Larger families in private housing!!!! How do you afford it?

[lunavix]

Everyone I know (irl, obviously) with 3+ kids is in council housing which in our area is far, far cheaper than private rentals. I have two dc and currently rent, would love to buy one day but well worrying about that another day.

I'd love two more dc, single parent at the moment but have previously dated people who want children, but I've always had the worry in the back of my mind of affording any more although I actually would desperate like two more.

How do you afford it? How do you make it work financially, what sort of budget do you stick to for your income?

I started another thread on this before realising that this topic existed, so please excuse the duplicate. As I said before, I wouldn't expect to earn as a couple more than 45-50k maximum ever, and probably reasonably less taking into consideration maternity leave etc.

Thanks

I have soon to be 3 DSs and DH and I own our house. Depends on your lifestyle I guess - we have managed on £18,000 in the beginning. We have 3 bedrooms just about and the 3 boys will share and the spare will be a playroom as we have no garden. Cutting back to basics - mortgage, council tax, bills etc. come to £1500 ish (bills have increased with wages with contract mobile/SKY/bits and bobs) for us now. The hardest bit is saving a deposit if you can't live rent free at your parents, or have a big desposable income. DH and I sucked it up and lived with my mum a while rather than throw £10k a year away on rent and put it towards a deposit. I don't work so when I do my wage will be a bonus, I have no idea how people cope if they rely on two wages.

My mum and dad brought us up 'on the cheap', and so they could buy their house, we had no TV, car, new clothes, very few toys etc. I had a very happy childhood but society is more materialistic now than 30 years ago.

I think it is possible to have a large family and buy your own house if you budget accordingly. What are your priorities budget wise?

Depends on where you live, too.

I know a lady who have 5 children in a 2bed house.

There are 3 girls bunked in one room, 2 boys in another and she and her husband sleep on an IKEA fold out in the living room and keep their clothes in a garden shed.

That house is tidy and clean as can be and they're a very happy family.

But 2 bed is as much house as they can afford.

we have been lucky I guess, we brought our house in 1995 when there were a few affordable houses though we could only afford a 2 bed tiny terrace, in 2000 we had ds1 and 2001 ds2.
In 2006 we had dd1 and felt we had to move, but with a combined income of 40,000 we could not afford too without a huge mortgage, so we deecided to look at other areas and moved in 2007 120miles away as dh was able to transfer his job, I had to give mine up but by then was pregnant with ds3, we now have 16wk twins (ds4&dd2) I am a stay at home mum and dh earns approx £25,000.

The luck part for us was that our tiny house brought for £45,000 in 1995, sold for £187,000 in 2007, and the four bedroom semi detatched we brought cost 142,000, giving us the opportunity to be mortgage free and give us some savings at the cost of leaving friends and family behind they used to be a 10 minute drive away and now its 2hrs if the M1 is running well.

we have always horded all of the kids stuff and have been lucky that despite having twins we had most items already, there was a small age gap between dc1&2 then dc3&4 so we had double buggies cots clothes etc, we use reusable nappies, have an allotment to grow fruit and veg and budget carefully.

atm we are privately renting a 2 bed house with 3 dc's, and although it has been hard (dp made redundant just before ds2 was born, then taking a job that didnt pay all that well) we have gotten by just fine.
We pay about £550 pcm for this place, and when there is only one wage coming in its tough (dp was only on 10grand a year) but the kids dont know what its like to 'have money' iyswim, so they dont expect any luxuries (thats what grandparents are fro right? )

the hardest time we are facing is right now-we are moving next week to a 3 bed house and have had to find money fro deposits, furniture and cleaning this place before we leave. dp has also just started a new (better paid) job, so we still have no idea just how much money we will have once its all settled down once the ctc and wtc are sorted.

we currently have 3 and are expecting our fourth, we privately rent a three bedroom house. Our rent is £650 a month.We will be moving in the next year to a 4 bedroom (again rented house) hopefully. We are fine here and dont really struggle at the moment BUT we havent got a car and have never been on holiday so its a balance.

We live in the North where houses are a bit cheaper (small village where I grew up). We have 4 children and 6 bedrooms but this is because we made the decision to sell our 3 bed and my Mums 3 bed and buy a big house together.

She's 'only' 53 and works full time with an active social life so we never seem to get in each others way. She didn't like living alone and she is so easy to get along with that we've never had any problems.

It means we share bills and housework, plus DH works long hours and she helps me out a lot.

In reality we couldn't have afforded more than a small 4 bed without her.

It's hard. You probably will have to miss out on luxuries. When ours were small we only ever had camping holidays, and it was a struggle to keep a car on the road. We could never have managed without a car in a rural area because DH needed it for work. We did have to beg/borrow from GPs to keep it on the road at times.

Also mortgage rates are low at the moment. They can and possibly will go up. Ours was 15 and 3/4 per cent at its highest. It was a killer. In the end we really struggled even to buy the basics.

The OP is not a mortgage-holder and cannot afford a mortgage.

OP hopes to buy one day so will I presume take out a mortgage.

Yes, one day.

but at present is looking at renting.

Depending on your income, you might be eligible for Housing Benefit, and, depending where you live, that can cover more than 100% of your rent, believe it or not. I'm sorry I don't have more detail, but if you gave your local Citizen's Advice Bureau or even yr Council One Stop Stop (type-place) a call, they should be able to give you a rough idea.

We own our own 3 bed, 3 reception room house, but the low interest rates are saving us at the mo, and DH and I sleep in one reception room, and we rent out our two top bedrooms, leaving 3 kids in the other, the baby in with us, and I'm expecting no. 5 in December! So then we'll have four kids sharing one room! At least it's quite a big one... We too look enviously at our next-door neighbours who have an identical house but at council rent!

We have 4 in a 3 bed. I guess in the future the problem would be the deposit as we found it was as cheap for a mortgage as it was to rent.
Only thing is when you own you have to pay all associated costs.
Our income is a lot less than that you mentioned we used to privately rent a 3 bed. I really cant see that it would be a problem on that income unless you were in central London

we have 4 in a 4 bedroomed house, originally a 3 bedroomed house, we converted the garage for DS1 and put a car port in front of that for storage
we struggle but seem to manage some how, camping holdays are great and cheap as chips, and we all love it so that helps.
my tip if you want a large family, when looking for your house think of ways to make it bigger when you are house hunting,i.e. a garage conversion. ours cost about 5 grand which is cheap compared to a loft conversion and its a lovely big room!

renting costs so much more than a mortgage. We earn good salaries, but renting a large house would be pretty tough for us I think. Luckily we bought a long time ago before we had children. Even now though, both of us work in order to afford the mortgage, and we have 5 children, whereas our neighbours in an identical house only have 2. it is a bit of a squeeze!