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.

great! Good for you

Yes private schools for three children on this income out of the question

but I don’t want to derail the thread with that irrelevant debate

op…. You sound very budget conscious and careful with money. You would make it work fairly comfortably I expect. Have you made a decision yet?

Yes and I think even for one child on our income it’s probably not viable (at least in terms of what we commonly think of as private school) , given we’re paye and our gross and take home are v different. Common sense would indicate that so I don’t know why it’s constantly brought up.

yes we decided to go for it a while back. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’m one of those people who believe in divine timing. Both DH and I are now on the promo fast track within q1 of next year, that should take our income to about £7k after tax a month. Then our bonuses on top. So perhaps there’s a reason for everything

As they get older that £33k will need to rise substantially.

Depends. What’s the age gap between your older two and the possible youngest? Did you keep all their old baby clothes/pram/ toys etc?

Genders? Age gap? Will room sharing be ok or will you need to buy a bigger house to be comfortable?

If you’re prepared to reuse stuff and room share three will not be much more expensive than two

How do you manage on that?! We have no mortgage, and similar income, and was tight until very recently.

I’d be interested to know how comfortable it feels when they’re teens.

We have a 4 bed already so no sharing needed. Although some wfh optimising

ive kept everything. Would need a new infant carrier I think, but that’s like £200 tops.

pushchair, have a double already. Could get another single. That outlay doesn’t bother me, they are one off costs. Plus can get a pushchair second hand.

gap between one and two is 2 years and tbc on future gap but at least 4 years

that £50 a month was our contribution but we were also saving the child benefit for them. So it was £130 a month. We’ve now made it a nice even £150 and then an extra £25 in a junior sipp for them

Think it's combined.

Well we have to pay some back when we earn over 60k.

we've worked out this year it’s less than £300 which we’ll just pay that out of our savings

in 13 years would be about £24k and that’s not accounting any growth in the stocks and shares isa. The historic average for growth for them is 8%

my husband does, esp through his bonus scheme but his car scheme and some bonus into pension means this year is £300

So only a tiny fraction above £60k including bonus if only paying back £300. and you’re on £10k less. So total income circa £110k before tax.

Decent for 3, but as has been discussed as nauseam, private schooling out of the question (for even one child once hit secondary age - the sums my ex is paying for our 3 children is truly eye watering but 🤷‍♀️ he was desperate for them to go and now they are there…. I do agree that wonderful BUT annual spend of £72k “wonderful”? I’m not sure!) modest fairly comfortable life but presumably pensions and savings would take a big hit for a number of years during the tween and teen years because there wouldn’t be the spare.

Why does the conversation keep coming back to private school? OP says in her opening post NO PRIVATE SCHOOL. Less than 6% of UK kids go to private school, it’s really not a consideration for the vast majority of families, whatever their size.

I don’t think it’s about how much you need to earn. More how much disposable income do you currently have and what would get eaten up by the extra child. We have a high income, but our mortgage is also £2500 🤷‍♀️. I don’t think our income would be helpful to know. Considerations of the top of my head-

Childcare is obviously a factor, but with free hours these days it’s less problematic.

I don’t think the actual child cost us much more on top of the other 2 day to day.

Kids don’t really eat a great deal and most clothes would be hand me downs, so I think probably an extra £150 a month to cover food, clothes and activities. But it’s the big expenses that hit you - but these are completely optional 🤷‍♀️

Extra bedroom. 4 bedroom houses are not a quarter more expensive than 3 bedroom! They are astronomical!

Car - most won’t fit 3 car seats across if that’s what you need

Holidays- most don’t accommodate 3 kids and those that do are disproportionately more expensive

Well we’re all different aren’t we. Full time nursery with 30 hours funding is still £1300 for us. We have after school and breakfast club at school twice a week and I wing the rest at £160 a month. Our eldest does various activities that cost £150 a month. We then pay for a cleaner, like eating out and day trips and spend circa £12k on holidays a year and that’s currently with an infant and a free child’s place!

having a third would make a significant change to those finances. Double the nursery fees before I even start on everything else. We have a 4 bed detached but need to move as one is an office etc.

If I wanted a 3rd we could make it work, less holidays, kids sharing a room etc etc but we don’t want to. So I don’t really think anyone can answer the question. The point really is whether you can make your own lifestyle and finances work if you so badly want a 3rd. If I wanted to maintain my current lifestyle with a 3rd then I would probably want double my salary. Whereas others might spend less and be able to do it on another £20k.

i pressed “read all” of the OP’s posts and a good 50% are about private schooling 🤷‍♀️

Last year our income before tax was £123k (I remember because it has nice ring hahaha, and our mortgage expires this year so we had to provide this info)

but a chunk went into a pension, and the car deductible has meant it’s about £300 this year

pension would definitely not take a hit no way, the 14% we contribute (12% work 2% us would remain). Savings we’d still save but I imagine a bit less, childcare for another baby would be about £200 a month at the setting my eldest attended

our house is already a 4 bed house and we have an xc90 car already, so the big big outlays we have covered.

childcare would be c£200 a month for a baby in the setting my eldest went to.

holidays I think is where the biggest compromises would need to be made as you say!

thankfully due to rates coming down we’ve gone from a 5% rate to 3.78 % (i think) come down a lot so we’ll save about £200 on our mortgage