NC for this. My head is a bit all over the place, I've just found out I'm pregnant again. Not planned, obviously. DC1 is 4.5 and DC2 is 2. We had only planned on having two, in part because of financial reasons.
Not sure what to do. I'm not sure if we can afford a third but I don't even really know where to start in terms of trying to work it out. I think that in the immediate short term we would be ok, as things currently stand we are fortunate that we do manage to save a few hundred each month so would be able to put money aside to tide us over during SMP. My work gives me 5 months full pay which is good, then SMP for another 4 months. So we would be able to save to cover the 4 months and then I would be able to use a couple of weeks of leave to hopefully take me up to 10 months before having to go back.
However I'm worried longer term. We have a big mortgage, it's £1k a month and we are on a very low rate that is due to end in Aug 2025. God knows what that will go up to, as things stand currently it would be about £1450 if we had to remortgage today. Also DC1 is about to start school and in 2024 DC2 will be eligible for 30 free hours at preschool so I was planning to ask work for a different working pattern during school holidays (they're very good with flexible working) or possibly reduced hours so that we only need to use 1 day of leave each per week to cover the holidays. DC2 would be too young for the holiday clubs around here. However if we had a baby then I'd still need to be paying for them at nursery year-round or would have to try to find a term-time only childminder which is like searching for the moon on a stick here.
Then there's obviously the extra costs of things like nappies and food etc. And longer term all the other things. We have friends who would happily lend us various baby clothes etc and I'm happy to have second hand as I did for my other two but don't even know where to start! Oh and we'd need a different car. Any help gratefully received!