To ask how you managed raising a child on a lower income?

[Givealittlerespecttome]

Everyone will have a totally different idea as to what a lower income is, but just wondered if anyone here has raised a child/children without 2 parents on high salaries and without let's say a very large amount of savings etc? Just wondered how did you manage and did you receive a lot of support?

You do know that this still doesn’t make up for a good income?

lkwhjis · Today 13:58

People on low incomes get benefits to raise children. Surely, you know this, OP.
You do know that this still doesn’t make up for a good income?

@Namddf it doesn't, but because the value of benefits (and cms) aren't taxed, a low earner can sometimes have the equivalent of a surprisingly higher pretax income coming in, especially if they had multiple kids before benefit changes were restricted to 2, and live in an area with higher rents.

I think money is a red herring when raising children - unless you are actually on the poverty line = no safe housing and nutritional food plus to stressed to love and listen too them.
Children need love, care, routine and experiences to grow into well balanced adults.

The experiences is probably the most difficult one as it can be costly. But we did trips to London on a budget, train fare is unavoidable, but museums are free, food and drink brought from home. The Natural history museum has a dedicated lunch space for rainy days!
Trips to the park in all weather getting wet & muddy are fun and free.
Having a pet and caring for it isn't expensive. Young
Teaching them to make and cook only costs what you would have spend anyway!
Budget holiday - £1200-1600 would be average to spend on a family of 4.
Camping in Europe, £600.- for campsite, £200.- ferry return ticket ... rest for petrol and extras. Again, I would take food and cook most meals. (Sausages & Beans with fry potatoes is a camping favourite!) - that's pre covid! Looking at £2000.- for 2024. But I religiously save on average £150.- for the holiday as it's important to us.
No designer clothes or expensive gadgets, although the teen years are tough ... we do get them a desired item for Christmas or birthday.
Food, being veggie is cheaper and maybe have meat / fish once or twice a week. If you can cook, cooking meals from scratch is easier and works out cheaper - especially batch cooking! No expensive ingredients needed. Young kids will eat what you offer them...

....

It's hard. My DC are adults now but when they were small DC my exh was on a low wage and I spent 1 year home after having each of my 3 DC. I went back to Teaching but part time until DC were in school full time. We didn't have Sky TV, no mobile phones in those days, no internet broadband, no lattes out, DH didn't go to the pub even though he'd have loved to go for a pint, no lunches out for me. I used to take DC to free days out and take a picnic lunch. I bought second hand clothes from car boot sales and DC got very few treats only when Grandparents supplied them did they get them. In those days no UC top ups and no help towards our rent. After I went back to work full time things improved with 2 wages. I got a promotion to Head of Department and DH got promoted too and things became better. My Dad gave us the money for a deposit on our first house as he got a lump sum when he retired. Over time our mortgage became cheaper than renting would have been. Exh always tried to work overtime for extra cash. Then he started on his own as self employed. As he got so busy he took on a couple of staff, then a couple more and gradually we became better off. That was when we had our first holiday that wasn't just visiting my Parents.

I should have added now my DC are adults and I have remarried. I'm now in the fortunate position to be able to treat them often. I've helped them with deposits for their houses and helped towards nursery fees for my DGC and a car for my DD when hers broke and was unfixable and she needed it to get to work. I know I'm trying to make it up to them they didn't have much as young DC.

Myself and my then husband raised 3 children on a low ish salary, had no support from anyone and managed by cutting our cloth accordingly.

So refreshing to read such a real post. Thank you for sharing @Redlarge

DDs early years were, on income support I got an under 18s amount, was paying off one of their loans, had child benefit and about £50 a week child tax credits.
Then I did an apprenticeship, worked Saturday nights and had tax credits and child benefit....it was hard, but there were plenty of free playgrounds around, sure start vouchers worth a couple of quid a week. It meant budgeting carefully and sometimes doing without for myself, but she was always OK.

Things have been better in DS life, probably more than you're interested in hearing about

But what I will say, is genuinely if you're thinking about having a baby on not a very high income, look for free groups, there are lots and lots around, you can keep yourself out of the house every day for free if you live in a fairly large town.
NCT nearly new sales can be excellent (hit or miss a few of the ones I've been to) but the good ones are flipping amazing. I spent £80 the first time I went to one, I filled my car up, high chair for the inlaws, a baby walker, loads of toys, loads of clothes- some he's just grown into! Ebay, and marketplace for second hand so you're not wasting money.
Use tesco clubcard for nappies, make use of pampers vouchers... I've recently had some vouchers in some of DS nappies, when I used them with the clubcard price, it took each pa k down to £2...if I find deals I always buy a month or two ahead nappy wise.

Other than that, try to be a size ahead in clothing.
Have a couple of months nursery money saved up if you can before baby arrives.

If you can stretch to it, save for a cleaner to come in for an hour or two each week for the first few months whilst you gain your new routine.
Batch cook before.

It's all stuff that'll save you money long term, or your sanity in navigating the beginning of your child's life.

All the best.

I was lucky enough to become disabled and eligible for DLA Higher Mobility and Care, as the extra four hundred odd pound made the difference between them having a new pair of shoes and a coat and not.

X

ExDH left me for OW when DC were 4 and 5, I had no family support and could only work part time and term time as after school clubs hadn’t been invented
I did paid evening work bookkeeping, sold things on eBay, and was very frugal
Most things including Xmas presents and school uniform were bought second hand, on bad weeks I survived on tea and toast - at one point I weighed 7.5 stone (9.5 is average for my height)
As they grew up I had more work flexibility - everything was on an offer, yellow sticker, coupon etc and I managed to put small amounts of money away - our first holiday involving flying abroad was when they were 15 and 16
Both went to university and are now adults with good careers, I built my career up too and we are all very close

I raised four children as a low income household and 12 years of that was as a single parent (eldest is now 25, youngest 14).

Pretty much tax credits was the only way I could do it. I worked full time from when my youngest was at school. I worked part time until then and shared child care with their dad even after he left us and I had other family support so I never needed to pay for childcare in the early years. I got next to no financial child support from their dad. It was tough going but manageable with the support from tax credits. It has become harder in recent years than when I had my children, for example there was no cap on two children when I had mine.

I'm a lone parent. I get Universal Credit on top of my salary, that's how I manage.

I live in a housing association flat, I'll never own a house. I'm grateful to have this place as it means my rent is fairly low and I'll never have to leave if I don't want to.

This post takes away any sensible debate there might have been from this thread.
OP go and look up what a tiny proportion of parents this applies to.
Obviously virtually everybody who has children raises them on a low income if you are seriously suggesting this is the bar..

Widowed for over a decade. Brought up 2 DS on my own from ages 4 and 9. No parents. Current income 18.4k- the most i've ever had- but a VERY small mortgage.

No car. No holidays. No days out. No eating out. No takeaways. No new furniture. No house maintenance, inside or out. It's all crumbling. Rarely buy make up. Cheap skin care, nice beauty stuff only when given as presents.

Have 'prioritised' paying bills, weekly food shop, DS's activities when younger- swimming lessons/ football etc.

Save every month for Christmas and birthdays.

Low cost/ no cost socialising: Have DS's friends round for tea. I go for daytime coffees rather than going out in evening. Lots of use of public library, parks & playgrounds. Ds's play a lot of computer games and are very aware they don't have as much money as their friends.

It's just the way it is. We are used to it. But we have had and still have lots of trauma in our lives so we are grateful, on the whole, to live peacefully and quietly.

OP you must remember people on the internet are full of shit. It’s always amusing to note that if mumsnet posts were factual, the entire 1% (and then some) would be on here judging by the amount of people who supposedly earn over £100k. Many people raise children on low to medium incomes.

We do have a joint income of over £100k but we aren’t rolling in cash.

My salary is dire! I shop around for absolutely everything. Childcare I used the tax voucher scheme and I never get my nails done x nights out are rare but I do manage holidays.
i never lend on credit cards either never borrow what you can’t afford to payback. Take my kid museums etc and look for low cost days out and use vouchers whenever I can.

I was a single mum and brought up my DS on benefits as he is autistic. He's 23 now so cost of living was much lower, and there was more help in terms of benefits and council funded support. And credit was very easy to get - I had several credit cards so was never in a panic about being down to my last penny.

I didn't buy second hand but bought cheap clothes- Peacocks and Adams and later Primark. I cooked cheap meals and my parents helped out by having us for dinner a lot and bring meals and groceries around. We had no car but that was OK living in London and having free transport for dc and a discount card for cheaper bus travel. We had cheap holidays like Sun caravan holidays and youth hostels - we had a lot of fun on those. And some cheap European holidays on Easyjet and Ryanair. We had nice days out to museums and going to the London parks, and rail trips to the seaside with a railcard. We were members of a charity scheme that offered cheap theatre tickets to low income families, so we had nice trips to the theatre too.

When DS was diagnosed and got DLA, that increased our income and we could also get cheaper trips out as I would get a free carer ticket. We got a charity grant every year that would pay for a big present like a console, and he got a free laptop when they were providing them for low income families through a government scheme.

I have a council flat so rent was covered by housing benefit and council tax covered by council tax benefit. I would get a budgeting loan often and on a couple of occasions a community care grant.

What is a good income?

when dd1 was born back in 2005 our joint income was about £23k per year. We were young and life wasn’t particularly expensive. We lived cheaply and managed well. Brought a house when she was about a year old. Wages rose over the years but joint income was only about £35k until I went back to work full time about 5 years ago. It was easier going on mat leave with dd2 back then on a lower income than it would be now as tax credits topped up what I lost in earnings and we found we weren’t any worse off. Now we would be much worse off.

we budgeted well and managed for both dds to do plenty of clubs and activities. Holidays were cheap and we didn’t go abroad until they were 9 and 12, but we did plenty of fun things and I don’t think they missed out. Mumsnet is obsessed by high wages, we still aren’t high earners now by mumsnet standards (about £65k a year household income), but much higher than they were. Though we can afford to go abroad every year now and don’t need to watch the pennies in the way we used to we stop don’t feel well off, but I don’t think that really matters hugely. It probably helps that neither DH or I are from wealthy families so not used to that sort of lifestyle.

I’m a teacher and DH is self employed. Weirdly, we seemed to have way more disposable income when I was on a starting salary than now, even when you take the children into account.

We survive by:

• Cooking from scratch. DH is an amazing cook. Rarely have takeaways or lunches out.
• Running older cars.
• Mortgage is manageable thanks to equity built up in previous property.
• Buying the vast majority of things secondhand, even Christmas/birthday presents.
• DH working extra at weekends to pay for swimming lessons, a cheap U.K. holiday a year.

The biggest factor though is childcare. MIL does 80% of the week for our 2yo, including three meals a day for her, and DD1 has just started reception at the school in which I teach, in the next village; means free wraparound care. Without this, we would be in a heat or eat situation.

I don’t know how we’ll cope when DDs are teenagers. I guess DH will still be working weekends and I’ll have to do evening tutoring too.

I guess strict budgeting and prioritising our money. No more holidays, weekends away or treats for ourselves. We can’t afford to save anymore, we just live month to month and are really careful with money. We have one account for all bills and direct debits, I.e. mortgage, energy bill, council tax, nursery fees, car payment etc etc and one for any expenses like petrol, food, bits our little one. We keep a very small amount back for ourselves like phone bills, hair cuts, toiletries and essential new clothes.
We used to have a disposable income for new clothes, holidays, nice meals, we had a smaller house and we put away savings before we had a child. Now we just break even but we wouldn’t change it and can’t complain in comparison to other families that aren’t as lucky.
Hopefully childcare will become more affordable with the introduction of funding for nursery and we’re both working hard towards promotions at work so we can eventually earn more and maybe have a second baby.

DH earns 30k, I get carers, 3 kids. We're manage by cutting our cloth accordingly. We rent in a working class area, we limit after school clubs to school or affordable ones, I buy a mix of new and second hand and new is high street. Holidays are cheap and accommodation is free so we get help in that sense but means we only holiday in one place. Occasional bits of money from MIL but nothing massive. Some childcare occasionally on a need and sporadic basis. Neither of us drive. I'm sure my kids don't have the childhood my rich friends kids do but they're not being dragged up. I'm degree educated, currently doing a second one looking distance, I guess I'd be in circa 30k if I hadn't have had a disabled child and 60k would be a good wage from here. Not sure we'd do much differently

I spent many a years as a single parent if 3 DC. Even now, with DP, and 4 DC, we’re not on the greatest of wages. I’ve always prioritised food and rent, so once rent was paid I would buy decent food to cook from scratch. We holiday once every two years (in the uk), but do many free things throughout the year. I grew up in a middle class family who didn’t make anyone feel cared for. All my DC know they are loved, have time spent with them (talking, reading, whatever). Money does not make the world go round, love does! We live in a tiny, crowded house, but we’re all happy! My kids don’t really go without, they get what they need, but they appreciate I’m not going to spend hundreds on them each at Christmas. I start Christmas shopping on Boxing Day and bag some great bargains throughout the year. I’ve finished Christmas shopping now. The key is organisation, yellow stickers and to be proud of what you can achieve!

It's easy, you don't buy new stuff, resell everything they don't need anymore, reed them the same food you have.
Kids get slightly more expensive at school as there's more stuff they need which is harder to find 2nd hand. Secondary school is another big bump but they're also able to travel independently by then. Puberty is the worst as they grow out of every damn thing at the same time.
Anyway I was that kid on a low income, had to miss the school ski trip but that's about it.