AIBU to think we can afford 3 kids?

[wonderfulthingabouttiggersis]

Have have no village
both work ft combined earn shy of 120k
FT nursery is about £70 a for a 4 day week (that with the 30hrs, it’s how much they charge now) term time, outside is £60 a day.
4 bed house but a small new build one
already have a 7 seater
decent prospects are work. Both work 9/10
id have to go back FT
love our holidays but do hunt for a bargain
we don’t live in our forever home, will likely upsize when DM sells her home and move to a larger place with an annex for parents.
only way our mortgage will go is down (we’re On a high rate rn .14% about BBR

after tax and deductions (health and protection and pensions) we get just over 6.2k a month)
dh and I both want another BUT he thinks we can’t afford it.
All monthly except childcare and that’s difficult to work out monthly due to funding and term time contracts.
mortgage -£1200
protection £50
childcare- £180 a week but that will go down in January to £100
gas/ electric £130
council tax £150
phones £50
internet £40
food £500
subscriptions £20
credit card £100
we save £50 a month each and will start reclaiming child benefit to save that for them.

MN your straight talking.

AIBU to think he’s being over cautious and financially we’re ok financially

All this stuff is very much wants. You would obviously do fewer plane trips, fewer modern gadgets, everything. Every child you have, the fewer you can afford.

Never will I understand why people post with questions like this. No one knows or cares whether you can or should have another kid or not. Do what you want in life.

Not everyone who works in finance is an advisor, some design investments or manage product ranges.

i guess we’ve been quite fortunate that we’ve never really needed to, but obviously that’s not very prudent

you could’ve kept scrolling just you took time out of your day to comment

Yet another one of these posts.

The entire question is pointless. Some people earn a third of that and have 6 perfectly happy and healthy kids which they feed, clothe and entertain adequately. Others choose to send their kids to private schools, buy them ponies and feed them foie gras for breakfast.

Of course you can afford a third child on 120k if that’s what you want. Your income puts you in the top 6% of families in the UK. Do you think 94% of families need to stop at two children?

Yep.

that’s actually the perfect way of looking at it

Do you never have household repairs, replacements, garden costs? Even small ones cost, and larger ones loads.

We have done a full huge renovation the last 5 years, but I still have loads of smaller but still cost adds up stuff to do this year. Old garden fence needs replacing at the back, shutters need sanding and repainting, so does balcony. The attic needs more insulation to help with heat loss. Leak in cellar was sorted a few months ago at €€.
Large Household things must need replacing at some point also like washing machine breaks or lawnmower, or you add a shed.
How much do to save monthly or spend on these kind of things?

Have you included day trips, Christmas, school trips etc in monthly costs? My Ds doesn’t even attend uniform school but thing list of things he needs for September is at least €250 to buy new. Some things he already has, but surely kids grow and need various things for school, sports clubs, other activities over each year and that’s extra per extra child.

Food costs of £500 for 4 is pretty low now. It will only increase over the next 5 years as prices increase and children grow and eat more. Even if you just divide now by 4, that’s £125 extra per extra mouth to feed

Thank you! this is my whole point.

Oh I think that you do!

We’ve never had any big house expenses, our house is new so everything is fairly new. If something comes up we’ve been paying it as and when from our salaries

its gone up loads, we used to spend like £60 a week and now it’s never below £100- I still feel like we waste a lot though.

That if we don’t wise up and budget more that would be foolish and more children means needing to be more savvy.

i guess we’ve been really lucky. Our mortgage was once much lower so we’ve always had a fair amount of disposable income

Looks like you can afford it. It be more concerned about two parents working full time, and needing it to sustain your lifestyle and spreading your time even thinner with a third.

I could work PT and we could afford it but I don’t really want to as it will set me back career wise

Considering there is only £700/800 left over on almost full time salaries it doesn’t sound like there is a huge amount of wiggle room for you to reduce to part time without hugely shaking up your budget. Certainly not part time with another child and no reduction in what you currently spend.

If I reduced my hours then yeah we’d definitely need to tighten our belts, but we’d still be able to cover all or our mandated expenses

Are you sure £180 a week will be the maximum for a nursery in future?
Most people we know are paying £80-95 a day for full time nursery (not London). So more like £450+ a week

The maths is too bitty, lots of drip feeding (albeit unintentional, I realise). Just pop it all into MSE’s budget tool. Make sensible predictions for the future about rising childcare costs, etc., and you’ll have your answer.

However, the high-level version says you can comfortably afford it.

We stopped at 2 for (my) health reasons - but as it’s turned out it’s been the best ever as a lot of the things cautioned about on this thread have panned out.

Both dc have extensive health and mental health issues which have required a huge amount of parental time and money (to pay for private counselling etc) and I can now only work part time and had to give my up my 6 figure salaried job in the City.

Both dc are now at private school which we can afford as only 2 - we can also afford very nice holidays. None of this would have been possible if we’d gone for three and Dh and I don’t regret our decision for a moment.

Yeah they provided some illustrations of cost in light of new funding and the fee increase to fund it.

it used to be £50 a day now it’s £60. Lunch is £5 a day and after school long session £10

Fees are almost always increased yearly, so I wouldn’t put a max figure projecting forward a few years.

My kids have been there for 5 years and this is the only increase. They’ve a price fix promise and fees won’t be reviewed now for at least 3 years, likely 5. We’re very very lucky with them. It’s linked to a primary school and the best high school in the area and they have wonderful facilities too

^ my friend is a governor

Never will I understand why people respond like this...

I'm really not clear on how you're only paying £180 a week. Are your kids only in nursery 2 days a week? And if you had 2 kids you'd be paying double that.

Anyway, like others have said you need to input everything into a spreadsheet to truly know the answer you're seeking.

The responses related to a child with a disability are very odd to me. The chances are this won't happen. If everyone planned for a loss of a job, broken relationship, car crashes, disabilities etc etc, no one would ever have kids