Longer term implications of 3rd kid

[Yams17]

Hi, we think we are now pregnant with 3rd. We had tried but not thought much would happen and we're just giving up so I had just got used to the idea of being a family of 4.

Now I'm finding myself in slight stress mode. We have 2 DS 5 and 2. So will be about a 3 year gap between them. Immediately childcare costs should be manageable, especially with free hours. We can wait to upgrade car, we dont drive often in london, and happy to forgo holidays (we rarely go overseas anyway as we have been spending money on house renos).

It's the longer term finances I'm struggling to figure out how to plan for.

Our initial worry was sleep and tiredness, if one sleeps the other doesn't, not the end of the world, but we definitely find hard to function at both our jobs. Has anyone got experience of both carrying on ft work with 3? And how to stay fulfilled with your career as a mum? I've definitely struggled to get off mummy track since my 1st which is frustrating (though recognise im lucky to have a flexible job for family life).

We have a 4ish bed house, but need to do a kitchen extension as its feeling small already, never mind for 5 (and is v broken, we bought a fixer upper to get location). We don't have cash available for this now (or headspace!)

Also what to do about pensions? Will we ever be able to retire?! I'm 40 so I've recently started thinking about this, the idea of working another 28 years is definitely not appealing:) but I guess we have to to pay for uni? If we can even hang onto jobs for that long :/

And how to pay for uni? Is £10k pa a decent budget for each kid? We live in London so I'd hope they could live at home, and if they want a live out experience then frankly they pay for themselves as much as possible. We need to save for that now i guess. But that's also so long away...

If be grateful for any thoughts on any of those, though recognise im having too many thoughts right now!

They’re all valid thoughts. It’s why we decided to stick with two. We would need a bigger house, a bigger car, we wouldn’t be able to maintain our comfortable lifestyle. We couldn’t stay in a hotel together with more than 2 kids, family tickets for things are for 2 adults 2 kids for example. We want to be able to support our into adult hood and for us an extra child would make that an uncertainty.

I also can understand why you are concerned and these were all reasons why we stuck at 2.

maybe someone with 3 can come and advise you what to do.

It's only recently (last month) i started thinking about helping kids in early adulthood. It just seems nuts that i uave to do it! Or is this the norm that I had missed?

I come from a v working class background, put myself through uni twice, bought a house without help etc. So I always assumed my kids would do the same.

But uni costs seem to have moved on significantly since my days. While I dont want to have kids who are used to having everything handed on a platter for them, the world is such that expecting then to stand on their own 2 feet as I did seems unrealistic. I want to work out a middle ground, but financial options seem to be deteriorating at such a pace that I am struggling to plan for the next 18 years (which is tough at the best of times!)

Interestingly my DP is much more relaxed about money ("it will work out") probably from coming from a much better off background than me and now earning significantly more as hasn't had a frozen career for 5 years like me thanks to mat leave.

All these things are a factor as to why we’ll likely stop at two. I think your “if they want to live out they’ll have to pay for themselves” comment is a bit off, nowadays there’s an expected level of parental contribution as loans are means tested, I think it would be wrong not to provide this and you have plenty of time to plan/save.

I work, although (will be part time) and I don’t feel we as two working parents are able to give more than two children sufficient time/energy to pursue hobbies if they so choose, which again is a factor for us as I wouldn’t want my kids missing out. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do this, but I think it would involve a lot of juggling and sacrifice and for us, would be detrimental to family time/wellbeing.

Also I like my career and get a lot of value from it, another maternity leave and the turmoil of the baby years would set me back a bit and I think it would be very hard to continue to climb the ladder whilst trying to manage 3 kids.

Would you tell us why you made the decision to go for the 3rd when you did?
Work on from those reasons and ask yourself what has changed?

I would prioritise getting a bigger car. 3 isofix is tricky either very expensive or a lot of searching for something decent if your happy to buy 2nd hand.

Sorry but I do think it the norm these days, life is getting financially tougher and why wouldn’t you want to provide that for your kids?! If you’re 40 you presumably benefited from much cheaper house prices and semi funded uni, it’s not like that now!

We’ll be planning to provide uni funding, driving lessons and a contribution towards as house deposit. Appreciate not everyone can do this but these are essentials to us ahead of another sibling.

This is why we are sticking at two. We want to be able to support our Dc through uni, contributions to house deposits and things like learning to drive and experiences. We wouldn’t be able to do the ode things with 3 DCs.

Not everyone has to go to uni. It's starting to become less popular than it used to be, with kids trying for degree apprenticeships instead. I have a larger family, all teenage or older now and not all will go to university. Probably just the eldest (already there) and the youngest (academic sort).

I do expect them to live at home longer than the previous generation, but it's no more costly to house them at home than when they were younger.

Not everyone has to, but I think it’s important for DCs to have options, and parent contributions is part of this.

Completely agree. I’ll be encouraging my kids to look at all the options and certainly don’t want them to go to uni just because, however if they have a burning passion to be a doctor/vet/lawyer it’s important to me that we’re able to support them to do it.

I was in the same position as you several years ago! I had my first at 35, second at 38, third at 41. Also living in London. My own background sounds similar to yours. It was a juggle, no doubt. I gave up work in the end, when my eldest started school and went back to a lower paid job seven years later. I was never really a fan of holidaying abroad so our children have had lots of camping holidays! I had no help from family on either side (lived too far away) but made great friends when the children were small. I found living in London, with access to all the exciting places to visit, more than compensated. I try not to wonder how different life might have been had we stopped at 2. I have 2 at university now and still don't know how we're managing but as your husband says, it's working out. My third is an absolute gift. A wonderful child who is just so easy going. One will have left university before number 3 starts so we'll just have to keep our belts tightened for another few years. The 3 of them are the lights of my life. I love it when we're all together and I hope they will always love each other. Looking back at pictures of when they were small brings me so much joy. Hard work but no regrets.

Tbf I can afford to take this approach as I live in Wales where all DC can access the full loan and my eldest goes to university in a northern city, has a part time job and hasn't needed any extra from me - but the OP lives in London, so the London universities are accessible without additional living costs. If they want to leave London, the DC could choose Universities in our cheaper cities. Many DC even with parental support can't consider London universities due to cost, so she does have an advantage there.

I haven't stopped any of my children going to uni, but not all of them want, or have the academic ability to go.

If you really want another child have another child, it will work out. I wouldn't let the reasons you listed stop you. Your house sounds big enough they can even have their own room I wouldn't let the kitchen needing to be refurbished put you off.
When I think of some of the people I know who have three kids and their living arrangements. Jeez. You'll definitely manage this a lot better than most.
As for childcare it's hard for a few years but they grow up so quickly.
As for uni they may not even want to go

Thanks, I've started a spreadsheet to work out costs so we can prioritise accordingly.

Mostly went for a 3rd as we love the idea of a 3rd, clock was ticking, figure we would regret not trying over money things like holidays. We are not big on fancy lifestyle things so happy to make lifestyle adjustments. And to be clear, we are not well off, but certainly not struggling so this is v much a privileged position to be in.

It's the expectation of help into adulthood that's come as a surprise. We will just have to crunch the numbers to see how things can be managed.

Thank you very much for your help here.

Sadly didn't benefit from house prices as graduated into the financial crisis, redundancies, met partner at 30, then bought a place a month before brexit. Had to pay tuition fees, though only had £16k debt which is nothing compared to my younger siblings who went to uni after me.

This is pretty common for most people I know of our age, though also common is that most had their parents write off their fees, and help with deposit, after paying for fancy private schools. We've all ended up roughly the same now though which is interesting.

I have 3.

everything costs 25% more: everything.
you're not buying 4 cinema tickets you’re buying 5. You’re not buying 4 plane tickets you’re buying 5. Swimming? You get my point…

logistics can be tough. Today each one of my children needed to be in a different place at the same time for sport. But there’s only 2 of you so someone has to miss out (we sorted it today with help from other parents but that doesn’t always work).

I’m assuming that uni will change massively in the next 5-10 years so I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Yes this is an interesting point. Uni is definitely not for everyone and today there are different options for everyone which I think is way better than my day of uni or nothing frankly.

Ah this is so lovely to hear thank you! I don't think we will regret a 3rd, just trying to work out practicalities to manage the financial pain and see around the corner. The other option is to move to cheaper locales, but without the amazing free stuff for kids everywhere in London, the lovely community we accidentally made, and future access to good uni and job stuff. Being grown up is fun isn't it!

I've two late teens and we had a child trust find for them which has helped with some uni costs, they had about 12K each in them at 18, this is just from putting in £25 a month (along with a similar amount from grandparents) plus the starting payment from the government at the time which I think was £500.

My eldest has chosen to live at home for uni, we also live in an expensive city but with good universities and this is working out really well. he also took a year out and worked locally to save money, as did most of his friends.

Might you come into some inheritance in future also which could also help

“If you’re 40 you presumably benefited from much cheaper house prices”

Erm. How old do you think 40 year olds are? 😂😂

My sister and I had our first children at the same time and our second ten months apart. She had a third and I didn't.

Our lives have always been quite parallel until the teenage years.

For example, I'm was going out four days a week for extra curriculars she's going six.

Our oldest ones at both at university and it's such an expensive time. It knocks the nursery years into a cocked hat. I've got six year of it, she's got a decade. I've got 40 driving lessons at £60 she's got 60.

Er, 40? I’m early 30s and managed to buy ten years ago and I recognise I was fortunate myself to benefit from prices being much cheaper than they are now.

Yes we started a monthly account for both DS when they were born which is on track at current rate to provide them with a good £25k pot each for whatever they need to spend it on at 18 (fingers x something like uni!) I expect there will be some inheritance, I have no idea what or when, don't want to rely on it, also it gives me creeps 😳 I would also be very keen on kids working before uni or whatever they do at 18 as I strongly bele8ve it's a good foundation in responsibility and wider life experience that no amount of expensive education will get you!

They’re weren’t “much cheaper” ten years ago. They were “much cheaper” twenty four years ago.