How do people afford a child?

[Zen324]

Hello,

I am turning 30 this year and the thought of parenthood is on my mind. I am not in a major rush, however I would like some advice from others that are in a similar situation financially.

My OH and I have been together for 6 years and we adore eachother. We have a small dog and two cats. We own one car, which is my partners - I am just a named driver. We have a mortgage that unfortunately has gone up this Feb but it's still manageable.

I am roughly on about 25k - The company itself is really great and it's the best job I've had although pay isn't the best. But I do live in Wales so wages aren't necessarily as high.
My partner earns about 42k.
All in all we are comfortable and our bills are paid - they equate to roughly 1600. I pay 700 and he pays 800 with the car on top.

We are comfortable, however I still don't know if I can afford a child.

The cost of childcare is extortionate. The thought of working, even if it is part time just for them to be sent to nursery is hugely off putting. The local nursery charges £57 a full day.

I would have minimal help from grandparents, and it probably wouldn't be consistent weekly help.

My partner and I work shifts so if I was to do set 3 days a week there would be some weeks in which he wouldn't be working those days so there wouldn't be a need for childcare. I don't know if there is a possibility of booking nursery days in advance but I doubt it..

I appreciate some people may be in a better financial position and some in way worse, but I am just baffled at how people do it? I know childcare isn't forever and when they reach a certain age it is subsidised- but you still have to pay for 2.5 days a week for most nurseries.

We try to scrimp in life anyways, we have only ever been abroad once together. We have needed to spend on home maintenance but we have had no fancy holidays and we aren't big spenders.

I am trying my best to build our savings, but it will be so sad if all of that has to go on childcare?

I just can't believe what a world we live in at the moment, that a soon to be 30 year old has to decide between financial stability or pinching pennies to have a baby.

I get 30 isn't "old" but do I just wait and save up for 3 more years and try for a baby then.. what if I leave it too late - maybe I'm self sabotaging?

Any advice please :(

The bank of CM for some or benefits.

Childcare doesn't cost the "headline" amount... thee are schemes such as tax free childcare and the free hours (check the exact arrangements in Wales)

We had a similar situation. My husband worked full time but a 4 day week. We used a childminder who was happy to take our children those 4 days a week with the rota in advance (as the day off changed each week).

It was expensive. I recall when it ended it was like when our mortgage finished! My kids are nearly 30 now so we didn't have free childcare hours but I suspect the price per hour was cheaper.

Summer holidays were an issue too - but my parents, who couldn't look after them in the week as they lived 100 miles away, had them for 4 weeks in the summer. 2 at their house and 2 at ours. We luckily both live in tourist resorts with beaches!

If you want a child you just manage. I had zdS as a single mum at 21 half way through my nurses training. I went on to qualify, we just managed.
Things like cots, expensive pushchairs etc were out and second hand stuff in.
We economise and I did extra work around Xmas and birthdays. We managed to buy a house.
Don't wait until everything is perfect just do it.

year 1 - maternity leave
year 1-2 expensive childcare
year 2-4 subsidised childcare
year 4-10 school and kids clubs in holidays. family holidays cost a fortune.
year 10+ little childcare required but phones and stuff is expensive

We finally decided we could afford a second child… it was twins. We made it work and now they’re 13 and dd1 is 17.

you never know what’ll happen. Dh’s job was at risk for ages but he’s finally found out he’s safe so finances are okay for now. You manage though.

Look into the latest salary sacrifice scheme. It has changed since my day but both working parents could put a set amount of their pre-tax salary aside to save 20% on nursery fees.

There's actually never a right time to decide. It took us 13 years to have a 2nd child. First born I was a young mum (19) all my friends were having babies and we decided to. My 2nd I was near mid 30s. We had just gotten financially ok.. no savings or anything, just managing without being in the overdraft.. but it was now or never. With the childcare costs it wasn't worth me going back to work. I would have been earning £10 a day after childcare costs for someone else to look after my baby. Its ridiculous. I waited until the free 30 hours and spent all my time with her, which i loved and then got a part time job that suits my little one being at school.

We knew our 2nd born would set us back 5 years and it has... but she is obviously so worth it. We didn't have any family to support us with childcare to keep costs down. We just scraped by on one wage.

Had I known what i know now, I would have waited to at least late 25-30s to have my firstborn and have both within 3 years of
each other. I would have been financially stable. I wish i'd gone to college and uni to do my dream job. But here we are just getting on. We both have a car, we can afford one holiday a year, both working in jobs we dont particularly like. Times are still hard living pay to pay. I just wish I could come up with something that would make life easier.

If you have the career and jobs you enjoy and are financially stable, a home, then go for it.. it will all work out in the end 🥰

Hi, I'm in a similar situation to you. We are on around the same salary, one small car, but we have no family nearby and I'm disabled. I have no idea how we'd do it. We live in a small 2 bed house we had gk scrimp to buy. My dream idea of motherhood is raising children in the countryside but we are currently in a developed area with limited outside space. I'm 33. It really does feel like life makes it impossible. The irony is we are comfortable and can afford what we want, except a child and a bigger garden.

No advice, just commiserations.

You forgot to add:

Age 18 - 21 university. Back to extortionate costs (and yes you don’t have to pay it, but when your child gets min loan due to parental income you are expected to top it up).

OP, there’s never a great time. Your salary is quite low, lower than the minimum salary in our government dept. Can you try and get a better paid job and hold off ttc for 2yrs?

You'll be eligible for child benefit and can get tax off some of the childcare costs if you are both working. You may be able to claim some other benefits (I'm not sure of the cut off). Some people have big gaps so only oaying for childcare for one child at a time, some use grandparents and some yse cgildminders which I believe are slightly cheaper than nursery. But yes, having children is increasingly expensive and I don't know how people on average salaries afford it. We're on high salaries and in the north and ran through our savings when I was on maternity and weren't able to save much until our youngest went to school (we had small age gaps) whereas prechildren we were saving a lot per month.

It can be very expensive if you have no family support to provide free childcare. We paid over 50k nursery fees for 1 child.

It’s the years before they go to school that are really difficult
somehow you manage it but it dues feel fur a while that there is no slack whatsoever

I became a sahm until oldest was 6 and youngest was 2. I then went back to work term time only (teacher).
We paid off our mortgage when I was on maternity leave with the oldest. This is only way we could do it as husband has is in civil service with not a high wage at all

We work shift round each other so no childcare. My work is very accommodating. Plan is to up hours when they start school/nursery

The only way we achieved it was to manage childcare between usand have them close together. This meant my mat leave for each allowed me to be at home for the others. You both need to explore Flexi working with your jobs. Are if you can with longer shifts over less days. My DH worked condensed hours and I reduced my hours and did long days when he was home. We used a childminder for one day a week for a few months which people do not recommend but was fine. Some nurseries are more flexible these days too. But I also was SAHM for first year of 3 preschoolers and worked reduced hours until they were all at school

You need to earn more than £25,000. A teacher your age would be at least £10,000 more. A nurse too. So what are you doing to earn a very basic wage and how can you earn more?

@bergamotvetiverthyme How do you pay off a mortgage if DH is civil service and not well paid (you said) and you were not working at all? Were you left money? Given money?

Having children has always required penny pinching OP. My parents had to scrimp, 50 years ago. Grow their own veg, make do and mend, not have a holiday, run a 12yo car. Having one parent at home inevitably means less income.

I waited until 40, so my mortgage had shrunk, and I was established in my career. I didn't have any pets. I earned more than you, and returned to work, with ds at a good childminder near my office. I dropped him at 8.45 am and collected at 5.45pm.

As a single mum, I did everything, work, look after ds, cook from scratch and sleep. That was my life for four years but I liked it. No luxuries during those years but we survived. Then he went to school and things got a little easier.

Realistically noone can ever afford to have a child. You just manage

From September of this year the 30 funded childcare hours are available from when your baby is 9 months old so that plus the tax-free childcare scheme will help

We committed huge costs to a house extension then found out we were pregnant the week the work began.

We've only just been keeping our head above water for the last 5 years with 2 kids in nursery for some of that time. Eldest goes to school next year but we'll need breakfast club and after school club.

It's worked out OK in the end because we have the space in our home and all of the finance for the extension ends soon.

I asked my cousin the same question as OP and he replied "you just make it work" which is true.

What does CM mean in this context?

Nursery around here was about £65 a day compared to a childminder of £40 so we went for that. I had 2 kids with 18month gap, I think I calculated that we spent £100k on the childminder before yr 6! I did a 4 day week and dp worked 5 days over tues-sat, we were very frugal with food, clothing, cars, only had uk holidays, if that. As time progressed our salaries increased a bit which was then offset the increasing food costs as they were getting older, activities etc, but we managed. Once they hit year 7 we felt positively rich. I’d also saved up about £6-8k before each pregnancy to see me through the decrease in maternity pay.

Child maintenance.