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.

We used to bring home around £5000 per month between us and a mortgage of £1000, but I found bills high in a 4 bed house. Now we are down to one income, so hopefully we don't actually need that much! We are good with money, not flashy, don't waste. But life is expensive. I still have to pay for 3 lots of clothes they keep growing out of, and sports etc.

You both work time and full time childcare would be £200 a month?

^ also on the religious thing, it’s more ‘the uni experience’ isn’t a priority (ie drinking culture, coed living etc) but if my child got into Oxford etc and was desperate to go to study xyz then we’d use that lump sum towards that.

but generally speaking, and I say this as someone who got a degree for the sake of it and then stayed on to get several more, I think with loans as they are now, and as painful as the repayments are, uni, specifically going away for uni will stop becoming a rite of passage as it was for us. This is more so the case for certain subjects esp those that don’t directly lead to lucrative careers

Could you do it? On the basis of all you’ve said and your hopes / plans etc for the future…. Sure I see it being totally “enough”

For me, with what we are spending on our 3’s private education and savings so that they don’t need a uni loan plus a pot for each of them for a property deposit (or whatever!)…. Plus the type of holidays we enjoy. Absolutely not. Not even close.

That’s for another child. the childcare would be 3 days for a child under 2, and the funded hours would fully cover those 3 days.

I’ve just done the maths and it’s £240 before tf childcare for a baby and then after tf for all 3 would be £491.00

Fingers crossed for IVF then!

Teenagers
University

You didn’t even need to include university

just… teenagers

What type of holidays do you like?

Yes!

our time for treatment is still a little while out, but if you could put some positive vibes out to the universe for me! I’d be oh so grateful! :)

For 5 (and all three teens are now adult), our 10 day holiday in Costa Rica last year was £16k
then we did long weekend in NY (£7.6k)
and then 6 nights in air BnB in Broadstairs (£2700)

oh and next year we are paying for two of them to go on school trips (£860 and 1950)

Will do!

how old are you? How long been trying?

Well that sounds very nice!

imo we do similar hols but we pay a lot less… we saw a nice week in NY that I was oh so tempted to book last year, it was £2.5k for the Hilton in TS B and B with TUI.

we did Florida for 6k last year and will set us about about 7.5k this year, but we were more frugal this year to carry some holiday budget over

I’ve just turned 36 and calendar wise it’s probably been 14/15 months BUT we weren’t actively trying all those months (I had surgery so 2 months out for that, flu one month so didn’t try then, another illness month out, then DH was away for that time of the month another lol)

In contrast to @Runblebun we holiday closer to home. We typically have a week in Europe (~£5K for self catering in 3 bedroom house/flat, lots of cultural activities and nice lunch out every day but dinner at our airbnb) and a week in the UK (also self catering, cultural activities, nice lunch out) plus visits to the GPs who conveniently live in touristy locations, we spend ~£1.5 K doing that.

Id love your Florida tips OP. We went a few years ago on what was meant to be a one and done trip, spent a fortune, but we’ve ended up booking to go again next year and still spending over £10k (before even getting there!) it wasn’t designed as a budget trip to be fair, but no doubt we’d love to go again in future.

We got very lucky this year, an independent Ta has got us a deal that was £400 cheaper than Disney direct.

so we’re 10 days in a moderate and dining plan and 4 days at the beach. Half board at the beach and the dining plan basically makes it AI (but we do an aldi order for breakfasty bits too). We’re not big merch people, plus the kids are saving up £100 each for toys (about 150usd). So it should be really good and not break the bank entirely (so far we’re at 7k, flights hotels tickets etc) just need to sort transfers but will probably do lyft

That’s brilliant, I’ve said to DH if we could just do Disney we could bet a good price, but I have teen boys so they’re much more into universal than Disney! We’ll def a Disney only trip in future, there’s so much to incentivise you to stay on site. Yeah we always uber for transfers in the US.

See as a kid that grew up Jurassic park obsessed I’d love to hit universal too but I think it’s a bit mature for my lot yet, maybe in the future tho

When I had my third op, I decided I didn’t want to do full time anymore.

is it a possibility that you or your husband may feel the same?

But was the best thing I ever did. Admittedly money wasn’t much of a consideration as my husband earned well in excess of your family income but… we aren’t nearly so careful as you so you probably make your income stretch a LOT more than I would ever be able to!

my point is…. Part time was an absolute game changer for the family. It’s something about 3… all the after school clubs, sports events, parties etc. I went from 5 days to 3 days.

And…. 14 years later, I’m still only 3 days!

No I don’t think so, neither of us would drop to part time. We’d like do 9 in 10 work so we have a lieu day a week

I have one child on 15 funded hrs who does 4 days in nursery and one child who has full wrap 2 days a week

what happens on the other days given you both work full time?

do you work from home? How will you coordinate pick up when two at nursery and one at school?

I too went part time after my third. Would highly recommend if possible. Will you be taking a year off maternity leave?

The only other family I know where both parents are full time and three children…. Have a nanny.

Me too, they had 3 under 3 (set of twins) and It was just far cheaper and easier to employ a nanny than pay for nursery in London.

Time has moved on and this is no longer the case. I’d forgotten how old this thread was.

but what used to happen is that we worked 9/10 so had a lieu day. DC1 used to go to a friends after school one day in exchange for us taking the friend to gymnastics on the weekend.

IF we’re blessed with another both older kids would be in school. the nursery and school are on the same site. So collection and drop off is easy.

we’d put the youngest in 3x a week, a family member would watch the youngest at our house one day, eldest would be in wrap 3 days and we’d take 30 mins out in the day to collect the older two and the family member would supervise til 5, and then 9 in 10 for both of us to have a lieu day.

id take as long as possible DH and I both get 6 months full pay leave so we were thinking split. He’d take 3 months up front then go back, I’d get 9 months or so and go back part time till the end of the year so we’re never as low as 50% income