What % of your income from work do you spend because of work?

[verdantverdure]

AIBU to ask you what percentage of your income from working you spend because you are working?

A younger family member has asked me to cast an eye over her sums and it looks to me like she can't afford to go back to work after maternity leave.

Once you add up nursery and the commute, she's already running at a loss even before she buys new work clothes to fit her post pregnancy figure and current norms at her workplace.

Not including convenience foods such as pre chopped veg or a bought in lasagne etc so she can get dinner on the table soon after she gets home, or takeaways for the nights she's too shattered to do that.

A cleaner do her weekends can be family time not housework time?

Treats to cheer her up because life is a bit of a grind?

Stuff like hair, make up and nails so she looks "groomed" at work?

What about you?

What percentage of your income from working do you spend because you are working?

I still don't see how she'll be actively making a loss, if she is earning above minimum wage.

Ah yeh.. I haven't had a takeaway or nails done in about 3 years as can't afford it. These things aren't a right or even necessary

Or skip the occasional nail job and blow dry and have a takeaway instead. Same re: cleaner. Prioritise.

Childcare and the commute use up her entire take home pay @BadNomad

She won't be able to afford any of that.

@Ilikepinacoladass

Childcare and the commute will cost over £4k a month.

No need to tell us, but in your own mind, subtract £4000 from your take home pay this month and see how much you have left.

It sounds like she needs a job closer to home then. Or are you going to say now the cost of her commute is only a tiny fraction of that total cost?

@verdantverdure
I understand what you mean about higher costs working when you have young DC. I can recall returning after maternity leave and the child care cost being more than half of my salary. With a school age child I worked in a part time, term time role and I was quite clear that returning to full time would not have been worth it when factoring in the costs of child care - plus the extra help regarding cleaning and convenience meals . And I absolutely would have wanted help there if I was working full time.

Nowadays I work from home in joggers and a fleece . No commuting costs and cheap lunches. I can't even say that my hearing bills are higher as my DH is home anyway .

I guessed earlier in the thread that her commute was about £500. It's £534.

If she lived nearer her work, both the mortgage and childcare would be significantly more expensive.

If she worked nearer home she'd earn less.

It’s been over 1/2 of it but is less now that I earn more and have fewer childcare costs.

I'm glad somebody "gets it".

I know I buy things for convenience to save time and energy.
I even think we were less desperate to get off on holiday when we didn't have commutes during the pandemic. That extra couple of hours a day seemed to really count. I couldn't believe how much time I had to keep on top of things, exercise, read books, all sorts. And so much less stress.

It definitely made me think about the hidden costs of different employment situations.

It's mad isn't it? No wonder the birth rate is dropping.

But as numerous posters have said her share of childcare is only 50%.
So childcare is £3500 a month then she pays half. He pays half.
So she earns 4000 pays 1750 childcare and 500 commute then she’s still got 1750 and a pension, workplace benefits like death benefits, no gap in cv, opportunity for progression. In a few months when eldest gets free childcare childcare bill reduces. Then she get a promotion or a pay rise. So she’s now got 2250 a month. Eldest goes to school yr after she’s got 3000 and so on.
A different role with no commute may mean less hours in childcare for children and save 500 train so even if salary less she’s better off.

If you take childcare and commute out of the whole household income it obliterates her take home pay totally and costs the household money.

That's why she's looking at the hidden costs as well, to try and calculate how much worse off they're going to be.

(It's £4235 per month with the £333 tax free childcare already deducted.)

Or her and/or her dh looks at a more family friendly job/hours - no commute, no working away, some wfh. Childcare will be cheaper, no train fare.
Or her and/or her dh look for role with different hours and work around each other to minimise paid childcare. So eg both parents doing 4 long days would only need 3 days paid childcare - he has the kids Monday, she has kids Friday.
He should be looking at solutions too not just her.

When I returned to work after maternity our nursery bill was over €1000 a month. I used to cover that, the rent, the utilities and DH's salary covered both our day to day expenditure but we only broke even if we were extremely careful and frugal for those few years. And even then a lot of the time we didn't break even no matter how many corners we cut.

I didn't see the inside of a hair salon for those years, a takeaway or takeaway coffee were things other people did and getting my nails done was me doing it DIY. I batch cooked and menu planned to the point the mumsent chicken was practically homoeopathic. Work clothes came from Primark. etc. Cleaning got done at the weekend by the two of us.

But it doesn't last forever. As DS got older the cost of childcare gradually reduced and I now can splurge on nice things and treats and buy a bag of chopped veg if I can't be arsed chopping.

I don't know what you want people to say. No one is going to say being a SAHM is the best option and won't do any harm to her in the long run. Because that would be lies. The best option would have been to not have a child until it was affordable, but as she/they didn't choose that option, they now have to decide between fucking her career & pension by not working, or working but living more frugally for a few years until free childcare starts. Those are the options. The ridiculous cost of childcare has never been a secret.

For that sort of childcare spend they need to look at cheaper childcare eg nanny. I’d also look at compressed hours for both parents. If they can cover 1 or 2 days between them it’s a massive saving or can one work a weekend day and have day off in week.

That is a really good suggestion @Dixiechickonhols.

We did something similar when ours were little, but we both work in modern, flexible, forward-thinking kind of industries. They work in quite rigid, traditional ones.

Other couples juggle though.
DH's job was flexible, and within walking distance and also had WFH options. Without that, we would have been fucked.

We moved to a cheaper area because family offered to do a lot of childcare for us - it also meant that our commutes got way longer and needing a car/petrol each was necessary but balanced out, it was an overall saving.

Can they move to a cheaper area?
Would an au pair be cheaper?
Can family members help, even one day a week?
Can they stagger their working day or change the hours they work to condensed to reduce the hours of childcare needed?
Can they find a job nearer home or a cheaper commute?

Those are all the things all of us had to look hard at to see if they were options that suited our situations.

I can't get over that nursery and before/after school childcare is costing more than 140 a day, based on £4000 a month - £534 for travel. My kids are older now and I only have 1 in wraparound, which is run by school and costs £17 a day. I'm not surprised people are having fewer kids if nursery costs that much; it was £45 a day when we needed it.

I'm sorry your relative is in this difficult position OP, but as a divorcee I would highly recommend she doesn't give up her job, just in case the relationship goes belly up and she needs to support herself later. Hopefully they can just grit their teeth until baby gets their funded hours as a toddler.

The nanny doesn't look a lot cheaper once you factor in getting her a car and the money to take the children to activities which are "all in" at nursery. And what do people do when the Nanny is ill? Rightly or wrongly they feel the nursery would have better cover for illness and holidays etc.

The nursery is £81 a day with a 5% sibling discount for the second child. Nearer work it's more like £105 a day.

And about to go up 10%

Even if their current jobs are rigid their whole industry won’t be certainly not post Covid. Both should speak to recruiters or have a job search. Look at all options eg in house roles.

Thank you for all those suggestions @ItsaMetalBand.

They're already in a cheaper area but one with a reasonable commute for them both.

Nursery would cost an extra £1000 a month in their old area.

You wouldn’t need to get nanny a car. Many activities are free or low cost - park, library, church toddler group, feeding ducks. Eldest will get nursery hours at 3 - nanny drop off and pick up.
Much more likely children poorly than an adult - can leave poorly child with nanny when nursery wouldn’t take them.
For that money I’d definitely price a nanny.

I gain extra from my job rather than lose anything. This is mainly due to wfh and not having childcare costs. Completely excluding my wage and stat pension contributions. My gains are;

• Work mobile, able to use for personal calls.
• £26pm wfh allowance
• health cash plan andmedical insurance
• £25pm amazon voucher
• home broadband paid.

It's awful having to juggle childcare costs and working, I hated it.