AIBU to consider downsizing our home to work less and home educate?

[PotentialPartTimer]

Has anyone majorly downsized their home to allow them to go very part-time and avoid nursery then possibly home educate? If so did you regret it?

We are a reasonably high earning couple DH on 55k me on 70k on a xompressed 4 day week but live in low cost of living area. Now DD is here and we want another I am becoming more and more certain I don't want them spending much time in nursery or school and would rather home ed (to head off the questioning I have a masters in Developmental Psychology, would be supported by my mother who is a recently retired maths and physics teacher and would ensure regular socialising opportunities).
We currently live in a gouse worth around 500k (but very little equity) and would be looking to drop to something around 250k which would allow me to drop to one say a week and potentially DH to 4. I don't want to fully quit as I have a very secure, flexible role and would like to maintain the ability to return to it if needed.

I guess my question is, if you have done something similar was it worth it? Would you recommend it or do you miss your old lifestyle?

See if I go on holiday to France no one demands why Spain isn’t deemed suitable. We like what we like and different things suit different personalities . Some people love the holidays because they like the structure, not having to leave the house by a certain time, not tied to the school day. I’m the opposite; even on maternity leave I needed something to do with a time slot! It really is just different people and their preferences.

No, I consider depriving a child of the experience of nursery and school just because you can, as child abuse. I believe children should fully participate in the society they live in if they can. Wholly different from a situation where a child has needs that make school very difficult for them or an older school refuser with massive anxiety issues.

Sounds a bit rose tinted glasses to me which I think is normal when you are a new mum. I don't think I would make drastic financial decisions yet if you haven't worked out the numbers. Can I ask if your happy in you're job? I think if your not it can cause a blocker when you think about going back to work and what you think you are missing out on.

Personally I’d rather have kids in school and have more spendies to do nice things with them, and have a financial cushion myself for the future.

Having been a teacher, I would not put my own children through the state school system if I had my time again. It is utterly shit. I would home-school or find a private alternative type of school. Having said that, it depends on your child. So maybe try primary school and see if she is thriving there (highly unlikely but depends on her personality) if so, keep her at school for a while and watch and wait. As PP said, the main thing is to trust your gut.

Yes. I have a PhD and decades of HE teaching experience- which made not one jot of difference when trying to get a 12 year old to do school work during the lockdowns.

I have home educated DS9 since he was 6 and totally get where you're coming from. There are many good things about it. I went into it highly educated (PhD and many years as an academic) with all the resources in the world, a gazillion lovely books, full of ideas. Also, nice comfy house in a nice area, plenty of socialization opportunities outside schoolwork.

However, I want to send him back to school next year - and the schools where we are (other side of hte world) are much, much more shit than the ones in England.

There comes a point where it gets too much like a hothouse, and if you have a kid who can get on your nerves a bit... you really don't want to destroy the relationship.

Keep that in mind.

I'd suggest trying school first. There's a lot you can do to influence hte kid and supplement the education, while retaining some sanity. Home ed removes the option of sanity.

I'd echo the PP who comment on protecting your own financial position and pension. If you split up ftom your DH you may find your financial position more precarious. If you do go down this route ensure that you continue to pay into a pension, and look into AVCs/a SIPP.

Keep an open mind about school. Many children thrive at school including mine. Forest school is also part of my school’s curriculum.

I home schooled my daughter from year eight due to bullying and have never regretted it. I do, however think that not sending your DD to nursery or infants would be a mistake. The ability to socialise with her peers is priceless, you can't replicate that situation and learned ability however hard you try.

How old is your dd? Have you ever home educated before?

I love my children, but I couldn’t run fast enough back to work at the end of mat leave. I spent 9 months doing home ed during COVID, while also working part time as you suggest you will be. Just the thought of it gives me chills now. It was not the idyllic few months of making leaf prints and learning times tables with pebbles I had in mind when I started. It’s incredibly hard and emotionally draining and really quite isolating. Even if you have home ed groups in your area, it’s still you responsibility for carrying the weight of everything.

What I would suggest is creating work life balance. We didn’t need to downsize for this (actually we bought a bigger house because our business is doing very well). But we’ve organised our work so that one of us is always around outside if school hours. Usually both of us as Dh is generally finished work by 4 and he rarely works a full day on a Thursday/Friday. We can take our kids to activities and sports. We have a very relaxed lifestyle and are both very present and we get lots of leisure time to ourselves. We go for runs or hikes during the school day. I have a horse, so I go see my horse. And then outside of school hours is always quality time as a family because we aren’t spinning too many plates. That’s the sort of life I’d aspire to.

School isn’t evil and something to be avoided. If you have children who do well in mainstream school, then you can build a very comfortable and flexible life to maximise family time if you put some thought into it now.

I’ll also add to the above to always plan for the worst case scenario. Whatever you do, could you do it if your dh suddenly got ill and could no longer work? Or died? I have advanced cancer. I had to give up my employed role 2 years ago when I got sick. Fortunately, we’d built a life with a lot of flexibility that was very financially secure even if I wasn’t working outside our business. You never know what the future holds and you need to plan for even the worst possibilities and not put all your eggs in one basket.

I’d wait and see how your child is as she grows up. I have a friend who is in an even better position than you to HE both in terms of money and qualifications, and she was sure she wanted to do it since before she conceived her child. But by the time her child was 3 she realised for various reasons, school was the right choice for her child.

I have one child who I ponder home educating, but another child who I just have no doubt will do better in school than with me.

I’m sure you would, but I really wouldn’t make any moves until your child’s personality, strengths and weaknesses are more apparent.

I’ve known people who have home educated. One friend did the “they’ll learn when they want to, they’ll pick stuff up, we go to a group with other home educators.” They did watch themselves to read at 8. Their child went to college at 16 and had then to learn foundation gcse maths and English along side the limited option courses they could actually choose from. Their mother had a degree in maths, a degree in something else and a masters I believe. They didn’t pass first time, struggled to make regular friends due to the type of people they socialised with. I know another mother who home educated 1 year as her child was being bullied at the start of secondary school- she is a very hippy easy going person, both her and her child agreed it would be better to go back to school. That said I also know a family who went on a mission many years ago, and bought the educational plan for each child so they learnt and didn’t miss out, it involved 2hrs of active learning a day and was structured. It involved a tutor who oversaw their progress. If you plan to have a formal structure for a couple of hours per day following the education guidelines, go for it. If you plan to take the equivalent of gentle parenting way of home educating- you won’t be doing your child any favours long term.

I would wait and see what your child is like first. They might not like being taught at home and it might be best for your relationship if they go to school and only do formal learning there. They might thrive learning stuff that’s not on the curriculum too. They might be a round peg that happily fits in the round hole of the schooling system.

I personally think that school is well designed up to the end of reception.

Why are you anti school?

People who home educate are not necessarily anti school; they just feel it would not suit their child.

There are thousands of children in struggling school when it does not suit their needs.

This is all about you and your convenience.

You haven't advanced one argument about why you think home ed is better for your child.

the financial parts aside, it reads like OP wants to HE because she doesn't want her DD to be away a lot of the day. I can't see where OP stated the DD's age.

Wanting to spend all your time with a precious new baby is reasonable. Choosing HE because you'd miss your 4yo child too much for those hours of the day is a bad reason to HE, imho.

No.
I could rudely speculate…

Thank you for everyone taking time to respond. I'm really not wanting to discuss the pros and cons of home education only the financial side.

To answer why we have such a large mortgage with no equity we only moved here a year ago. It is a fixer upper and prior to my pregnancy (which was unexpectedly quick as I have previously been told I would likely need medical intervention to fall pregnant) we were planning on doing a lit if it ourselves as very handy. Unfortunately I have not come out of pregnancy unscathed and have physical issues which mean I can't really do any of it now. We will have to move anyway because of this as it's a millstone round our necks and I'm very very sad about it because I loved the house and because its ££££ down the drain in stamp duty.

The mortgage isn't swallowing our wholesalaries we are also puttng about £800 away in savings every month and we have a small secondhand EV bought outright.

250k could buy something decent here, a 3 bed detached modern house on a newbuild estate or a more established 3 bed semi.

With regards to my working situation I would drop to 2 6 hour half days and be on around 20k. I am in a skilled technical role for a government department where it is very normal for people to raise and lower hours in line with kids. This is because we are paid below private market value in exchange for huge flexibility. I would only be considering home ed for primary school so would be lower earning for around 12 to 14 years if we managed to have another. Given how strong our pensions are in the givil service I think this would still leave me with a good income in retirement. I am pretty confident I will be able to raise my hours again. Obviously nothing is certain by I am in as close to a job for life as you get these days. I have no intention of seeking promotion.

We are 55 and seeing a financial adviser to plan the next phase of life. I am so glad we both kept working fulltime and have decent pensions (mine NHS). The future would be looking worrying otherwise. You are young with young kids. But please keep one eye on the future and make solid financial plans too.

We home-ed our youngest (the elder child thrived in school) and did something similar.

Not downsizing the house/mortgage as that was already the best value, but downsizing our lives so to speak.

It's perfectly manageable, and comes with hidden perks like being able to travel out of season to avoid the costs and crowds of school holidays.

But it does require a very high level of trust in the family, as one of us is always financially vulnerable in the long term.

For many years we traded, with one of us in full-time work and the other either not working at all, or working part-time.

But when I eventually stopped working altogether to tackle the high school curriculum years we did sit down for an in-depth talk about money.

I know it sounds very cynical as we have a good marriage, but I felt more comfortable with separate financial provisions being made just for me that no-one else can ever touch.

You might do things differently, especially as you're considering keeping a job, just adding the info if it's something you might want to consider.

You may feel.like you want to home ed now, and keep your dc close to you, but by the time they are 3 they might be metaphorically screaming for nursery, mine were. 2 really sociable kids who wanted to be with other children without me there hovering.

You have a few years to work this out, I wouldn't rush in to anything.

Sort of. I didn’t want to give up work completely so I work 2 days a week and we flexi-school. I home school 3 days a week and my son attends school 2 days a week. It works really well - benefits of both worlds. The 2 days gives me extra money, keeps my sanity and gives my son a couple of days to form friendships away from me. We’ve been doing it for years and both really happy with the arrangement, as are school.

See something like that would really interest me. I don't object to school or nursery in themselves really but think 5 full days in a week is too much. I believe humans evolved for family to be the majority. Are you worried about pension etc and how has it impacted your lifestyle?

Nuts.