How much do we need a month to survive?

[DungunGirl]

Hi mumnetters

DH and myself are considering whether we can afford to have a third child. DH feels we can't afford it so I want to pick your brains!

We currently have a £1400 mortgage and £145 council tax per month to pay, so taking that into calculations, how much would you need a month to cover bills, feed the family etc?

DH brings home about £2100 a month and if we were to have another child I would have to give up work, so that would be 0 from me.

Would we even qualify for any benefits? DH's salary is less than 50,000 pa.

Help?

If you are taking home £2100 and spending £1400 on mortgage and £145 council tax, that leaves you just £555 for everything else. You'd also get child benefit presumably, around £150/month for 3 kids, giving you around £700/month. Entitledto.com will give you an idea of how much tax credits you'll be due, but with an income of around £40k/year it won't be much, say £100/month? Giving you £800/month to spend.

From that you need to pay electricity/gas/water (£150/month?), food for 5 (£350/month?), clothes, car tax and insurance, home & contents insurance (£50/month?), internet, phone, etc etc...

You need to make a list of everything that you need to spend money on. Given your mortgage would be two-thirds of your take home pay, I think you'll be struggling, tbh.

Oh dear....so DH may be right....I don't understand how other people on much smaller salaries to ours manage to have loads of kids!

Me too, I dont understand how people who work very little hours or not working are managing to have 2 to 3 kids.

We can only afford one . Otherwise we would not be able to afford mortgage and cots etc.

Very sad as I always wanted 2 kids.

Is there anyway that you could get a part time job evenings and weekends for a bit once baby is born or work from home perhaps?

Is there anyway that you could get some savings that would lighten the financial burden? I dont know what else to suggest. I hope you find a way if that is what you really want!

You mortgage seems to be a HUGE proportion of your DH's income. This problem leaves you with very little financial flexibility. Would downsizing or renting be an option?

A third child isn't always a huge extra expense, unless (as in your case) it means a big change to your work/childcare situation. What age are your other DC? childcare costs change enormously with age.

I think anything is do-able but you'd be seriously pushing it to survive on what you'd have left, especially if anything went wrong or needed replacing.

The bottom line is you have a pretty huge mortgage and that is going to limit what you can do, I don't know where you live but as muddleduck says, is there anyway you could downsize or rent?

I find this very interesting as I'm in a similar boat. Not planning another baby, but thinking to ditch my job and start another degree. We're not in the uk atm and for a few more years (maybe permanently) so I don't know if there's any help for mature students etc.

I started by making a detailed list of our expenses for the past four months -always more than you think. There always seem to be those little extras I hadn't factor it: bust tyre, emergency OTC meds, kids feet suddenly growing two sizes, broken radiator and other stuff, some small, some not so small. But I thought that if I do this for a few months it will give me a more realistic view of what we spend and where we can downsize.

Then I compare all this to what I bring home.

I think it's doable but you'll need to do some research:

There are many threads on MN with very good ideas on how to keep the supermarket bill down. You'll have to do some shopping around for your phone/gas/electricity/car and house insurance -are you getting the best deal you can?

What is there that your bank can do about your mortgage? Is your house overly luxurious or in a very expensive area? What about holidays?

And of course it's all going to depend on the age of your children. Are you prepared to maybe do a little of work from home in the evenings? Even if it's something little, like stuffing envelopes, you can make enough to pay for nappies and milk and feel better about it all.

I think the question really is how much are you prepared to sacrifice in order to have a third child? And do you feel this will be fair on your dc? -I mean, will you feel guilty if you can't afford taking them to a yearly holiday or throwing them an expensive birthday party, or are such things low on your list.

Sorry for the long post. Let me know how you get on, I'm battling with these thoughts myself.

gobsmackdetal's list and suggestions are very good. That's the sort of thing that I've done too when we were doing our calculations for how long we can afford for me to take maternity leave (I earn more than my partner though we both earn).

You certainly need to include contingency allowances, and I suspect that the mortgage is going to be the big sticking point. Our mortgage is £880 per month so yours sounds large to me in comparison.

When you are comparing your situation to others who are able to have big families, are you comparing like with like - are they renting or also buying houses on expensive mortgages? Perhaps if you there's someone you're thinking of in particular, you could ask them?

you could always work a night shift somewhere when your dh is around to care for the baby?

or change your mortgage to interest only for the period you would not be working?

Thanks for the suggestions and very sensible points everyone has raised.

Yeah our mortgage is pretty big at the moment, it used to be only £700 per month but with the downturn in house prices last year, we took the huge decision to move up the ladder. It was a decision to stretch the mortgage to the max of our affordability to get the family home we hope to stay in forever ( as good as ) and also to ensure it was in the best local school catchment.

At the moment my salary per month is equal to my DH's. So we would be losing half our monthly income. Of course, we would scrap paying the £1000 childcare bill every month, and I would stop having to pay my £300 commuting costs. So really, we would be short £600 that is usually leftover at the end of the month for bills etc.

In theory, I could work freelance ( I am a designer) and if successful could earn double my current monthly salary in a month! However, times are hard and I know companies are not outsourcing as much at the moment.AND with 3 young children, there would be a limit how much time you can spend sat at a computer.

TO answer muddleduck my DS1 is 5 years old and DS2 is 11 months old. If it were up to me, I would give it another 3 years, as I am only 32 ( still have time I think! ) and then the first 2 will be in school and like you said, then it would only be the baby needing to be in full time childcare. We'd be £240 a month worse off again than we are now, but I think I could cut back on little luxuries to compensate for that.

Problem is DH is doing the IT IS NOW OR NEVER! thing on me. And it is stressing me out! I know with my head tightly screwed on that if we want to stay in the house we are in now, in the good area we are in, then financially, NOW will not work. On the other hand, I can't bare the thought that he sticks to his guns and if I just decide not now and hope that he will agree to another 3-4 years down the line, that he will refuse.

I had a heart to heart talk with DH last night and told him that honestly I am not DESPERATE for another right now, I am quite content to focus on helping DS1 into year 1 and enjoy DS2 while he is still little. But I would really love a third in a couple or so years. Like the many many discussions before, he would not budge. He kept saying that he doesn't want to 60 and still supporting his kids, so the older he gets the less likely he is to agree to another.

gobsmackedetal Wow a brave idea! To be honest, I quiteabout the idea of a third and having to leave my full time job because I am soooooo tired of my commute. I have a 1.5 hour each way commute EVERYDAY! So that is 3 hours of my day spent just getting to and back from work! I have to get up at 5.30am and leave by 6.30am to get in for 8am and then have to leave a 4pm to get back by 5.30pm to pick up the boys. It is just getting tiring....I have been doing this for 10 years and it is starting to wear me down now....I have even considered applying for Teacher training...I have a degree so I hear that it isn't too hard to get into teaching with a degree and industry experience..but who knows! Even if I went freelance and managed to get it off the ground...would be so nice NOT to have to get up and onto the motorway and into smog city every morning.I only get to see my boys for about 20 mins before I leave and then only get to see them for 1 hour at the end of the day before they go to bed. I miss them...for some reason I have started missing them more and more recently. Maybe it is the thought that if I really don't have any more kids that I have missed them growing up, as I was constantly at work...

anyway, sorry everyone...I have gone on and one....needed to get stuff off my chest

OP, commuting for so long sucks, I know how you feel, when I used to do this I couldn't help thinking of all the things that I could be doing with dc instead of being stuck in the stupid train.

Is your DH much older than you? Surely a couple of years can't make that much of a difference. If you really want this I think it's totally doable, but how about throw the idea that for the next couple of years you try to save two or three hundrend a month, so that when it happens you can run the family on this for another couple of years (am I making sense?). It's difficult though if he refuses to discuss it...

maybe though...just maybe a pregnancy right now would be the perfect opportunity for you to go freelance... Maybe too brave?

I also liked the suggestions that you change your mortgage to interest only until you get it off the ground. Or take a mortgage holiday, usually banks are "happy" to give them to people on maternity leave.

Is the issue really a third child or that you feel you don't get to see your children? Because if it's the latter, I know I would do anything to change the situation. There's no price to happiness (...don't I sound like a pop magazine's "psychologist"? haha)

gobsmackedetal

You've hit on one or two things that are very true.

a) I would almost need to be forced to go freelance as I am not brave enough to take the plunge.

b) I have always wanted 3 kids, from the day I turned 18! However, I think the fact I feel I am missing out on my current 2 is only making matters worse. Maybe if I could have more time with them, it wouldn't make me feel so desperate.

I think the interest only mortgage option is something good to consider once our contract is up, as we are on fixed rate mortgages that have penalties for pulling out early. However I think they finish next year!

Anyway, thanks for the support and opinions....any more are welcome!

DungunGirl, call your current mortgage provider - many let you switch to interest only with just an admin fee of £75 or similar.

I did this for a year when my wife was out of work after a major operation. It will probably knock about £500 a month off your mortgage.

I wouldn't advise it for the medium-long term though as I would hate knowing that my mortgage wasn't reducing.

Your dh is saying that you cannot afford a baby right now but is also saying it is now or never - do you think he really wants another baby or is he not particularly keen.

if you have a 3rd then you will see your others more as you would be not owrking/changing to freelance. so win win.

financially - switch to interest only for a year or so.

if you have big house you could take in a lodger - or get au pair to help with kids so you can freelance.

consider your car - two baby seats and a booster dont go on usual back seats - if you dont already have you might need a 7 seater or something like a scenic.

whata bout holidays - can you save by going to family, camping etc?