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!

House prices have risen by over 70% on average in the last 10 years, I would call that much cheaper, no?

Is he a DP or a DH? Sorry I know this is said all the time on here but if the former I would seriously consider marrying, even at a registry office. Your career is suffering and will suffer further and if he has a more cavalier approach to money with you you could end up in a sticky situation if for whatever reason the relationship didn’t work out.

Ah wow excellent practical thinking. He is DH, just means all practical financial planning tends to fall on me.

Also other people previously talking about careers - i wouldn't want to sacrifice my family size for career, I don't like work that much. If anything, I don't feel valued at work so sacrificing opportunity of a 3rd for putting more time into work wouldn't feel right. The thing is I have to now put up with is a career im not happy in for a few more years until our family situation stabilises and I can prioritise me again. I know this is right for me now, but doesn't make it any easier to stomach frankly. Interesting to hear about previous posters saying they quit then went back to something later.

Logistics - relates to career thoughts. So garden to get them all anywhere in time and get yourself to work too, 50% of people I know with 2 have gone part time, 3 kid families i know the mums just had to quit :(

We have 4 and it's great! Happy to answer any questions @Yams17

I am a Mum with 3 .They all went to Uni but are now paying off their loans .We paid the top up for accommodation and gave them approx £100 per week for living costs.
Yes it was a struggle but the love that my children have for each other and for us is amazing!
Number 3 is an absolute joy and I have absolutely no regrets andhe is making a fortune !!

@Yams17 Obvuously things might change but at the moment around 37% of 18 year olds go to uni. Hardly any get degree apprenticeships. So fugues are 350,000 vs 10,000 pa. Your dc might get more choice but at the moment degree apprenticeships are ultra competitive. You are in London so that’s better for jobs but most employers won’t expect years of work pre degree. Just some work!

I have family with 3 dc. Apparently it’s everyone else’s fault they don’t have much money. I think you are right to plan. It’s sensible. After you retire you can downsize away from London. That might get you some money!

I’ve got 3 very young DC, same age gaps as what you will have. Currently on mat leave but will go back to work full-time as a teacher in March next year.

We upgraded our car to a 7-seater as we couldn’t fit 3 car seats across the back of our previous car. We got a less expensive car, so no real cost change there.

Our two boys will share the upstairs loft as their bedroom once youngest reliably sleeps through the night. I struggled with this, but my DH grew up sharing a bedroom with his older brother and they are the best of friends now, so he put my mind at ease. Our house is lovely but could do with a kitchen/bathroom upgrade. We won’t be able to afford that for many years, so I’m just learning to love it as it is.

Like PPs, we will embrace camping holidays for the next 10 years or so. We are quite outdoorsy, so this suits us fine. We did plenty of travelling abroad pre-DC so don’t feel the need as much anymore. Travelling is significantly more expensive going from 2 DC to 3 DC, so it’s important to consider this.

The most expensive change for us has been groceries and day-to-day expenses. Youngest has reflux and needs expensive specialist formula. Two DC still in nappies which really adds up. I cook everything from scratch which helps save on costs. I never buy packaged snacks as they are too expensive. I can’t believe how much fruit we seem to eat!

DC only do swimming lessons as extra-curricular, and I teach them piano at home. Perhaps DD will do ballet in a few years, we’ll see. I did a huge amount of extra-curriculars as a child, and always felt overwhelmed, so I’ve made a decision to not overcommit my own DC.

We can’t afford a babysitter more than twice a year (zero family help) and we’ve had a lot of trouble finding one that will take 3 kids. Many only accept 2 kids. We made some changes to our house and built a home gym in the basement so we can workout together. We have a weekly at home movie night as a ‘date’.

We will get a cleaner for 3 hours per week once I go back to work. DH and I split laundry and tidying. I do all the cooking and meal prep because I love it. I put on a podcast or music, and DH takes the kids while I’m in the kitchen. DH sorts the life admin stuff like car, health insurance, appointments etc. and we have a shared calendar. We both make the monthly budget and I track all our expenses to check we’re on track. I get groceries delivered weekly.

I have no idea if my DC will want to go to uni, but we will encourage them to pay their own way and work for a few years if necessary to avoid too much student debt. We will try and contribute of course, but that wasn’t a huge part of our decision in having 3 DC. Like PPs have said, we also highly value apprenticeships and other work-training programs, so don’t plan to push uni unless that’s what DC want.

That’s quite a long post, but I hope it’s helpful to give you a sense of the reality of life with 3. I love my family of 5 and it feels like such a dream after several lost pregnancies over the years.

Just wanted to address your career question too: Like you said OP, most women I know with 3 or more DC have cut to part-time or quit working. As I said above, I plan to go back to work full-time in a few months. I have 2 teacher colleagues with 3 DC each who have been very encouraging and have given me lots of good advice on how to manage.

I plan to arrive very early (7am), while DH does morning school/nursery drop offs, to get my planning and grading done. Then, school/nursery pick up between 4-4:30pm. DC will go to after-school club for 1 hour and eat their snack. Then it’s homework, dinner, piano, bath time, blah blah, you know the drill. DH arrives home at around 5:30-6pm. DC bedtime is early, around 6:30-7pm. Then, 1 hour of laundry/house stuff before we go down to the gym for a workout. We both go to bed around 8:30-9pm.

I know this is going to be very busy and that I’ll feel really squeezed. There really is no margin, so it will all go to shit if someone gets sick or a DC doesn’t sleep well. I hope I’ll be able to manage it. Thankfully I have lots of holidays as a teacher, and the only extra childcare I have to worry about is the hour at after school club every day.

Maybe I’ll report back to you in May next year to let you know how I’m getting on! Haha

@bathroomadviceneeded i have 3 and am a full time secondary teacher. DH works full time too.

It’s fine. A bit bonkers, but fine!

mine are now 12, 10 and 8 and it definitely gets easier!

Thank you for the encouragement! I’m really glad to know that it’s working out for you. I absolutely love teaching and I’ve been at a really lovely school for the last 6 years, so I really want to keep that going without neglecting my family.

If you start to put a little a month away for each child once they start school there should be enough to help them out with uni costs. If you start saving when each DC turns 5 there will be 13 years saving for each DC. You'll have interest too.

We've got three boys, similar age gap to yours and I had the last at 40. Financially has been up and down but so very worth it. When they were younger, the two older ones would fight over time with the youngest. I've just had the younger ones (now 16 and 20) in the living room watching a movie with us and the banter between them was constant. I do wonder about how we'll pay for uni and when I'll be able to retire but, he is very worth it.

I work full time with more than 2 children and I've been divorced from their father since they were primary school age so I'm on my own most of the time . I've always worked - it is possible, you've just got to be organised and try and have the type of job that's regular hours and not a massive commute. I did take 12 months maternity leave each time to cut down on nursery bills for the older children, not just the baby.

I have three, two now in uni and one is graduated and working.

it has definitely definitely been worth it for us!
try and get it so you have one in uni at a time.

We pay £600 a month rent for DS2 (Bristol) and he lives off his loan (minimum amount £4500 a year). DS1 is in the military so degree all paid for!

holidays etc have never really cost much more as we always do cottages/gites and static caravans back in the skint days! So you can just squeeze them in, they still fit all three in a double bed 😂.
we used to get the Chunnel and drive to France or Italy.
the main difference is house deposit- we are giving them each £30k and it’s such a commitment- mostly small inheritances and savings so far.
mine were each four years apart, also they’re quite chilled kids so I luckily worked school hours until the youngest was well into high school.
one after school activity was each per week!

it’s been great, I wouldn’t change it for anything. I love having three!

Thanks to everyone for their practical tips!

I've just realised we have been putting more away already for kids than I realised as my mum and dad badgered us a while back when kids were born (cos they worry about money all the time without really having clear goals necessarily), we just have to keep it up for another 20 odd years 😁 and try and encourage them to pace it so only 1 is at uni if possible at a time.

More immediately we have chosen primary school walking distance from house, and so far they only do swimming (so far not keen on much else but still young) which is also walking distance, amazing childminder which helps for emergencies. This all make logistics in the early years easier, and when they're a bit older we have everything on our doorstep or easy public transport options so hopefully ferrying around not too mad as they get older.

This has been an interesting conversation with DH too about our expectations and values about money and help etc I think any house deposit is the real unknown about whether that's right and frankly what house prices will be like in 20 years time. The other unknown at mo is subsequent impact on our potential pensions but other than topping UK now while we can I cant see much more we can do there.

Also chatting to my mum about this she thought I was being a bit mad and overthinking, there's no way they could have planned for uni costs or house deposits (or gap years, a crazy novelty to my family) when we were kids for them to plan for. There's only so much we can control.

What we do know is it would be fun having a gang of 5 😆

We have three, it's the absolute best!! They're such a little gang together ❤️ I gave up work for a few years whilst they were younger (but we paid into my pension to keep that going), that was more my choice than logistics though, I wanted to be at home. Back working now but only part time so best of both worlds.

We've put money aside since they were small so there'll be a pot to pay for uni/house deposit. In the meantime you just muddle through. I don't agree it's 25% more expensive, sure for some price per head things like cinema tickets, but food isn't 25% more, or household bills for example.

Good luck OP, we've never had any regrets 😀

Ps I'd say if you're already thinking about how to pay for university for an as yet unborn child then you're clearly good at budgeting and planning so you'll be fine 🙂

Lol that's one way of looking at it 🤣 thank you! I'm more of a control freak and if there's anything that's hard to control it's pregnancy and kids!

I'd love to have the option to have a career break for a few years but finances would just not work for us. V jealous! I was just trying to plan to leave the Civil Service to go private instead, but I guess that dream will have to wait atleast 3 years now 😅