Where you financially stable??

[kelman13]

Hi,
after a little advice please! My partner and i have been together for 3 years love each other very much! We have decided to ttc very excited as have been broody for well over a year! We have had a few financial ups and downs! so wondered if you guys were financially stable when you tried ttc?
I feel I'm ready for a baby I am currently a step mum, god mother and my job is nannying 4 children would love one of my own! cheers guys

My DP and I don't have savings as such (we are saving for our wedding next year) but we do earn a good salary (£65k between us) and we own our own house. DP has much better earning potential than me (he's training to be an actuary) so I could afford to give up work if I needed to (we worked out that I would need to earn about £10k a year to keep our current level of living).

So I don't think you need thousands in savings. Just try to be debt free and comfortable :) (oh and I don't think age means anything, we are both 24)

To a certain extent, yes, I had a permanent well paid job but DH was self employed so his income was up and down. Though we had no debts bar out mortgage and car repayments.

We had no debts but no savings either. No mortgage but private rent. Was put at risk of redundancy in first pregnancy, fought that successfully, but had already low wages cut by 10% instead. SMP only. Found a new job straight after mat leave with better pay and luckily some really good maternity benefits. My husband lost his jobs a few weeks before No 2 was born, and was unemployed for about 6 months, but we could get through that thanks to my much better position.

There is no such thing as "secure" in my view as circumstances can change quickly and unexpectedly.

Hey - ifyouwereariver - think that's great advice we are trying to do that too. We also have a special "baby" bank account we each put £40 a month in;

but I have to ask as I don't know anyone who falls into this category!!!! Who has 40k in the bank? The majority if people who have that have it tied up in equity in their home but none of our friends (a wide range of people ranging from part time workers to friends who have professional careers) have those kinds of funds available to them - I agree it would be nice but not very likely unless I won the lottery!

People who own their own homes - you mean outright, right? Otherwise you're in an even more precarious position than you would be renting if you get sick/lose your job etc. And income is relative to where you live and your costs.

Op it is highly unusual to have any savings at all in the UK. Everyone is right that you should budget effectively and save what you can. But Mumsnet is full of people with £40k in the bank. It is not normal or necessary.

Good luck ttc!

Glad to see this post as it's something I've been worrying about too.

We've just started TTC now I'm finally in a (charity sector) job which gives reasonably decent mat leave, but my organisation is far from stable and I can't guarantee I won't be re - structured out of a job in the midterm future. My husband is on minimum wage with London weighting and his job prospects aren't great as he has no degree or formal training. We rent, have no savings and scrape by on our combined £45k salary, not uncomfortably but do struggle to afford things like clothes and extras, and holidays are pretty much out of the question.

I'm saving now so that should we manage to conceive we'll have enough put by to make up my loss of earnings during mat leave but this doesn't account for any surprises or redundancies etc!

I feel fine with it all as we're lucky enough to have a supportive (if distant) family who'd be happy to help if things got tough, and I just don't think we should leave it much longer - my husband is nearly 38 and who knows how quickly things will happen.

Glad to hear of the range of different levels of financial preparedness out there!

kelman in answer to your question, we are 'secure' BUT it took us 20months to conceive. We really thought it wasn't going to happen. i'd take this into consideration. If you say wait another year to start trying then it takes 20 months ... That's a long time. Just my experience and I'm more the exception than the rule. Good luck

I would love to have 40k saved and own our home, but unfortunately we live in the sticks and the wages aren't very high!! so even with 2 full time wages coming in it would take us years!! I have some debts as in my car finance and an old loan but that's nearly paid off! also we do have my.parnters 4yr old as joint custody so we treat her with any spare money we have! I've been off the pill since Nov an still no luck an feel if we left it for another year or 2 then we may have a long battle ttc also don't want a massive age gap between step daughter and baby!

Ihatemyphone: you mention that it is unusual for people in the uk to have any savings at all, i was wondering if this statement is based on data or anecdotical information?
I am not being a smartass here, i am genuinly interested.

There was a big study on it, can't remember who with. Think it was last year.

Found this from 2010 though. Based on stats from Mintel.

About half of people have less than £500.

'21 per cent of people still have no savings or investments at all. Around 35 per cent of people have less than £500 set aside, while 36 per cent have between £500 and £10,000 and 29 per cent have saved more than this amount, including 12 per cent who have savings and investments worth more than £50,000.'

Thanks i will look it up.