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.

Do an income and expenditure sheet including absolutely every expense, including maternity leave, part time, full time. Do versions with costs at max as well to see how much wiggle room you have. Consider things like Uni costs etc later in life.

We have 3 (although newly, still on mat leave with youngest) and when I go back will earn 75k pre tax between us. No family support so we pay for wrap around care + nursery, mortgage is much less than that average but will be moving (4th bedroom needed now!) so will be up to about that. On paper we should have plenty of money, in reality sometimes it feels tight.

It really is a lifestyle question, not a simple question of average bills. MN tells me that to have 2 kids in private school we should be earning £300k. We're not. But we manage fine - for the lifestyle we want to live, not the one they expect us to live, and that's the key thing.

I agree with the last few posts.

Aside from childcare, young children don’t cost that much.

It’s when they’re teens or so that it becomes a massive expense.
DS’s feet outgrew mine when he was 10.

Eating out and the cost of groceries, you’re paying for 5 adult sized appetites

You no longer get discounts on things like haircuts, travel, entry tickets etc

Approach it more as a ‘cut your cloth’ situation. It’s a pointless question really (sorry!) because for example, £50k with 3 under 5s, vs £50k with 3 teenagers are very different situations. And your salary will probably fluctuate too. So just go with the flow in the moment. And if you’re on the bones of your arse, (doesn’t sound like you are), probably don’t have another kid.

As others have said, it depends on the lifestyle you want. We earn approx £5.5k a month between DH and I, mortgage is £1.1k, bills pretty average.

We have two DDs and could technically afford a third, of course we could but chose not to because we want a certain lifestyle. E.g we currently live in a 4 bed house so DDs both have their own bedroom and the spare room is our office/spare bedroom as DH and I both work from home and have family visit. So if we had a third it would be a bigger mortgage on a new house or we'd have DDs sharing a bedroom.

We like to take two holidays (not both abroad) a year, overpay the mortgage a bit, save for DDs to help them in future, go out for meals etc. All of that wouldn't be impacted having a third.

DDs are already getting more expensive so when they are teenagers I imagine they will be much more expensive.

For us, having two great daughters already we already felt lucky and happy and although I'm sure a third would have been wonderful we decided having a comfortable life with two was preferable to having to count the spending with three.

I agree with this. The cost isn't the baby stage but the teen one.
University and driving being two big ones.

You are likely signing up to working for longer to get everyone through Uni and launched looking at my friends. Only you will know if another dc makes sense to you.

That concerns me slightly less, we’d save £50 a month +CB for that child too, which wouldn’t impact our life really. We open with £1k and then make monthly payments and top up adhoc with any money they get given. It’s in a stocks and shares isa so that should be sufficient if they go to uni and want to live away from home

would that be the sum total of your savings (holidays aside)

pension?

is your partner also very keen?

Childcare costs are low, youngest is nearly 3.

can you be sure that the family member currently providing childcare will continue to? presuming that why costs are low

how much do you pay in childcare as “low” means different things!

Is your eldest at school?

we do 2 holidays a year abroad and a uk one, last year we spent 4.5k (Disneyland Paris, centre parcs and a 5 AI abroad, so not camping*

come again?! £4.5k on
2 adults and 2 children

Disneyland paris
5* AI
and centre parks

can you provide the breakdown because i can’t fathom!

The total sum of our savings for our children yes, but total aggregate sum, no. We save between £300-£500 each, so between £600 and £1000 a month. Normally around the £350/£400 each mark, so £700-£800 a month.

pension is defined contribution through work, around 14% each (personal contributions 4 and 5%)

health insurance, CIC, life insurance, IP all through work discounter and deducted pre tax.

We have four....childcare costs when they are little are big, but having four teens and possibly 3 at uni at the same time is very expensive - and terrifying when one's husband has been made redundant recently....! We were very comfortably supporting them all easily but had an income significantly into 6 figures.

Things to consider when they are older - phone contracts driving lessons, tech (IE laptops for school) x 4, shoes/trainers/clothes etc plus extracurriculars and school trips. Ours are/were at state grammar, so no fees but so far this (school year) we are have been asked to fund a trip to China, a ski trip to Italy, an A level art trip, DoE - on top of £1000 a month for rent x 2 for our uni students. Obviously we don't have to say yes, but the school is excellent and it's why we chose it - because they do offer amazing opportunities beyond the norm. Luckily they aren't sporty or we'd be looking at rugby trips to Canada and cricket trips to Dubai too.

have you posted before about your finances?

sounds so similar to another poster and by the end everyone was saying that you’re family income was like Mary Poppins handbag…. it just kept on and on giving despite the figures not really adding up!

You LA massively subsides nursery fees and it’s non means tested?

No I haven’t. Maybe we work in similar/ the same industry? The industry im in, these are pretty standard benefits across the board with little distinction between companies? And the rest of my bills are pretty dang average

We earn roughly the same, maybe a little more. We have one DC. When I took mat leave I lost nearly 30k in salary alone even with enhanced mat pay. We are both in public sector roles with good defined benefit pensions, sick pay, annual leave etc.

Holidays in school holidays are far more expensive than term time, I'm also fussy in that I don't go on holiday to share a bedroom with DS for a fortnight. We've booked the first two weeks of summer hols next year AI greek islands 4* rather than 5 and will still hire a car and go off exploring so will need spends on top. That's £6.5k for 3 of us for the basic holiday without extras.
We've also got a long weekend European city break booked (family wedding)

We only run one car at the moment and it's owned outright, we both work locally and DH cycles everywhere. Saving is important to me, we save £700 jointly per month, £150 for DS and I usually save a couple of hundred personally from my fun money. We've just booked to have our kitchen renovated and will pay for that cash. I hate debt/finance.

DS does the clubs and activities he wants, we go to the theatre etc regularly, if something happens to the car/house we can afford to fix it, I don't worry about money, I'd have to be an awful lot more careful with 3.

Yes, that’s correct

what LA?

what is your “low” childcare costs?

os your eldest at school yet?

intrigued to know how you got these 3 holidays for £4.5k. Pls put me out of my misery! 😆

no it was more that the previous Op kept listing all her expenditure and savings and it just didn’t tally with income!

300????? Where do you live!!?? Are these houses on sale??