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.

If you need to ask you can't afford it so...

I am a single parent on £105k
my ex on £175k plus bonus circa £40k

and no one is living the life of Riley! Yes very comfortable but we both gulped at the fee increases (and he pays substantially more!)

That’s a bit silly!

im finding your replies unnecessarily goady.

that school in particular performs exceptionally well, and advertise on the radio so I will admit i was curious and looked them up, I then referenced the school as part of a conversation upthread when someone didn’t know such ‘cheap’ private schools existed

im finding your replies unnecessarily goady.

that school in particular performs exceptionally well, and advertise on the radio so I will admit i was curious and looked them up, I then referenced the school as part of a conversation upthread when someone didn’t know such ‘cheap’ private schools existed-
oops posted twice

Heavens
I was confused because you’d said you’d looked in to private schools but ruled it it as “cost prohibitive”

I didn’t realise that actually you are fundamentally “against” private schools as you now say

apologies 😦

Weird stance to have on anything

Is the 100k net or gross? That would make a huge difference! If net, with a mortgage of £1300, I really can’t see how you would be struggling.

Two things can be true at the same time, you can not agree with private schools and faith schools (which I’ve said consistently) and also look into a specific one. They do perform really really well, so i will admit i was dazzled by the academic performance

It's gross. We are doing OK but not exactly living without watching the pennies. I think it's the increase in the cost of food that has made it more difficult.

Where do you live?

your mortgage is the same as mine, mine rocketed after rate hikes, so will come down soon.

income is a bit higher but I think hugely confirms where you live

We have a take home of around 4.5K and our mortgage is 1300. We go on holiday once a year and drive a 10 year old car. We've never been able to eat out go to expensive places and our eldest paid for own driving lessons and uni top ups. We have 3. Youngest is 14. I wouldn't be without them. They are great fun. Plus they have learned to be frugal and stand on their own two feet.

And you dismissed because “cost prohibitive”

The Islamic schools? Well no i dismissed on various fronts, faith school being numero uno, private being 2 (although this school does have ofsted inspections so a small positive) but I don’t believe that specific school to be cost prohibitive but most others (admittedly I looked because of this thread) the term costs are the year costs quoted above so most certainly cost prohibitive, which is perfectly fine by me as I don’t really agree with private schools. I don’t really see your hyper fixation on this.

its like you’re trying to get a ‘gotcha’ moment, same with the private health

How bizarre

literally all iam saying is that private school (even the very cheap muslim school that is circa £6k a year inc VAt) s not feasible for 3 children on your income.

Which is not big deal at all because you don’t believe in private school anyway!!

So I am a bit confused why taken such grave offence

I will hide thread and leave you to it. You are embarking down ivf tests and that needs to e where your energy is channeled. All the best

Those are really important life lessons imo

Meeting with a fertility clinic isn’t quite embarking on ivf but sure

it was your belligerence with it I found strange. Insisting i wasn’t Muslim when I’ve never mentioned it. All very odd

Please note that there are other items necessary for students’ education which must be paid for. These items include uniforms, books, trips and public examination entries.

Doesn’t this mean that £4.5 x 3 including trips and uniform trips and uniforms or indeed any of the extras are not included?

Yes I misread

I've got 3 kids under 10. We do have debts. Between us we earn about £85k gross. Our mortgage is only £500 and we have a lot of debt due to past illness and covid related business shitshow. So we pay out about £700 per month in repayments. We're doing fine. Planning on going to America to stay with family next year, so sticking to the uk this year. Kids do all the hobbies they want. They have lovely birthdays and we have nice days out all the time and we're putting a bit away in savings each month. We could definitely cut back but I think it would be a struggle on under £65k household income a year, especially as they get bigger and we could do with a bigger house.
People easily live on a lot less but I think it just depends on what's important to you.

Ah, OK. I can well believe it in that case! We have 3 children and are on almost 100k net. That’s obviously plenty of money, and I know we are very fortunate, but mortgage and childcare are just under 3k each per month, so it doesn’t feel as huge as it feels like it ought to!

ETA, am aware that such expensive childcare is short term, and mortgage could be cheaper, and we are very privileged - I’m not claiming to struggle in any way!

@Allthegoodnamesaregonegone Fine for 3 children, especially as you seem like a real bargain hunter and very careful with money Op. There won’t be much going in to savings but you’re very much of the view that children shouldn’t be handed a silver spoon, so again… not an issue.

Private schooling out of the question though but given that was never on your horizon anyway.

All in all, modest holidays and homes and a very “on it” parent re budgeting…. 3 children completely doable and vaguely maintain your current way of life

good luck!

If you read the updates, the OP decided to take the plunge but is struggling to conceive.

Completely and utterly subjective. Also, whereabouts is 'not london'. Housing prices will still vary massively between West Sussex and rural Wales.

From my perspective, we earn 150kish and have one child. I very much enjoy our holidays and ability to save so while we wouldn't starve or be unable to pay our bills with another child id have to make sacrifices to afford it