AIBU to ask how anyone affords to have children?

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DP and I are in our early 30s and people keep asking when we're going to have children, we're on the fence but we can't work out how anyone on our salaries can afford to have children. We're aware time is running out as it were (both my mum and nan hit perimenopause by 40 so aware that it's looming).
Am I missing something obvious?
My salary is roughly £1800 after tax, NI, pension and student loans. DP's is similar. Full time childcare for one child would ruin us financially at £400pw around here (and that would involve one of us working less hours to do pick ups as it closes at 6pm, so one salary would drop, the only way I could make it work would be to do 4 days work over 5 days).
We don't have £400pw spare after mortgage (£1300), bills, food and transport (£1500 if we cut to no eating out or buying lunches and really budget). The money we currently have spare per month (realistically this is a few hundred, but if we cut back to the bare bones as above it would be almost £800) is mostly eaten up in saving for small emergencies, holidays and events (e.g. The clutch went on the car recently, the washing machine needed repairing the next week, then it was MIL birthday the following week).
Benefits calculator (I never thought we would ever have to claim benefits) says we would be entitled to £18pw.
The best case scenario seems to be us being about £1000 short every month and having no spare money for any unexpected costs. We are trying to save at the moment but don't have enough to even get through mat leave.

So as not to drip feed:

• We have no parents or family living anywhere near us that could help with childcare, we had to move away from family for work and then further away again to be able to afford a house.
• 23 years left on the mortgage on a small 3 bed mid terrace in a relatively non expensive area.
• We have one second hand car that we own outright and share.

they are super expensive the first couple of years. However, you might be able to get 30 hours chikdcare from sept 25 which would make it more affordable. Not every nursery is doing it though. Also have you worked out your childcare cost in your OP with the tax free childcare account? Uiu out in 80% of the few and gov top it up by the remaining 20%. So my nursery fee is just under £700 but I only pay £520 of that.

In terms of pick up could one of you not start work early and do pick up and one of you do drop off and start later?

One of you will have to become a SAHP, and another find a higher paid job, this is probably the only way it would work.

No sadly you havent missed anything.

Its why DH and i were/are obsessed with increasing our salaries. And this wouldn't help you but its also why we stayed in london in a flat (and want to buy another flat if we do upsize) rather than move to a commuter town for a tiny terraced house so that we are near MIL and work.

OP a London mumsnetter on a household income of £120k told me she was struggling on £2k mortgage and £2k childcare out of £7k household income . We have that same salary (our mortgage is £1256 though starting from July) so that is not very encouraging. We have some fertility problems (am 31 and haven't used contraception for 8 years) so i do tell myself not to get anxious over something that may or may not happen.

Childcare is crippling. That does seem incredibly high though, would a childminder be cheaper?

Have you looked into what govt help is available with childcare costs? I think it's improved since mine were little.

When ours were young DH and I worked flexible hours, so instead of FT nursery, we could work our hours so that we both had a day off in the week. No employer can reasonably refuse a flexible working request.

We sort of just made it work. After my maternity DP stayed home for childcare weekdays and worked weekends for a while. Then I changed job and got a salary boost that way. We remortgaged and increased the term to reduce the monthly outgoings before the 3 year old funding was available.

They don't cost much when they are little. You can buy a lot second hand and they don't eat much. You get child benefit as well so don't forget to factor that into your calculations.

What line of work are you in? Would one of you be able to change jobs so that you work evenings / weekends so that you wouldn't have to be pay childcare?

It is difficult.

People these days can afford to have kids if either;

• they have very well paid jobs
• they have family that do childcare
• they have very low outgoings and manage to survive on one salary while the other parent stays home

If you want to have kids, you might need to think outside the box and make a big lifestyle change. Possibly move to an even cheaper area? Rethink your jobs / careers?

I know it shouldn't be that way, but it is.

There is an interesting thread on here about a Guardian article, about people on £60-120k per year who are struggling to afford to live.

Lots of comments from people on much, much lower salaries who say they have 3 kids and manage fine.

And a lot of the time have a much nicer, more relaxed lifestyle than the people working stressful jobs for way more money, but paying loads out in childcare.

That thread would be worth a read, I think.

But yeah, without having family to help with childcare costs, I would say your best bet is to live in a cheap area, and arrange your jobs / careers so that you don't have to use much paid childcare.

So you’re both earning something like £28k?

Would you be entitled to any benefits if one of you was PT to care for the child?

it’s utterly shit OP.

Can you extend your mortgage term. I know its not great but you can overpay after your childcare years are over.

You are in your early 30s and its quite conceivable that we would be working until our late 60s or later. My MIL took 33 years to pay off her mortgage due to a divorce but honestly even if she had taken 5 more years it wouldn't have mattered much as she can't afford to retire until state pension age.

To answer a few comments - the £400pw is before the tax free saving but the total calculation has assumed we'll get 20% towards that (I don't really understand the tax free childcare but I assume we'll only pay £320pw and the gvmt pays the rest).
We both have office jobs - HR and IT - that require us to work the business core hours so flexibility at work is very limited.
Moving to a cheaper area would mean adding another half our each way on the already long commute on our office days, and widen the dilemma of "do we look at nurseries close to my work or your work or home?".
It all seemed affordable a few years ago when the mortgage interest rate was less than 2% and gas and electric was £60 a month instead of £250 a month and insurances hadn't jumped up.

We foolishly fixed (4 years left on that) and the earky repayment charge is eye watering but we have thought about doing this on the remortgage.

If you really want a child you will make it work. What will you get while on maternity leave, contractual or statutory maternity pay? It’s likely you’ll get less than your current salary anyway, but you’ll have fewer expenses (as you won’t need to travel to work or have any related expenses), you’ll get child benefit and perhaps even a bit of top-up from Universal Credit.
When you return to work you may get free childcare, or perhaps you find another mommy with a child your baby’s age and you can take turns looking after both children while the other mother is at work (this assumes part time work for both and flexibility with the working days). You’d work part time so will earn less but, again, you’ll have child benefit and perhaps UC. Mortgage rates should go down a bit more so it will be more affordable. Perhaps you can remortgage and extend the term to make the mortgage cheaper for a while. Lenders can also agree to a period when you pay interest only. DH’s salary may go up. Those first few years are hard but you’ll find a way.
A friend of mine left it too late to have a second child for financial reasons. She never had that second child. You cannot imagine her regret…

That's right. I'll have a play around with the calculator and see if part time works out better thanks

If you have a 3 bed can you take in a lodger?

I dunno how much rent is where you live but it would be a few hundred at least.

If you are entitled to Uc . You would then be eligible for help with childcare

Honestly this makes me feel better. Women at work keep saying "in my day we just made it work" while also admitting their husbands earnt enough that they could take a few years off work, or that their mortgage was so small they could afford it on one average salary, or that they had free childcare.

I couldn’t afford it. I mean, we could technically afford it based on all the calculations but several major life altering things happened at the same time around the time my oldest was born which resulted in a two parent two income household becoming a one parent no income household.

The mortgage went onto interest only. The car went for scrap. I cancelled everything I didn’t actually physically need - life insurance, home insurance, tv license, mobile phone went, things like that. The utilities went onto pre pay meters and I only heated one room. I used secondhand clothes bundles and reusable nappies. I was expecting to have a maternity leave but that went out of the window and childcare was an unaffordable dream so I went straight into any job I could find and the baby came to work with me. We did all sorts. We walked dogs, delivered newspapers, did leaflet drops, had regular cleaning jobs, I assembled greetings cards and other piecework, bought and sold all sorts online, mowed lawns, covered in friends shops and businesses for odd and ends of hours, did some editing work, all kinds of things. And yes, I also claimed milk tokens and got some benefits (not enough to cover the interest on the mortgage).

Just for the flip side of the coin. We were fine then, we are fine now, I’ve put back more into the system than I ever took out, now have 3DC and a dual income household (though still have never paid for childcare!). Things happen. If you want kids though, sounds like your situation is one in which I’d recommend putting all of your eggs into one basket.

Change career, work shifts so one of you is home all the time.

Or save up and then accept that the 3 years between end of maternity leave and reception class are going to be very thin, living on one salary.

Or look for a less expensive lifestyle, moving somewhere that housing and childcare are less.

I guess the pertinent question is do you want children?

if so you will make it work.

if you want children but don’t want to compromise life style, it probably won’t :)

It's very tricky. We earn similarly to you and are slightly older. We decided to move to a cheaper area, even though I don't particularly like it here... But it does mean we can survive on one salary and have been able to save a bit, so I can take a couple of years out of FT work (I can continue with occasional freelancing.)

If you can move or change your working setup I would look into that. It doesn't have to be permanent.

I agree. DW is SAHM and we're fortunate my salary covers everything. Happily, she would have preferred to be SAHM regardless; if not, we may have found a family cost prohibitive.

My rabbi did tell me her entire salary went on childcare and food while her DH's salary went on the mortgage. Her house was a 5 bed detached though not a 2 bed flat. My MIL worked freelance at home, no childcare with 4 kids and was in a 1 bed flat for 7 years with 3 kids but her dad helped her upsize to the house.

It wasn't easy for women of that generation but the main thing today is housing costs. If your mortgage was half of what it is, you could probably afford childcare.

I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with a stranger in the house while we have a baby, but have considered this for the run up to it. At the moment both spare rooms are home offices (we both wfh part of the week, the box room isn't big enough for two desks so that's my study and the spare room has a spare bed and DP's work desk) so we're weighing up the extra commuting costs vs the rent we would get for a room.

I was going to suggest the SAHP route too

The housing costs are our worst expense, but renting a similar house is even more expensive.
We did look at 2 beds but the price difference wasn't significant, we compromised on smaller garden/no parking and got a small 3 bed for the same price.
We need at least one spare room for wfh (but this in turn saves us a lot in commuting costs so swings and roundabouts I guess).