Feeling financially battered and sad. Can anyone make me feel better?

[Killat]

Post-budget, I’m feeling financially battered, sad, and to be honest, quite jealous and bitter. DH and I are hard workers with decent salaries but have barely anything left after the massive mortgage and nursery fees. It’s looking like we can’t afford a second child.

What little, cheap things pick you up? What have you read lately that makes you feel optimistic?

Jesus this. My son is 9, and currently in 13-14 clothes. He’s one shoe size smaller than me.

It’s like he sleeps in a grow bag. I buy him clothes and then within the month they’re riding up his back.

The cost is absolutely insane.

Op, it’s absolutely ok to say that this budget is unfair. It is. And it’s pissed a lot of people off. Especially those who work full time and have stopped at 1 or 2 children because it’s too expensive to have more and they are financially struggling. Extending the welfare budget in this way will hurt the country, promote work evasion and make a lot of tax payers resentful. But, hopefully a future government will trim the welfare state back down and remove the tax threshold, incentivising work again.

In the meantime does your husband pay the minimum child support? Or more? Now that his ex will get that much more in UC child support, could he reduce what he pays her, to allow for you to have another child?

He's only paying £500 pm for his children. Doesn't strike me as a lot.

It’s more than they can afford isn’t it? If they are struggling and want more children. I’m sure the more children he has with the current partner, the less he pays his ex.

Exactly why I think having more children is a bad idea. No one needs 4 children.
It's hard on the OP, but I guess that is the downside of blended marriages. Which always strike me as a shit deal for women, but that's another thread.

But why should working people have to be the ones to cut their cloth? Let’s all just be irresponsible equally. That’s my take out from this government. Too late for me, I only had one child as that’s all I could afford. But it strikes me that being irresponsible and not working pays, and working doesn’t. The op’s family is in the prime position for making that choice I once had and I regret only having one.

OP says in one of her replies they pay than £500 a month to his kids.

Unemployment is the highest it’s been in almost a decade and predicted to increase. With another mouth to feed, OP would be screwed if she or her partner lost their job.

Yes, that point is well taken but not much OP can do about it.

Pay the ex less, so they can grow their own family.

Paying a few hundreds pounds a month less for the extras wouldn’t make much difference if they struggle to pay the bills on one income. Could be wrong, but as homeowners there wouldn’t be much government support available.

What a shame that the human race has developed to a point that we have to create a spreadsheet to decide that we can have another child.

Right so budget changes aren’t actually making you much worse off. You had just hoped there would be changes to make you better off and there weren’t. So your post is pretty misleading.

Because the country is in a mess, working people are taxed on top of taxed and financially squeezed and unfortunately that's why working people can't afford to make foolish decisions. People also need to maximise putting what they can into workplace pensions before they start taxing that from April 2029.

Why is that “a shame”?? The planet isn’t getting any bigger but human population has grown from 2.5 billion to 8.5 billion in a mere 75 years.

We are killing the planet and myriad worthy species, and racing toward a lower standard of living as resources dwindle, climate issues make food more costly to produce and humans are rendered less necessary in jobs due to technological advances.

Producing offspring isn’t just creating cute babies. It’s a very serious and momentous decision, affecting society and the environment, and shouldn’t be made by whim.

He can't deprive his other kids just to let his current partner another child - how would you feel if your dad did that to you! You don't dispose of your kids because a relationship breaks down.

Vinted is your friend. Loads of barely worn/brand new bargains. Plus you can sell everything he’s grown out of. And it’s a winner for the planet.

I might be weird but I think making a spreadsheet before doing anything risky and expensive is a great idea?

Anyway, sorry you're feeling crap, OP.

At least once the money is all paid you will have your lovely child and your lovely house.

My dad did do that. He had 2 kids with my stepmother and didn’t bother with his own. Never paid a penny of maintenance.

He’s an arsehole, to be clear.

Firstly stop comparing yourself to others. Then look at what you have got. A strong marriage by the sound of it, a good relationship with you SC and a much loved child of your own. To some people that makes you a millionaire.
Childcare costs are temporary. Your mortgage will go down. You own your own home. In a few years you’ll be in a much stronger position. You have high paying jobs.
you could post your budget and people can look at ways to save.

Poor well off people feeling hard done by.
Think yourself lucky you're not poor and had to live through 14 years of tories.
But at the same time labour aren't bashing the rich as much as they should. They made their money off our backs.

Yes he can. As long as he still contributes. It’s just less. If his ex can go on to have more children she couldn’t afford without state intervention, why shouldn’t he have what he wants too.

True.

So why then is Labour growing the welfare state?

Oh! It’s to shut the back benchers up and enable Starmer and Reeves to try to cling on to their jobs for another 6 months.

How fabulous that working people have to pay for that.

It’s not about his ex. Why should his existing children have less because he’s choosing to create more.

What reasonable parent would deprive their
kids so they can get what they want.

The nursery years are so tough financially. The good news is that it is not too long and once they are over you will feel so rich in comparison, having cut your living expenses to be able to afford them. Posters are right - you should look to reduce the mortgage now and you will find from ages 5-18 are massively cheaper (although uni looms at the end if they are that way inclined which will be back to ‘kids in nursery level costs’). Wrap around care is about 1/6 of the cost of nursery.
if you are both in professional jobs your salaries will go up too. You are in the trenches.
I suggest you look at mortgage options such as extending term, interest only and show DH what it looks like. From what you have said I am sure you can afford another child, it is just whether you can persuade DH to have one. If his concern is really only money then I think it is surmountable with some budget planning. We lived in a doer upper when the kids were in nursery and only really had time and money for improvements later on, but it was worth it and it’s lovely now.

Why didn’t their mother think about that? She went on to have two more, taking away from what she could provide for the original two. I don’t see why the father should not get that same access to a life after his ex and their children together.

My point is, that if the government is choosing to pay for the irresponsible, then we should all be irresponsible, and then let’s see what happens. Perhaps after that, the government might decide to support is working population a little bit more. I do not believe what has happened in this welfare budget is fair, and I agree with the OP and how she feels about that.