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

No my eldest is in reception. My youngest has 15 funded hrs which mean 2 free days a week, + 3 hrs spare we use as wrap to take his hrs to 6pm. in September the fees will increase to £60 a day. Lunch is £5 for youngest and free for eldest. We only pay lunch for him on funded days. And as we have 3 hrs as above, we then pay £10 for the long afternoon wrap for him on his other funded day.

eldest has wrap around 2 days a week at £10 a day

^hit send too soon. Bed time chaos

Youngest is in 4 days a week as dh and I both work 9/10 and have alternating lieu days.

Is your youngest in nursery just term time only? And no holiday childcare costs for your school aged child?

Yeah term time only for both.

there is holiday club at school for kids 4 and over, it’s £25 a day. I can send the youngest in school holidays at the full day rate. Which is why i said in the OP it’s quite tricky to Say the monthly cost, only really an issue in the 6 week summer hols. For instance he’s in now for 3 weeks out of the summer hols at 3 days a week. Likewise with eldest. Dh and I are doing 5 in 4 over the summer hols. We’re on holiday for one week. Dh has taken a weeks AL and my mum is visiting for a week. Dh has 40 days AL a year and I 30.

I think that you probably need to have a deeper conversation with your husband, which you are probably planning to do of course.

Your life seems pretty much perfect as it is, so rolling the dice again will always be a risk.

All your calculations and plans are for the easy and predictable part of childhood. Time is a huge factor, especially when the need to support children with home work or their general academic progress really kicks in. Then you will have three children, each with their own friends, interests and extracurricular activities, quite possibly in three different directions!

Then remember that needs are not always identified in early childhood - it is quite possible to have a learning need or medical condition become apparent later on in childhood, which has happened in my own family.

I was one of three and, being totally honest, rather wish that my parents had chosen to have two children instead. Each of us had times when our needs were overlooked in favour of another child who was at a critical stage, and this was with a full time SAHM. To be frank, they both seemed worn out with parenting by the time I was in my early teens and they still had another decade to go for my younger sibling!

Then ‘life’ happens - in my family’s case it was a huge financial crash obliterating their savings and one adult getting cancer while two of us were in primary school…

Finally, do take a serious look at the university costs threads. There was one where a Mumsnetter had two children going to Bristol at the same time and it was absolutely eye-watering! Student finance does not cover costs these days - some of the privatised halls of residence cost more than the maximum loan! The idea of parental contribution is baked into the model as the higher your income, the less your child can borrow. Apprenticeships will not suit everyone (there isn’t exactly an apprenticeship for every subject) and are pretty competitive in themselves. So you do need to plan for higher education support, as this is only going to get more expensive due to the problems in the university sector.

Yeah PP I think you’re right I need to have a conversation with DH, it’s probably because just generally he is terrible with money. That’s why he thinks we can’t afford it, but if he genuinely doesn’t want another child that’s a different question but his spending is frivolous

uni, I think we’ll need to have a cultural mindset shift in the UK as to who goes to uni, where that is and why. I think there’ll need to be a move away from uni far away as a rite of passage, just for the sake of it. By my count Lump sum wise, we’ll have about £20k for each child, if they are so inclined to go to Oxford of course that is only studied in a uni far away that’s what they’ll get. Although I think rather than fork out loads in rent, we may look at an investment property. My general advice would be to stay at home. We’re pretty close to some very good universities, and both our places of work offer degree apprenticeships which (providing we still work there) they’d have a significant advantage in getting.

life happening! Yeah that’s a scary one isn’t it, no matter what stage of life you’re at and it is rolling the dice.

for what it’s worth I was one of two and I wish I’d have another sibling, but that’s probably a large part to do with how we were raised

That wasn't my experience, as one of 4. My parents had an age gap relationship but my dad never seemed to be so much older than my mum. We all got pretty much the same level of attention even though they both worked pretty much fulltime throughout our childhood.

One sibling developed a hugely challenging health issue at the age of 7. It went away for a time but became an issue when they were 14. It massively drained my parents' resources but I never felt like I was treated as lesser because of it.

We were fortunate to grow up in the era of student grants so when 3 of the 4 of us went to uni, it wasn't a problem. None of us crossed over anyway.

@AnonyLonnymouse which of your siblings do you wish hadn't been born?!

You definitely could afford 3 children, a lot of the expenses posters are mentioning are wants versus needs, such as travel, days out, extracurricular activities, university/education expenses and social stuff. So, it then comes down to what you want life to look like and where your priorities lie. No one knows if you can afford the life you want with 3 children.

I have 4, and now they are older, they are SO much more expensive than I could have anticipated. However, a lot of those expenses (like braces, private ADHD assessments/treatment, travel costs, extracurricular activities, high level sport participation, going to friends parties, and additional life and income protection insurances to protect us) are optional. If we had to cut back, we would.

I will say though, that the time is an important point someone has raised. Now 3 of mine are old enough to have their own friends and activities, the juggle is incredibly tough. We have 3 afternoons each week where all 3 finish an activity at the same time across 3 different locations. We often need someone to take one of our children to their sports events, so definitely make sure you build quite a good village around you. We have no family, so it’s often other parents that will help us out. I often feel like I’m not giving any of them the quality time they truly need and deserve.

I’m not saying don’t have number 3, you are clearly set on it, but definitely be realistic that you won’t be able to provide for 3 the same life you will 2. This isn’t all negative, with having no immediate family, I think we were driven to have a big family to hopefully create a larger village for them!