Is this really true about cost of having a child?

[Childcostss]

Me and dh want a baby in the next year and have started to ttc. We have saved 10k to pay for childcare costs and felt pretty confident that given the new funding, this would cover it all before school starts. We’ve estimated we will need around 600 a month for clothes, food, trips out etc when he or she starts school. We thought this was a high estimate… but, chatting with friends over the weekend some were saying age 1 to 5 is the worst (all the costs of car seats and furniture etc and childcare)… others said they felt it got FAR worse when school started.

This has worried me a bit as I want to go part time after maternity leave but dh doesn’t earn well (less than 30k) and no prospect of earning more in the role he is in. It’s just made me apprehensive… I don’t want to be permanently skint but I’m also 34 and don’t want to wait too long either!

Very optimistic of people to think that current promises.will actually happen......

There are so many variables on cost . You cut your cloth accordingly .

My Ds has a second hand cot tbh barely slept in it anyway . He co slept with me and could climb out at 15 months.

we had lots of clothes from a nearly new shop as a baby … food b/ feeding.

if you can do compressed days and Dh does collection those days can cut costs .

we did water babies however you can also normal swimming sessions , play in the park is free .

you work it out what your priorities are.

It’s not something which has just been put forward as a policy idea, yes then perhaps more understandable if didn’t come to fruition. This is something we’ve been promised, is already being rolled out etc and people have planned their lives around. Yes only the ignorant think it means the guarantee of a childcare place being available or that they won’t have to pay too up fees as most of us are used to paying with the current 3 year funding. However if any party were to now remove the funding there would be an absolute uproar

Op don't worry about it too much. You'll make it work.
I worked part time and I did lots of free stuff or very cheap stuff. You'll realise how much there is available once you have dc. There are playgroups which cost a couple of quid, libraries and museums are free and run activities, parks, forests and beaches are free.
Mine did a couple of clubs a week which cost a bit but most of the stuff we do is low cost.
You can buy clothes and shoes in the sales or from inexpensive shops.
You can use vouchers and special
Offers.
If you can afford a comfortable home and meet your family's basic needs, then you can make it work.

This is so true!

Primary school years are the cheapest IMO. Preschool years there is all the equipment and childcare. High school years there are hobbies (a basic level musical instrument no longer cuts it) and tutoring and electronic equipment and certain clothes and driving lessons. And then there is University. Don't get me started on how much university costs.

Our nursery fees for 9-4 with the 15 funded hours are about £1,200 per month, they don’t accept the 30.

I also think that we could probably spend £600 a month on extra child things - wrap around care, holiday clubs, birthday parties every weekend, clothes, uniform, ballet, swimming lessons, music lessons, extra cost of holidays, birthday, Christmas, days out etc… the list goes on. Also berries, my two have eaten entire punnets of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries just today 😂

Christ how do you think people on benefits and low incomes cope? They have more babies than anyone. You just manage.

Depends where you are in the country but assume that childcare will be at least £1000 per month for 4/5 days. The ‘free’ hours in a private setting (eg not a council run place like joined onto a school) don’t actually cover the full cost of the hours so there will be still additional cost. And remember those hours only cover term time so unless you work in education and have school holidays, you’ll need to fund holiday clubs.

I think there’s all sorts of issues with the 30 hours from 2YO promise I would be surprised if it gets rolled out…

By not rising with inflation it will effectively become worth less and less over time til barely worth anything . it's not even properly funded now.

I’ve got 3 kids to adulthood/teens without savings of £10000. You just live accordingly. Babies actually need very little essentials and you have 9 months to buy.
Teenage years are definitely the most expensive for unplanned costs.

I'd say it's not the early years/school age that is the most expensive (bar childcare, but that's at least a fixed amount per month) it's teens that cost a bomb. You don't want them to miss out on stuff with their mates, clothes, phones, trainers, they eat as much (if not more) than your average adult. Secondary school uniform, residential trips and leisure activities they actually want to do are all very expensive. Trips to the park just don't cut it for a 14 year old.

We're just about to start this journey with my eldest, the costs are astronomical!

I've spent about £1000 on school trips this academic year (for two children). Two residential trips plus smaller trips.

Can get a lot of baby and children's things second hand in car boots and charity shops. Also eBay or Facebook marketplace. Churches often run cheaper baby and toddler groups. Babies can snack on cheap things like rice cakes. You could make some purees while still pregnant and freeze them for six months. If you have a child then you will probably spend less on holidays, hobbies and evenings out so can make some gains.

Full time childcare at a private nursery for 1 child was nearly 900/mth for us. This included all food, but we needed to buy nappies at an extra cost of a pack every 3 weeks. It did get cheaper quickly as we managed to potty train him between 1.5-2 and so i stopped supplying nappies.

I strongly suggest you follow baby led weaning and wean him on the same food you’d eat at home. It will cut costs significantly. To help stop cooking with salt and just add yours at the table if needed.

Childcare costs are insane but if you work part-time you can avoid a lot of them.

I haven't spent anything like £600/month on my child for the first three years. Nearly everything was secondhand. You don't need to spend £2k on a travel system. Food isn't much higher than before, dc eats small portions. More like £200/month I reckon. I'm a sahm without childcare costs.

The soft fruit cost made me laugh because it’s true - small fortune!

In all honestly, whatever stage you are at you just end up spending what you have, you are clearly not going to be in abject poverty so I wouldn’t worry. Not even being able to buy enough food for yourselves and living in a damp infested flat is a world away from whether or not you can afford baby swim classes, 5 punnets a week of organic strawberries, baby yoga etc or driving lessons/help towards uni for your teenager. With the latter, if you can you can and if you can’t then it doesn’t really make a huge difference. My teenagers got a job and paid for their own driving lessons and cars. Having just above what you need for essentials really isn’t too bad a place to be in i.e. can afford enough decent food and clothes, garden toys from marketplace, the non expensive school trips, a birthday treat, transport to get to the nice park, cubs, general kids swimming lessons etc. Past those little extras I’ve really not found there to be a huge relationship between what we’re spending and their happiness

I find this thread so strange - the OP's partner is paid less than £30k and the OP is talking about the possibility of going part/time in the future, and everyone is saying it will be fine. I'm not saying that it won't be, but surely it would be more helpful to the OP to be able to properly consider childcare and all of the other associated costs.

Not a joke in our house unfortunately a huge chunk is spent on the berries and the peaches, nearly everyone I know with kids wishes they owned a blueberry/strawberry farm ha ha.

In reality though there is never a perfect time to have kids, regardless of how much you earn there will always be months where you need to penny pinch a bit more or when you have unexpected costs/realise the car seat or pram you spent a fortune on is actually a bit crap and you need a new one/ the kids break something, you need a professional carpet cleaner etc etc. You make it work somehow. If you can learn to cut your cloth accordingly most of the time you'll be able to muddle through the times where you're a bit skint.

To be honest we didn’t find it made much difference whether worked full time or part time financially, once tax, student loans, childcare, commuting costs and having no time to budget/search for bargains etc was taken account of. I suppose if you are on a super ambitious career path e.g aiming to be a consultant or want a pension that will enable you to be cruising round the world then obviously you have to decide what your priorities are

Our primary school age children do cost a fair bit. Per child:

£250/month wraparound childcare - 3x week each

Activities - £100/month for my older one who really likes being busy, this includes swimming, martial arts, two school clubs, musical instrument and Beavers. It's a lot less for the younger one who doesn't like organised activities as much

Food - really hard to estimate, I agree with PP that we make more of a conscious effort to eat well and a variety, we eat a lot more things like salmon and soft fruit, also one child has a dairy allergy so we spend on substitutes. I would say it's probably at least £100 more on food per month

Clothes - we get a lot secondhand but even so maybe £20/month, including school uniform. Less for the younger one as he obviously gets hand me downstairs

Then there's toys, books, misc technology (yoto player, tablet etc), birthday presents for friends, holidays etc

I don't think £600/month is far off actually.

Of course a lot is discretionary - we pay a lot for activities relative to many families.

And also a lot is in how you count these things - I see at least one person has said they don't have childcare costs because they are a SAHM, I personally would count the loss of that salary as the cost of the childcare but everyone calculates these things differently

Most people who have babies don't save for them you will be fine. In terms of childcare fees, use a childminder they don't charge top up fees in most areas so the funding is a actually funding. As others have said it term time inly so works out at 20 hoursish a week.

£100/150? Sometimes there's a charity day or a school trip to contribute to. Don't tend to require much new school uniform once the term starts. Days out and treats on the weekend tend to be low key unless it's half term or holidays. Your budget is equivalent to £150 a week!