3rd kid - Finances - AIBU?

[Bubblesintheair88]

Many times I read in threads that the valid reason for not having a 3rd kid is finances.

Please don't get me wrong but I don't fully get it.

I mean uni fees is of course something to consider, nursery fees too. But if you space your kids 3-4 years apart then these issue is not an issue anymore? In my mind, if kids are spaced apart wisely then it doesn't make any difference if you have 1, 2, 3 or more kids in terms of nursery fees and uni fees, no?

Also, I read sometimes that hotel rooms are expensive. But people can rent airbnb etc. so this issue is not an issue anymore?

I also read that there are no family tickets for 5 usually. I get this point but 1. how often do you go to such places? and 2. is this a valid reason for not having one more child?

In terms of finances the only real one to me is to give a house deposit to each kid as this doesn't change no matter how wisely you space your kids apart.

Any thoughts on this?

YABU - You haven't thought it right
YANBU - You are right

I find these threads so upsetting to read.
Children cost money that is true!
Three children is always looked so down upon on MN I feel.

An extra person is extra cost. But really, if you're talking about your children doing multiple paid for after school activities, multiple holidays etc then you have disposable income? If you wanted a third then cars, house , holidays you would make it work with 5 of you?

It's really not difficult to change cars for a few years to accommodate car seats, and to change holidays (like air BnB).

@treetop122 its just different priorities. I’m sure there are a lot of people who could theoretically afford more children than they have with lifestyle alterations (and I do agree with you, the magic MN number always seems to be 2 to 3, but it applies to any jump). We could probably afford 3 in the here and now and I wouldn’t be against it. But equally I want to support them financially as adults whilst still having the option to retire at something approaching a reasonable age, preferably with my mortgage paid off. I left having kids somewhat later than average so, whilst downsizing our car and holidays now would allow a 3rd, I don’t know how it would affect me and my existing DC in say 20 years time. It could be said for any additional child though, from 2 to 10, depending on your job, your health, when you started having DC and how importantly you view financial support beyond the age of 18.

You don’t fully get how 3 children cost more than 2?....

I mean, it’s pretty simple maths tbh.

You’ve left out space / size of home?

we have a v good income, but earn that in London based jobs. Two demanding jobs means we’ll stay in London and as central as we can (currently zone 2).

we ruled out a third as the need to more space would come sooner, and the more space would need to be more.

we maybe could have afforded a 5 bed house in a nice zone 2 area. But I worried about the size of mortgage we’d have needed and the pressure of paying it.

others shrug and say ‘move further out’ or ‘make them share’.

ours are young enough they do share. But I know that won’t last and they’ll need their own spaces.

we stay central for short commute times which buys us an hour everyday extra with our kids.

for us the choice was raising two kids well or three…. Maybe well, but with much more stress and less leeway so that we reckoned the risk of not raising them well enough to be ‘good enough’ to serve them, was too high.

By the time my DD goes to school, we'll have been paying nursery fees for seven years. Approx £60k over the course of seven years. I really don't want to continue that for another three. After the nursery fees end, there's then before and after school club. Ours is £22 a day for both - £7 for breakfast, £15 for after school club. I couldn't afford that for two children a day, on top of full time nursery fees for another child for three years.

They're the big outgoings. There's then costs for clothes, shoes, food, trips out, swimming lessons, extra curricular activities. I know paying all of that out would mean we'd have to do those things less, and I'd rather not do that. I want my children to enjoy their childhood with lots of memories of trips and adventures, not be counting pennies to get by.

Well there's this thing called maths... 🤦‍♀️

Why does other people’s expenses cause you upset?

I could afford a third, in theory. But I don’t want a third, because I can give my two a better standard of life than I could give three.

For example, my two each have their own decently sized room. We live in a nice area. If we had a third, they would either need to share in our current house, or we would need to move to a four bed, which would mean either they all had smaller rooms, or we would not live in as nice an area.

My two can go to several extra curricular activities/clubs, we have a set budget for this. If I had three, they would each be able to do less.

We have a car which can comfortably fit two car seats. Car isn’t paid off. We would need a second row of seats to fit 3 seats and our dog. This would not only mean a larger finance payment; but also more fuel.

We can afford to go abroad once per year, as well as a few UK breaks. My eldest in particular is accustomed to this, and I wouldn’t want her to feel she was losing out on that because we wanted another kid.

This doesn’t have any bearing on anyone else except my own family though. People can value different things, and that’s okay.

Yes you could be lucky enough to have as many children as you want but why do this without thinking about the costs of bringing up a child, of giving them a good education and perhaps giving them money towards buying a home.

You could plan to have children 3 or 4 years apart but imagine having a new born, a 4 year old and a 7/8 year old at the same time. The older kids don't want to have a toddler annoying them when their friends are in their house. The children are at different stages and it hard to do things that suit them all.

If your 30 do you want to have your 3rd child at 41/42. I know a couple who had 3 kids in less than 6 years. They had a few years of not going places or attending events like weddings ect. Their youngest child will be finished in university when their parents are 56/57 so the parents will have more disposable income to put into their retirement funds and to go on couple only holidays.

Most things are made or set up for 2 adults and 2 children and having a 3 rd child makes things more expensive. Not to mention the fact that when you get pregnant you could end up with a multiple birth which has higher odds as you get older. What happens as well if your 3rd child has special needs? Having a 3rd child can end up having a major effect on you, your partner and the kids you already have.

Yes, I think that at times a lot of women would like to have another child especially if their previous child has gotten to X age. In some cases this is to do with hormones or the fact that maybe you decided to have 3 kids before your 1st pregnancy.
Then when they think about it and look at the costs they decide not to have another child.
You have to do what's best for you and the children you already have.
At the moment with the cost of living it getting more expensive to being up children and the expenses rise as your child gets older.

many People save to pay for nursery and for university, not covering it all at the actual time.

cumulative lifetime expenditures also need to be considered. Money spent on nursery and university could be out towards retirement. So could the other more manageable expenses of an additional child. It is very short-sighted to only look at your finances for a month or a year.

You are right op I have 9 dc and it's not particularly more expensive because we just have one house one minivan food is economies of scale clothes and toys are passed on, days out we buy annual passes and use vouchers holidays we rent lodges or houses although premier inn are doubled that is the one that is a pain. I would say life is that much more expensive than two children. Their extra curricular are things like brownies , scouts. David Lyoyd all children are free , youth clubs etc

If your frame of reference is fees and deposit for their uni and houses then I don't think you'd be impacted by the cost of a third child

I have more than three children, so have been through the three children phase. I just bought an extra ticket with the family ticket. I'm now down to cooking for four in the evening and can tell you that is much more convenient. Everything seems to be packaged for four!

It's up to everyone how they set their priorities and what they can afford. If people choose not to have a third due to their own well thought out reasons, good for them. Probably better than my reasoning: "Because I want to."

Yet financially supporting a third young adult in my 60s and 70s would massively impact me. Nursery fees are madness, but save for that, little children aren’t that expensive. As I said up stream, with more frugality we could afford a 3rd child. Teenagers and DC in their early 20s have the propensity to be very expensive, especially as that age occurs around the time of slowing up how much paid work is feasible. We are not rich so it’s a balancing how much I will have to support my adult DC whilst still having enough to survive being a pensioner.

There is also the time element. I miscarried my 3rd (unplanned) pregnancy but DH's friends had the 3rd child.

DD has two more years at University then we can have a few years of stuffing our pensions and look to retire. Friend will have another DC starting University and will have another 4 years to fund before they can do the same.

Your post makes no sense!

When they are babies and young children, there isn't much of a difference. But once they hit tweens/teens and have their own interests, fashion style, food wants etc then of course catering for another person makes a big difference. Where I live swimming is one adult, max two under 10. It's difficult to have a toddler that still needs a good amount of supervision, you with a baby and then an older child who wants to do different activities. Throw in medical/educational needs and it can be overwhelming. I had three, but had a big age gap because of secondary infertility. That worked well. But we didn't have as much going on in schools etc as there is now.

That’s not at all true. We aren’t rich at all, but we also aren’t poor - our income is around £60k - we will have enough to help our two kids out with either uni, a car, or a house deposit, because we have gone without to put money away each month.

"You could plan to have children 3 or 4 years apart but imagine having a new born, a 4 year old and a 7/8 year old at the same time. The older kids don't want to have a toddler annoying them when their friends are in their house."

What rubbish. I know quite a few families with this gap and it's not like this 😂Also super judgy about having children slightly older.

anyway OP, of course 3 are more expensive. Kids cost money even outside childcare and nursery, and childcare doesn't stop during school years - you need holiday club or wrap around care etc. Then there is clothes, interests, holidays, days out, etc. Have a third, or don't, but it of course adds to the cost. So does the first. And the second.

I have 3 and I would not change it for the world, but our life is definitely much more expensive than our friends with 2 kids. A whole extra person on the weekly shop, a whole extra person to get birthday & Xmas presents for, a whole extra flight to pay for if you go abroad (we don’t actually go abroad anymore, which is a choice I’m happy with), more fuel running an extra person around, more usage on your electric & water bills, there’s also the impact on your career: a whole extra maternity leave where you’re neither saving up not being promoted, as well as a longer time working part time if that’s the choice you make (I did, I didn’t want my littlest to have less time with me than the bigger ones had).

I’m have three, most of my friends have 3, it really isn’t the big jump people are describing here.

I have four and they are spaced out. But kids do have their own minds and plans. Pfb is taking two years out before going to uni so him and ds2 will both overlap being at uni at the same time. Nursery fees was only one at a time but relentless for almost 15 years! God that's scary writing that down. The only time it's felt really tight was covid as there was no Primark etc to supplement their wardrobes and right now as we factored in job loss but never col crisis. We are not and never have been cash rich. However we do have assets in case of dire, dire need in the form of property but you can only sell that once and then we'd have nothing. However its never cost us 4x the price of raising one child. I do think you need think very hard about space and money before having a third

We have a campervan and we love going away for cheap weekends, we live on the south west coast of Ireland and it's easy to find beautiful remote spots to park up for free, we only have 4 belted seats in the van so this wouldn't be possible anymore.

We go on quite a lot of days out. We love to travel and most places we want to go are long haul so an extra flight ticket adds a lot on top of booking a larger place. We also enjoy going out for meals as a family, kids meals are usually cheap but how long will they survive on kids meals? Till 12? I still want to eat out as a family when my kids are teenagers.

We also save for each child's future in to an investment fund. We might not save as much per child if there was a 3rd account to put money in to.

A lot of what I've listed is lifestyle stuff I know. We don't want to change our lifestyle and want our children to enjoy nice lifestyles too. Plenty other posters have listed the obvious necessities.

Thanks all for your comments!

The biggest worry for most of you sounds like to be retirement and less savings.

But surely if you had one kid rather than two it would have worked even better on your favour to stop working earlier and go even better holidays and provide a better house deposit for your kid etc etc.

So why 1-2 is fine but 2-3 is not?

This post made me laugh, as those are basically the age gaps between my kids & the oldest ones LOVED (&5yrs later still love) having the littlest one around. Every family is different. You can’t predict how well kids will get on - whatever the gaps.

But purely on the finances, 3 is absolutely more expensive. For me, I feel like our family life is massively, massively enriched by having another little person in it, in a way that nothing money could buy would enrich it to anything like the equivalent - but we’re comfortably enough off that I’m talking about shopping at a cheaper supermarket/ not going aboard/ buying less gadgets/ less extra curricular activities etc - rather than not having enough money to get by.

So why 1-2 is fine but 2-3 is not?
It is a Mumsnet thing, I’ve been on mumsnet for about 15 years and posters were saying the same then.
I think it’s the comparing to two DC I don’t get for example if a middle aged family have saved 60k towards their DC’s house deposits all the three DC are given 20k each. Where as some of these posts make it sound as if you need to save 90. You have your household income and make it fit the size of the family. Maybe you choose Eurocamp holidays instead of a hotel or add an extra can of tomatoes to your spag Bol.