your other two are missing out on fun stuff because you don’t have the spare cash.

I'm paying over £10k a year in university costs due to the elder delaying (pandemic) even having them at intervals cant prevent this. 2 just makes sense

I had a third (unplanned but so absolutely loved) and it is really hard financially not going to lie. Of course if you are well off it's not going to be so much of an issue

We have three children - close together. We didn't stay in hotels very often, rarely went or aeroplanes, made use of vouchers for any attractions visited and grumbled to each other about "family tickets" not being fit for purpose for our family, bought a second-hand car to fit three seat in the back, didn't pay nursery fees as I was a SAHM for six years, didn't pay school fees, didn't need extra tuition, didn't buy them cars, they took out tuition fee loans which they'll pay back, didn't go on lavish holidays, topped up their minimum tuition fees loans, but they also did some work whilst at uni.

Despite this, they've turned out okay. Family camping trips prepared them well for festivals, they're cheap to entertain, enjoy each other's company, are well-travelled in the UK, they have access to my MIL's old car (rather than their own), all managed to get a First at uni without private school or extra tuition, not showing any signs of wanting to get married, but they do see the folly of spending a ridiculous amount of money on a wedding. They're just three, lovely, happy well-adjusted kids who've got this far on what some would see as stretched finances.

I agree, they are not very important and very shortsighted considerations in deciding on a 3rd child.
For what it’s worth, on the rare occasions we used hotel rooms, I would phone or email and ask if it was possible to add a third child. It usually was, at a small additional cost.

I don't get the plane thing - yes you're buying an extra flight but aren't most plane seats in rows of 2 or 3? As a family of 4 we are split over 2 rows.

Also hotels - there are loads of apartments/Airbnbs which give multiple room choices. I'm assuming it's more that people want to go AI in a hotel which makes it less flexible/ more costly, but it's not an accommodation issue particularly.

The cost comes as you are raising another person and all the associated costs of that. But it's all about how you choose to live your life and spend your money. If you want to keep doing certain things a certain way then I can see why adding another child makes that difficult, but there are options out there.

Ours are 8/6/3 so can give a perspective at this point. Flying - we don't. Environmental apart from anything else. And kids on planes are a nightmare. Hotels - very rarely, we mostly do more flexible accommodation abroad.

For us the biggest unforeseen cost has been that every illness they get, there is that much more contagion in the house and it's drawn out longer. So we have a situation where either one kid, or one of us, is sick, that many more days a year. So more days of unpaid leave than there were with 2. I never see this mentioned but it's worth bearing in mind.

I have three - 7, 4 and 2 (almost 3 in a couple of weeks).

I've been dreaming of increasing my hours at work- but childcare costs out of term time are hard to come by and expensive (in my area) so I think the costs are still there in the primary years imo esp if you don't have a term time job.

We stay in caravans / centerparcs - and haven't been abroad so can't comment on that really. Abroad holidays most likely would of been achievable if we stuck to two (I could of increased hours/ saved more etc).

I've found it hard with only having one parent around (if the other is working) we are "stuck" so to speak for days out/ swimming . Its hard work! My eldest adores swimming and I feel bad that I can't take him during the holidays - also some places have a 1:1 under 4 policy - ie we went to cbeebies land last year but couldn't use the water park as we needed another adult with us. Again with theme parks -eldest usually has to sit alone or there's a lot of standing around waiting. Which i suppose isn't a bad thing to learn.

I do feel incredibly guilty to my eldest but hope we are managing to give him the best experience of life possible - he loves his siblings and seeing the bond/ lessons they're learning for my outweighs the negatives

Sometimes that third child turns out to be twins. Happened to a friend of mine and it very nearly broke her.

Nobody has yet mentioned housing I think? If you want to give them all separate rooms then you could be looking at really significant extra costs.

Well it's all relative to how much disposable income you have and want as a family isn't it? Can't deny a third kid will cost more.

I suppose that’s the logical argument to sticking with 2, but it heavily depends on your lifestyle. Space in a car becomes irrelevant if you live in a city and don’t drive, etc.

I have more than 3 now, but really didn't find 3 that horrifying from a practical stand. Having to choose one hotel over another yearly or even less than that, I didn't think a reason to not have three. We also made do with a typical car. Cramped, yes but not a deal breaker. It's the bigger things that one has to hold in your decision making, just like you do the decision to have dc in the first place.