How do people afford more than one child in the South East of England?

[messalina]

Have just been reading some of the threads about only children and wondered whether many people out there decided not to have a second or third child for financial reasons. We live in the South-East and have one child who is nearly one. I would quite like a second one, but couldn't afford it till DC1 is at least four and nearly in school. I can't afford to work FT and pay two lots of childcare and not working or working P/T isn't financially viable either. Catch 22. I am quite angry about this situation because both my DH and I are professional and successful people and (what a joke!) higher rate tax payers. And yet, because of the cost of housing, childcare and living in the UK, and especially in the S-E (add to this the cost of commuting to London for my DH), we are wondering how ON EARTH people afford it. We like enjoying ourselves but have one fairly modest foreign holiday every 12-18 months, two small cars, and probably go out to dinner together once every six weeks. I don't call this extravagant. It makes me so cross that our government is so useless at funding childcare. Are there people with similar stories out there? And families who do manage financially, and if so how much disposable income do they reckon you need a month to survive and have a tiny bit of fun? Sorry to ask such a vulgar question, but I would be seriously interested to know.

Thank you all very much for your very helpful messages. I think I am going to have to ask myself some quite hard questions about whether I want a second child more than I want a certain standard of living. I didn't think I was extravagant, but having read some of the posts, I don't think I economise anything like as much as some other posters. I try to get the best deals and to think of ways of saving money but it's almost a full-time job in itself. I get so busy with work and looking after DC that I actually spend money I don't need to spend because of lack of time - e.g. having nothing in the house to eat so having to ask DH to buy something in M&S at the station on his way home; running out of supplies and having to pay double the price in the petrol station for basics; not having time to check the bloody gas meter so paying over the odds for a fixed rate every month. I know all these things can be done easily enough with a bit of planning, but I don't have that sort of mindset. I do manage to save money though, so if I really, really wanted a second child, I'd have to be prepared to be more anal about money. Just not sure I'd want that sort of life though. Maybe I'll stick to one!

i don't know how people afford to keep themselves alone, much less a family, in that area.

A lot of people manage by juggling debt. TBH, you don't sound badly off to me. I would have thought you could have managed a second child. If you want one that is.

Don't forget that you get 9mo maternity pay so you can try to have number 2 when DC1 is 3, and will be off to school as your maternity leave ends.

It really is difficult.

I'm the one who's been ranting about government childcare help, and mostly being shot down as unreasonable. But I can't see how asking to have more than one child and expecting to earn a living are unreasonable!

messalina we have an 80k mortgage on a property worth £200k, 4 children and receive enhanced CTC because my dh earns so little.

So yes standard of living has a lot to do with it - how much is your home worth, can you downsize to a cheaper area to get rid of some of your mortgage debt?

We have 3, DH earns under £15000. One of ours has SN, so won't go back to work for a while. All under 4. We rely heavily on our CTCs, etc. No holidays, one car.

We live in the SE, have 2 DC's, one at school, one part time at day care nursery. I am full time SAHM. But the only reason we have been able to manage and be fairly comfortable is probably because we are a lot older than most of you. I had DD at 33, DS at 35, I am now 39, and DH is 41.

We were lucky enough to profit from the property boom, sold our flat, made a huge profit, bought our house with a huge deposit and very low mortgage, hence me able to full time SAHM and DH works full time.

Anybody even only 5 years younger than us may have been too young to benefit from the property boom, as i bought my flat in 1996 at age 27, and unbeknown to me at the time, i bought right at the start of the boom and I sold in 2004, very near the peak. It was just luck for us, i feel very sad for those younger than us, you are in a very tough position.

I agree with you about the cost of childcare. Ironically if you have more children and they are at nursery you have to pay extra fees for each child but if you have nanny it is the same cost regardless of how many children. But nanny wages in se are quite high so yes it is a catch 22.

But i also think that we have been made to believe that you have to spend a fortune if you want more than one. Not every member of the family has to have his own room plus study room plus playroom plus utility room. Nice but not essential. And a new baby will not need new pram and clothes as you allready have them. And babies dont need baby classes, the park is free etc etc.
What i am trying to say is that apart from the childcare the rest its up to you and depends how much you want another child.

My friend's dh (who has degree education but not very well paid profession) gave up his job to work nights as cab driver. That way they both work ft but in shifts so they dont pay childcare. They are happy, they always wanted big family. Personally just watching them makes me tired.

oneplusone - it's not just people younger than you who are struggling with the property side. DH and I are both 36 and reasonable well-paid professionals, but since we moved to the UK only 5 years ago with nothing but the backpacks on our backs, we've started on the property ladder very late. So we've paid a ridculous price for a tiny house, with no savings built up from our younger days, so our mortgage is crippling. We left DH's country as there was a huge economic crisis there and his company went bust, so we came here with nothing. But we think we've done quite well and come a long way in 5 years! But it really irks sometimes to see everyone else our age, on the same kind of salaries, with large 3 or 4 bed houses, big gardens etc while we're in a back-to-back 2 bed terrace!

But again, I know lots of people have it much worse than we do, so I am grateful for what we have.

grandparents mainly.could not manage without.
don't forget pre schoolers = cheaper holidays in term time.

Agree with nkf we manage by juggling debt. Head has been firmly rooted in the sand, its hard to remove it from the sand in this economic climate.

I do seem to have a lot of wealthy friends, no idea how they came to be so wealthy. Partner working, SAHM, four holidays a year including at least one long haul and skiing trip, membership of exclusive private health club. They are aware that we are not well off but I think because they have never had to scrimp or save they really have no idea how the other half live. I have stopped going for evenings out with them (couldn't afford it anyway) after it became the norm for them to order a couple of bottles of champagne .

Annie - that's how it has been for us too. We moved back to the UK at 37 and took out a 99% mortguage. Now we have another house - not particularly big but a bit bigger in a better school district (SE England) and a 4 figure mortguage to go with it [schock]. Dh is a higher tax payer but I am not earning (finishing postgrad). I really wonder how other families cope.

We tried to have another child but couldn't, unfortuntately. The upside is that we have 4 holidays a year (3 overseas) and run 2 cars. We keep very little disposable income on a weekly basis though (about 100/month as a pp mentioned) and I am the queed of cheap shopping and secondhand clothes (for me - not princess dd . I would give up the holidays and the second car in a heartbeat though, if we could have a second child.

queen, even

well, we live in the south east in west sussex

we have 3 children and get by just fine!

dp's salary is £50,000, mortgage is 170,000 (3 bed terraced house)
I am a sahm

we have plenty of money to get by with!

more info on our situation:

we run one car, but had 2 until fairly recently.
shop at sainsburys
buy decent food, usually organic, and get an abel and cole box each week

ds1 has just left nursery, to start school so no nursery fees until ds2 starts next year, but we were paying around £100 a month for ds1 as he was at a private nursery, but partly funded by govt thingy

we rarely holiday abroad, once in the last 4 years
we go camping and have family down in devon who we visit once or twice a year

we don';t really eat out often, partly because of my velcro babies lol, but we prefer having people over here or whatever anyway
but we have a chinese every now and then

house prices round here are £250k + for bog standard three bedroom houses, might as well be sitting on oil

you in london southeastastra?

we had to compromise on area tbh, cos we wanted the 3 bedrooms and the max we could get for mortgage was 170 so we had to go with what we could find and we were pretty lucky with it

if prices had been higher then we would have had to make do with 2 beds or go for a flat or something, or live in an even worse area!

actually no, we prob would have continued renting for longer rather than buying

Our DS goes to nursery two days a week. We get about 70 to 80 percent of it paid for as we earn under a certain amount which is £13,000 or £16,000. I have hardly worked in the last year so earned about £3,000 a year, but have used £6,000 of my savings for living. My boyfriend has finished buying the house we live in and earns about £7,000 a year. All of my DS clothes, toys, cot etc was given to us by friends and I have just started buying a few second hand items for him as comes up to 2 yrs. I buy his shoes on ebay. I get him measured in Clarks then get the exact size on ebay. I went to a podiatrist shop in town and he said this was absolutely fine and gave me a couple of guidelines on shoes. The only thing we have spent is £200 on two prams and a cot mattress. From the earnings and savings we have bought a new kitchen and floor. The main reason we have been able to do it so cheaply is because we are older, 40 and 48 and so we have built up some money in savings and paid for a house that is cheap because its in the north. When I have worked a lot as a professional I have spent so much money on food, drink, travel, clothes and treats for working I have started to question the worth of working to such a capacity. So, that's me. All I can suggest is could you move to a cheaper city to lessen the mortgage? Reduce your days so you could spend time on ebay, 2nd hand shops?

I feel your pain. My DH is on at me to have another, and I would love to - by the financial practicalities of having 2 seem impossible; I am on a reasonable salary, and DH's is "OK", but we seem to be living hand to mouth most of the time. We're paying off a load of debt from my uni and covering costs from when he was out of work for a while (so basically paying to live in London on credit card for a while!) etc, childcare is £800 a month, then when you add on travel, house blah blah it is just impossible.

We keep thinking about moving away - but loathed to leave the company I am with and he has just got a good job. Indeed childcare costs will reduce in about 16 months when DD is 3 - but to then whack the outgoings straight back up again by having another child just seems ridiculous.

Think I am going to have to persuade him to hold off until the debts are paid off - now where is that liquid nitrogen, I've got some eggs to freeze!

I am a SAHD in East London (DW and I are 39). We have DS @ 2 and a half and DW is towards end of 1st trimester with second child. I haven't been in full time employment since DW fell pregnant with DS. I gave up work to care for her during pregnancy (due to previous miscarriages and ectopic). I had good professional job. DW has a professional job. We had combined income of over £60. Now it is less than half and has been for the best part of 3 years. We have a two bedroom house and one nearly new car. We don't go on holidays or out that often. We need home improvements but no money. However, despite the financial constraints, we have a low mortgage, lots of family support and DS is in nursery PT (with financial assistance from family). As regards having a second child:
We looked at our DS and knew he would love to have a sibling. He is very happy that 'mummy has a baby in her tummy' as he blurted out to MIL. (No one knows yet until after the first scan). Yes there will be some financial pressure but we have all the baby stuff from before: cot, reusable nappies, changing table, clothes, toys etc. DW body clock is moving ahead and she was feeling the need to just go for it. I said to her to just have faith that everything will work out. We will just need to cut back if necessary - shop at morrisons instead of Tescos etc. I will confess I am a little worried in these recessionary times and especially since a job I was offered was suddenly withdrawn after the decision was made to have a second child. But I am sure it will work out.

We are expecting our second child. Unfortunately all the "fun" things that you mentioned went out of the window when our first child came along. I have lots of friends who have two children and seem to be doing just fine, lots of holidays etc. No idea how they do it, I can only assume that they got onto the property ladder aged 2.

I'm quite new to Mumsnet & have just come across this post. DH & I met later in life and married last year. I am 35 & he is 11 years older. Despite both having well paid jobs it has been difficult- we managed to buy a 1970s 3 bedroom semi which needs quite alot of work, but a combination of the lack of mortgages available last year & DH's age mean that we had to take a shorter term mortgage, and that as well as high house prices in the South East has made our monthly repayments high. We thought very hard about children & whether we could really afford it. We both wanted them but ideally would've waited a few years to try and pay some of the mortgage off, however being realistic at 35 I don't have many years available! We're really delighted to be expecting a baby in May, but we do worry how will manage financially; I can't afford to give up work, but nursery fees are huge. We would love to be able to have another child in the future, but there is just no way that we could afford it.

Well, I have never worked FT so do not miss the wage, we bought (albeit at the peak of the market in summer '06) a small 2/3 bed maisonette which we are now pretty stuck in as we have a self cert. mortgage and could not now get a 'normal' one on DHs wage, but it's a roof over our heads. Cars were saved for and modest - DH a £4,000 mondeo estate and myself an old Discovery we bought pre-kids. Holidays are camping, visiting family. No dinners out (more for the fact it's easier to have a nice meal in without childcare worries). I am pregnant with no.3 at the moment. We will only get a 3/4 house with garden in about 5 years now when youngest is at school and I can work, but my wage will always be treated as an added bonus. We have managed even when DHs wage dropped to 16k - depends if you have HPs/credit cards/loan payments to meet etc.

There is no way we could have afforded to have 2 children in childcare - it takes both our salaries to pay the mortgage, and we had a nannyshare with a nanny who had her own child (only way it eas affordable) so she wouldn't have managed another baby.

We work flexi-time, we have very few holidays together as DP and I take our hols at differnt times to cover childcare during the school hols. We never have new furniture or decorating done, we are not able to save - not even for our pensions.

London property prices - our only hope is to sell up on retirement and move somewhere much, much cheaper.