How do you afford a second child?

[Frizzyliz]

So my dd turns 2 at Xmas and we are thinking of possibly trying for number 2 over the next few months/a year.
However, I just have no idea how it is possible for people to have 2 children!

Dh earns around £30k and I earn around £23k.
I work full time and dh is a teacher with dd in nursery full time. It costs almost £200 a week for 51 weeks of the year.
We chose a nursery as we need reliable childcare without worrying that the childminder has a holiday coming up/is ill so we need other arrangements as we don't have anyone to watch her while we work.
We own a home, but consciously made sure we didn't borrow above our means. I also budget like crazy to save on groceries and we don't go on holiday or do expensive things.

If we were to have a second child it looks like more than my entire wage would go on childcare so it wouldn't be realistic for me to go back to work even though I would love to be able to work 2 or 3 days a week (I doubt I'd be able to find work like that though)

How do people ever afford to do it? I know we are both in ok paid jobs and people worse off than us manage it but I can't see how we could.

You don't have to wait until dc1 has started school though. Don't forget you will be on maternity leave for quite a while, so you can let dc1 go for the free hours and you'll not be paying anything for that year. The savings you've made will be considerable. By next year, they are supposed to be introducing 30 hours free not that I can see that happening in reality, but you might be lucky . Then once they start school it's just wrap around care, and with your dh being a teacher, nothing in the holidays.

If you are luck enough to have savings, then you could look at it as '2 cost the same whether they are close together or far apart'. So you use your savings for the overlapping childcare. But you have to have plenty of savings to get through the overlap in childcare costs, not mind spending them and potentially not having the savings again for a few years, and be disciplined enough to build them back up when you're DC are older.

We're ok, it's really just me going round on whether we can afford a second for pretty much the same reason as the OP. I've been made redundant recently and am working in a job I dislike at mush lower wages so am thinking about retraining. Whether or not we have no2 hinges on whether I retrain now, in which case no2 is out the window as the age gap will (in my opinion) be too big.

It's the most difficult decision I've ever had to make - DH is happy with just one but if it's a massive deal to me he'll have a second. That is making it doubly difficult because if we do have no2 and we struggle for whatever reason I will feel like I've brought it all on our heads myself.

You might not think it now, but the year or 2 where you are paying for 2x childcare really is such a tiny fraction of your life, if there is a way to suck it up, those few months will be over in a flash.
If you have a job you've trained for, or 'worked your way up in' , then even if you are making a net loss for a year, it will still be worth it in 5 years time, to have struggled for those months, when you have 2 beautiful dc and a career all tootling along nicely.
It's a case sometimes of thinking - what can we do without / put off for these 18months? .... be that holiday or replacing the car or not having gym membership or buying coffees out or even seeing if your mortgage company will let you underpay for a fixed number of months (they eventually will earn more interest from that, so wouldn't automatically be against it)..... you need to look at all your outgoings over a month and see where the "little bits" of cash go as well as planning the bigger spending that goes out monthly or annually.

Of course, the best laid plans are scuppered if you conceive quads

Well my mum is a twin so god help us if that happens.
I am already very grown up with finances. I track our receipts weekly and have a spreadsheet budget which I complete each month so I know what we spend where and how much left over we have each month.
We don't holiday (last holiday was with my parents and they paid, next holiday is next year with in laws and they are paying) The last time we went somewhere was before dd. Im very lucky that my parents are savers and when we had to replace our car before dd they helped. We don't have gym membership, and we only spend £30-40 a week on food.
My job is most definitely not a career. I work in admin (but just bog standard admin. I'm good at my job but that's all) and have done so for the past 8 years. I still don't have any authority and although I always thought I'd want to progress more, I don't think it's feasible as my child will always take priority. Going back to work full time has shown me that maybe I don't have what it takes to progress further. My current workplace is small so I would be unlikely to get ahead there any time soon.
I think the wage I am on is probably at the peak for what I do as well.
It would be nice for dd to be able to go to nursery when I was on mat leave so I would like to try and aim for a position where I started mat leave when she was 3.

I think you're right that childcare really fucks you over when it comes to cost over going bank to work. I am extremely lucky that I am able to stay at home on my partners wage but I will work when they get older.

Op, if the government brings in 30 hours free childcare for 3 & 4 year olds in 2017, then I would think you would really benefit from that as if you were part time, your eldest's childcare would be virtually paid for and by the time you returned to work your eldest would be about ready to start full time school.

You can afford it because your eldest will be eligible for 15 hours of free childcare, and possibly more as the govt is looking at extending it to 30 hours.
I agree that you shouldn't fall into the trap of giving up your job as you think childcare costs are the same as what you earn. These are a few short years. After paying childcare, I clear less than £500 a month working full time. However, this is only temporary, once my kids as at school, our childcare bill will drop dramatically and I'll probably be contributing £1,400 a month to the family pot. I do love my job though. I also want to set an example Tommy daughter that it's good to get an education and find a job you like. This is just my experience obviously... But I'm saying you don't have to give up work and it WILL get cheaper and easier. For example, I've already set up a holiday swap with good friends - I'll have their kids for some of the school holidays and they will then have mine. The kids love each other so it will work well AND it saves on childcare.

We did the opposite and have two very close in age. That way the bulk of full time childcare was over quicker. And if you use a nanny they cover per family not per child

Nanny is hideously expensive though. £10 per hour net (going rate round here - London, not central) works out at over £40k per year full time, so you'd need to earn about £70k gross just to pay the nanny, more if you pay into a pension.

I have looked at nanny cost and worked out I needed to earn £70k or more too. Can't afford it. I love how on MN it is always put forward as a sensible solution for when having 2 kids.

Yes I know! Would have to be at least 3 or more for it to be the cheapest alternative.

If your job definitely wouldn't allow you to go part time, at least your DH's could; I've known several couples where the man is a teacher and has gone part time-they love it! He could drop to 3 days so your childcare fees drop substantially.

Or, you could wait until your first child is at school before having another.

But nanny is still cheaper than nursery full time even if that cost of nanny is expensive. Ie a nursery place here 8-6pm is £86 a day. It's £8.50 extra if you need 7.30-8am or 6-6.30pm. So that's over £100 a day for 1. £200+ for two. A full time nanny on £500 net, is £680 total including tax and insurance. That's still £120 cheaper a week to have a nanny over a full time nursery place.
So yes nanny is expensive, but no more so than a nursery here hence many people suggest it.
A nanny will often do part time hrs also or early/ late starts and finishes, compared to nurseries here where you have to pay for a full time place even if you only need say 8.30-4pm. You don't get a cheaper rate from nursery because you don't use 2 1/2 hrs a day, but with a nanny you can tell them fixed hrs before they start position

It's weighing up your choices, isn't it, I suppose...

1. A nanny-that's expensive. How expensive?
2. two children in nursery-expensive
3. your husband dropping down to 3 days would be less money, but would it work out financially advantageous for a few years? (the tafkam TES site is good for playing around with how much money you'd earn working x days)
4. You giving up work and having no salary for a couple of years-would that give you more each month than you working full time and DH working eg 3 days or not?
5. Childminder-there are some around here that just do term time-that's worth considering.
6. Don't have another child at all or yet.

You say plenty of people who earn less than you manage, but they might have any number of things going in their favour-small mortgages, family doing childcare etc

I wouldn't rely on benefits and free childcare coming for 3 year olds sadly as I just can't see that there will be enough childcare providers around and able to take the numbers the government are suggesting.

Gracious nursery fees really do vary - near me a nursery is around £35 for a full day. I wouldn't have been able to afford to work with even one child at £86 a day. (as in would cost more than I earned)

We managed by only dh working full time. I was part time which reduced costs and we only had a short time with 2 kids at childminders all day. Plus we paid term time only. It's worth getting a childminder now as it's so much better when you need before and after school care.

We now have grandparents who help with childcare which has halved costs. Quite a few people I know have family to pitch in.

We earnt a similar amount to you when we were contemplating number two, except I only worked one day a week, so only had to find childcare for one day which I was lucky enough to have my parents for.

Most of the female friends I have who work actually have family support for childcare-be it grandparents or aunties. It's hard when you don't have that, but it might go some way to explain how other people do it. I have two friends who don't have family help but both have extremely highly paid jobs so can afford to pay nursery fees and have two or three children.

I agree family help would be excellent. My sister lives close to my parents so they cared for my nephew and that has saved them a lot.
Unfortunately the in laws aren't keen on helping out until dd is at school and we live about 3hrs from my side of the family.

You've all given me a lot of good things to think about.
I expect I will be playing with some numbers as although timing a child can never be perfect as who knows what could happen in a years time, i like to at least feel like I've tried to be realistic about what we are letting ourselves in for financially.

There are cheaper nannies around - mine is brilliant and £9ph gross!

We have 2. We earn a little less than you. But much less when we had our dd's. When they were smaller, I worked evenings while DH worked days. We were like ships that passed in the night as they say but we have never paid a penny in childcare. Now they're at school I work 9 - 3 in a supermarket as it's pretty much the only place flexible enough. My two are just a year apart which limited the time I had to work evenings.

Another popular option would be to wait till your eldest is at school and then have your second.

Oly5 generally there is an approximate "going rate" for the area though so it depends where the OP lives.

Savings in a word. DC1 is 2.5 and DC2 due later this year. When I return to work next year we estimate childcare costs for both will be around £1500 a month.

This is a combination of Childminder in conjunction with part-time nursery for DC1 when she qualifies for her free hours (our CM does not accept the 15 hours). We currently pay £960 a month so we've saved £7k to cover the additional monthly costs of £500+ for a year until DC1 starts school and hopefully will not need to dip into those savings during my mat leave.

We both get Childcare vouchers although I'm only able to claim £124 due to my earnings. This is a shame really as while I accept I am on a higher salary than the UK average I wish the system would take into account the higher living costs in London (and the SE generally). It would be great to live somewhere cheaper but our entire support network is in London including the family members who look after DC1 1 day at week for us.

God only knows :o We've got three (8, 2, and 4 months). We live in the US too so no childcare vouchers or 15 free hours or anything. We live in a small town though and things are cheap here.

As a PP said, I didn't really have a career before children. I worked in child care and as a 1:1 aide too, and eventually decided to just stay home. I do part time childminding now and am going to get licensed to take on a few more. I don't make much at all at this point; I basically just work for "extras".

If I did have a career I'd probably work and be very frugal until the kids were in school (which is age 5/6 here). In the grand scheme of things it isn't so long. Of course I want another in a few years...