How much do you need to earn for 3 kids?

[Allthegoodnamesaregonegone]

When you don’t live in London and have very average expenses?

for arguments sake, I googled and saw the average mortgage is £1400
average heating for 4/5 people is £200 a month (British Gas website)

assume no ‘bad debts’ and no private school

id love another kid, if possible, but I do see on here often on the cost of a third and that being a large factor, so I’d like to understand what is the amount people think you need to earn pre tax to live comfortably with 3.

I didn’t say they needed to work whilst at uni.

Deciding not have a child because you can’t support them through uni and buying a first car is quite frankly ridiculous.

Why don't you want them working while at uni? So they have more time to go out on the piss ?

Yes the difference being but I wouldn't determine whether I should or could afford to have a child on being able to provide the ‘nice to have’ things.

Telling the OP to not have a child if they can’t afford uni or a car when an adult is perfectly capable of providing those things themselves is just silly.

But neither of these are essential costs at all! I’m one of six, all of us went to university and got loans to cover the cost

Were you entitled to max loans? Because my children won't be.

Yes there are several replies on this thread saying that

No not all. Some did open university, some went back as mature students, some lived at home etc etc. If it’s feasible then you go? If it’s not it’s really not a big deal!!

Well it’s a choice isn’t it? If you are desperate for three it may mean the lives of the other two are compromised. On balance we wanted to be able to offer good support to two
that was more important to us than having 3 children. You feel differently that fine its not right or wrong.

They assess all household income, if your YP doesn't submit NI numbers of the adults in the household they will only get minimum loan.

They can only borrow the maximum loan if your household income is under 25k, it is on a sliding scale. If your household income is over 65k then your YP can only borrow the minimum loan. That won't even cover accommodation.

Yes they can save up for it during sixth form, yes they can work part time whilst at uni. But it's still very hard to do on a minimum loan with no help from parents. It is expected that parents will top up.

I merely asked why not?

We’re not talking about “not having a child” though, we’re discussing having a 3rd child, which for many families will mean no help with uni/cars/deposits for 3 children, when most likely they would have had spare cash to help two kids.

There are posts on here saying they wouldn’t if they couldn’t support them through uni/driving! I’m merely stating that’s a bit far fetched.

That’s fine - if you’re happy living on the edge of just about affording stuff then go ahead, have 3 or 5 or 10!
But for us, we stopped at 2 because its nice to be able to not worry about an unexpected boiler breakdown or leak in the roof and know I still have resources to help and make life easy for the children I chose to have.

Sorry do you have me confused with another poster as I did not say anything about living on the edge.

I’m not referring to your posts sorry for any confusion.

Most kids don't have any help with uni, driving and house deposits though. It's not a right to have the bank of mum and dad pay for your driving lessons.

I'm sure it's nice to do it but it's not something you HAVE to do most people couldn't afford to do it even if they wanted to. Plus your kid needs to learn to be independent go out and get a job and pay for their own driving lessons like i did and I know many of my peers did. I'm 23 before someone accused me of being old and out of touch haha

I think that depends a bit where you live - we choose to live very rurally which isn't our teenagers fault, so yes, we will finance cars/lessons etc. There is no public transport round here, apart from the school bus. It’s partly selfishly as I’m so done being a taxi service!