Young couple cannot afford a family on 100k per year!

[dottiedodah]

All subjective of course.Young couple feel they are unable to afford a family ,With lots of expenses .YABU they should just save and keep going .YANBU if they want children then they would have to cut back .Apologies DM link!

This will be wildly unpopular but these two annoy me less than the people who are shocked that children cost money and expect their lives to not change despite having kids. Childcare has been expensive since I was a kid and I’m a dinosaur.

So at least they are being realistic.

I think that’s sensible though. They can’t provide the type of lifestyle that they want to provide their children. They’re not saying that no one can afford to have dc on their wages.

If they really wanted kids then they'd find a way like everyone else does

Most of us aren't renovating cottages in Sussex though and are prepared to cut our cloth to suit which a lot of couples don't want to do these days and complain therefore that they "can't afford" children and don't want to sacrifice any of their lifestyle to have them so would rather blame others/the state of the economy/anyone but themselves

(Single parent raising 3 children on a lot less than £100k including twins in full time childcare so I know all about the cost of childcare fees)

I'd be embarrassed splashing that all over a national newspaper.

They're too self-obsessed to be parents, not willing to sacrifice anything.

And I am not paying the DM to read the article in full either!

I think it’s much better than people who have a baby and don’t plan how to pay for it and just expect the government to support them. We earn a bit over 100k and we couldn’t afford a baby without big sacrifices due to things like Student loans and pension payment

Nw22 · Today 18:14

I think it’s much better than people who have a baby and don’t plan how to pay for it and just expect the government to support them. We earn a bit over 100k and we couldn’t afford a baby without big sacrifices due to things like Student loans and pension payment

So are you saying that low earners shouldn't have babies?

I wish they put individual salaries as 2x £50k salaries bring home more than 1x £100k salary.

• Bills £3,000
• Nursery £1,500
• Commuting £600

Even if they were on one £100k salary, contributing 10% to their pension, they'd have £900pcm as free spending money. Not amazing, but not terrible either. If they both earn £50k with a 10% pension contribution then they have £1,400pcm as spending money.

They just need to budget.

To be fair to them it's about expectations. They probably thought with an income of 100k that they would live a very comfortable life. And they can but the nursery years are more brutal than they have ever been. After student loans and pensions assuming it's equally split, they probably take home about 5-5.5k. if you have a baby, you need to fund your maternity leave and find approximately 2k a month in nursery fees or earn less if you drop hours. If they work in London that's another 1k commuting and travel and maybe 1-1.5 on a mortgage. It's easy to see how it disappears.
I'd rather people looked at costs before they have a shock once they have the baby.

We have an income of just over £100K and we can only afford one. Obviously, people can do more with less and maybe I’m just not sacrificing enough. Or what I actually mean is, when we take all the things we need to save for (pensions, care should we need it, supporting DC with university costs, a deposit etc), we can only afford one. We live within commutable distance to London. It’s not just as easy as move north as we have jobs where we are and even though we’re commutable to London, housing is relatively cheap and about the same price as housing near family in the north.

We have friends on a marginally higher income in central London that can afford two kids. They’ve had huge help with a deposit for a London property, no childcare costs and no student loan repayments. They have NHS pensions, will likely get substantial inheritances and so can easily save for two kids to go to university or for a deposit because they have much lower monthly outgoings. We have friends in the north on a much lower income with two kids but they aren’t planning on saving for a house deposit or any future care needs. So it’s all relative and depends on where you started and what you want to provide for your child(ren). I can’t really get worked up by people realising children are expensive before they have them and realising they might not be able to provide for them as they would like.

If you disable JavaScript in your browser you can read it for free 😌 a bit of a faff but not too hard once you know how

I can’t read the article as it’s behind a paywall but ultimately I’d say on 100k if you cut back on outgoings you can afford a kid. I suspect they don’t want to go without the nice things in life. Which is fine, people can prioritise nice clothes and glossy hair if they want but please don’t moan about it. Their take home pay must be 5k a month 🤷‍♀️

I can't read it as it is asking me to subscribe to the Daily Mail (not happening!)

Is that new? Are you all secret DM subscribers??

Genuinely not looking for a disagreement, but I’m just a bit bemused by this.

Putting whether they can actually afford to cut back on things to one side, surely this is actually a very responsible attitude for parents to have. Working out a budget to make sure they can actually afford the children they are planning on having, rather than blindly ploughing into it and then realising they can’t afford them.

Actual income numbers aside, it’s a shame more people don’t have this attitude.

I can't read the article as it's behind a paywall, but we live in a very naice town, two kids, on about 70k combined income. So I'm not sure why they can't manage?

Actual income numbers aside, it’s a shame more people don’t have this attitude.

I think "actual income numbers" are central to this entire discussion though.

£4.99 a month for silly clickbait like this 😭

These articles always boil down to “we can’t afford to have a baby without making some adjustments to our current lifestyle”.

I'm bringing up 2 kids on a quarter of that. My granny was a SAHM of14 kids, my granda was the caretaker at the local football club.

The couple in that article are a pair of attention seeking idiots.🙄

These articles always boil down to “we can’t afford to have a baby without making some adjustments to our current lifestyle”.

This is exactly why DH and I are not having children. You always find ways to afford it when you have no choice. I had a lovely childhood being raised by minimum wage parents. My parents were like ships passing in the night until we were old enough to be left home alone for a few hours. Unlike my parents, we aren't prepared to reduce our outgoings or change our relationship to manage it. I don't think DH would survive the stress of managing on one income either.

They have considerable outgoings ,which is fine .They seem sensible ,but renovating a cottage in Sussex is expensive so they have made a choice ,Just seems they want to have their cake and eat it! On the plus side they have some years before their fertility runs out

No one should need to give a reason for not having children. Having children or not are totally valid choices.
I wonder though why you would have to manage on one income. Many families have two working parents. Yes, there's some maternity time but that can be as brief as you want it to be.

Posters are always saying you shouldn’t have dc if you can’t afford it so that’s what some are doing.

100k after pension deductions is not a huge amount when you factor in housing & childcare. Yes they could move somewhere cheaper but they may not get jobs there etc.

are all your kids in full time childcare? How do you afford it for 3 kids?

Unfortunately it's because certain people prioritise different things and don't want to change their lifestyle to accommodate children. People have always raised children on far lower incomes without issues, even in expensive areas - in this case they obviously have a money pit of a house and want to spend on that rather than having a more modest housing situation

I can't read the full article but it sounds like the Daily Fail is just trying to whip their readers into a frenzy and get loads of publicity.

I think they are being sensible in that they have an idea of how they would like to raise their children + what quality of life they would like to have and realizing their wage just doesn’t reach for that.

it’s a lot a better to realize that. Having kids in an environment that’s not the one you want to have them in is probably not the best option and sometimes not having them to,at least, keep the quality of life you have, might, in fact, be best/better.

That’s exactly why I am on the fence and might stay on the fence until my fertile years run out (in 15 years time) to the point I might not have kids.

I am on a similar wage as the couple solo, and in a pretty good economic situation, and yet, there are so many things to factor in when choosing to have a kid that honestly with the cost of things, 100k/year wage just doesn’t seem to be that much to both provide everything you want to provide + having the personal quality of life you want to have.

Personally I grew up in a dirt poor family who yes, managed to survive having kids on minimum wage but honestly there was many times in my life where I had hoped my parents had considered finances when choosing to have kids, and also many times where it was apparent that there was some grudges being held about the quality of life/money my parents had to give up by having kids and being financially responsible for us and our needs.

Personally unless I am 100% sure I can provide the quality of life I want for both myself and my (potential) child(ren), without having to sacrifice one or the other, I won’t have them. And I don’t feel bad about it because having kids isn’t the be all/end all of life and I know full well the difference it makes to be born by parents who are just surviving as is or by parents who have the means and tools to provide a child with what they need (on all levels) and I think sometimes if you love children, choosing not to have them despite wanting them is the best course of action.