Can't afford a baby. Nearly crying as I type this.

[arimelda]

Honestly, HOW do people afford childcare costs?

I have an awesome job that I worked very, very hard to get. I have guaranteed potential to move up once I've completed my degree. I don't want to sacrifice my job. I'm also the breadwinner.

We only have £700 a month leftover between us after all bills have gone out. We only have one car that we share. We can't cut anymore costs unless we started eating air.

We wouldn't be able to afford the £1000 per month for daycare. If one of us stayed at home, we wouldn't be able to afford to eat.

No grandparents who can look after the baby because they can't afford to retire.

I know people talk about tax credits for childcare, but what do these actually do?

I'm nearly 30 and beginning to wonder if my financial position will improve in time to beat the biological clock...

Thank so much....

When you say you’re the breadwinner - do you mean you’re the main breadwinner as in you earn more than your partner or do you mean your partner doesn’t work?

Oh also, how many children do you want? If just one, you have more time to play with. If you'd really like three, you don't (but starting at 33 is probably still fine).

"Degrees can be completed in your 40s/50s, even 60s.

Fertility waits for no (wo)man"

I get that, but it sounds like the OP can't really afford a child until completing her degree allows her to earn more money.

@arimelda I also completely agree about your dogs. They're family!

I also completely agree about your dogs. They're family!

If you can’t afford children though you do have to consider what kind of family you want.

Do you want a family of dogs if so crack on. If your finances are tight and you do want to have kids, then you could not replace the dogs when they pass away.

Childminders are brilliant and much more flexible than nursery. Our son goes twice a week and my husband or I drop him of. She's is registered good with ofsted and charges £4 an hour. We are able to pay through the government website where what we deposit is then topped up by the government as it's tax free. You should really look into it. Our disposable income is small due to where we live (large mortgage as we decide to move to a bigger house while we could) we run 2 cars and I work shifts, in the breadwinner but neither of us could afford to drop hours.

I also went back to work after 6 months because I got 6 months full pay and couldn't afford to drop to statutory

My god I don't think I have ever met anybody whose rent is only £500pm! That's amazing and I doubt a mortgage repayment would improve on this as a monthly cost....

However..... as previous posters have said, nobody can really afford children, but there's always a way .

Everything second hand. Don't eat out. Focus on the fact its only for a couple of years. Once early entitlement kicks in it gets better. Also use childcare voucher scheme.

@DCOkeford
It might not be normal for you, but welcome to the 21st century 🥂. I have so many examples to share( not the place or time though)

A childminder won’t come to your house, that would be a nanny which is very expensive. You would take your child to the childminders house and she would look after 2/3 other children at the same time.

Those suggesting the year on maternity pay a day positive- yes there is no childcare bill, but for lots of jobs maternity pay sucks!

If you want a baby then you’ll manage. If you wait until you can afford it, you never will.

We’d just stretched ourselves to buy our first house when I found out I was pregnant. Going back to my job after she was born wasn’t an option, as I didn’t earn enough for childcare and travel costs. Instead I found a job that fitted around my husband, and worked one evening, and a Saturday (also a sunday as overtime whenever I could) in Sainsburys. Many people may think that they’re too good, or well educated for supermarket work, but nearly every member of evening or weekend staff was either a young mum or a student, and actually it was a really fun job with a great atmosphere, and I think it paid quite well for retail. They're quite quick to promote, and I worked on customer services, was a till supervisor, then ended up in the cash office. The only downside was that I didn’t see so much of my husband, but we saw it as a great option with zero childcare costs.

With your financial background, you’ll have no trouble finding some part time work.

Another tip, which I didn’t know about until too late, was that you can buy everything you need from ‘nearly new’ sales. Ive forgotten who runs them now (nct?) but they're very good. Also there was no facebook when I had my babies, but the selling pages there are always full of very cheap baby stuff.

Its doable, definitely. I’d recommend doing it while your younger, as I think you get used to a better standard if living as you get older. Don’t be put off by the financal side, because you're actually a lot better off than a lot of first time parents.

What you're actually saying is you can't afford to keep expensive dogs AND save up for a mortgage AND have a baby.
I agree with this unfortunately we all have to make choices. We were not in a great place financially when my first child was born and money was very tight for the first few years but I was wanted children and very happy to put them before anything else.

OP I don't think you should freak out about this just yet.

I am 31 and it's only now that myself and my friends are getting to positions where we could potentially afford babies. There is no chance any of us could have done it in our 20s when both ourselves and our partners were working our way up the wage ladder. We would have been in the exact same position as you, absolutely no chance of paying for childcare at all.

The only people I know who have kids already either are SAHMs or have multiple part-time, flexible jobs which allow them to work around their kids.

My god I don't think I have ever met anybody whose rent is only £500pm! That's amazing and I doubt a mortgage repayment would improve on this as a monthly cost.

It’s locations dependant. There are properties in my town letting at £395/month and the mortgage on them would be less.

People make it work with some creatively. I was working FT but am now PT early 19k pa, DH is FT earning 24k ish pa - cm into the household pot to DSS. We have been unable to buy but try to save where we can and keep renting. We are now considering DC 2 as DD is 18 months so I'm retaining to start a higher paying SE business that can be flexible around childcare.

If you work full time and want to drop to four days a week, the calculation for the part time salary is:

annual/5*4 - simple.

I can't believe you only spend £100 a month on the food shop (yet £50 on the dogs), I spend about £200 on my own. And I take my lunch to work so that doesn't add any extra spending.

I don't think you can feel sorry for yourself that grandparents won't do childcare when you have already said they subsidise your housing costs. Can't really have it all.

It sounds like you need to do more research - get familiar with all the childcare funding options and different types of childcare. Despite what some people are unhelpfully saying above, tax credits and childcare vouchers no longer exist for new applicants. You would be looking at Universal Credit - if on a low income, or tax free childcare if you are both standard rate tax payers but both earn the equivalent of 16x min wage on average per week.

We couldn't have afforded to have a child at 30 - so we didn't. Had DS at 34 and DD at 39. Sorted out the mortgage first - and our incomes. You are barely 30, still so young!

Our income couldn't have allowed either of us to become a SAHP, we both needed to work. No family support either, I know how hard it can be! We couldn't afford the costs of a nursery either. So we used a childminder - who looked after the children at her own house. It was much cheaper than the nursery, the childminder was brilliant (still is, both our kids are in school but still go to hers for a few days during the holidays). It worked very well for us.

We got a bit of top up in the tax credits at the time - they covered a part of the childcare expenses. That was a few years ago, then our income went up so we didn't qualify any more (still getting the child benefit), but they were very useful at the time. You could go to CAB and see if you qualify for anything, no harm in checking that, and yes, there are schemes that can save about 20% of the fees.

I am not saying anything about your dogs, we had other pets and we managed to keep them and have the children, no way we'd have rehomed them either. However, we did plan carefully, checked our expenses, ins and outs, it wasn't a "let's have a baby and see how things will go".

What I would do in your position: try to clear out the debts, finish the degree and increase the income, and if possible buy the house. Or not buy the house but save up towards the childcare costs - but believe me, it will be more difficult to save for a mortgage after you have a baby. So, I'd say you can have your baby... but probably not right now

I was earning the same money roughly as my dp and now I’m a sahm after becoming redundant.
If I worked we couldn’t afford childcare, after the mortgage and the bills we have zero. But we make it work because we wanted to have children. We have a decent house, we have each other and we have our dd and another on the way.
I will go back to work part time when they are at school if I can.
Dp doesn’t have a huge wage at all, but we manage the house, our child, the cat and the rabbits.
Money just isn’t everything. You just have to go for it if you want kids that bad.

What you're actually saying is you can't afford to keep expensive dogs AND save up for a mortgage AND have a baby.

This ^^

Dogs aren't just disposable things you can throw away when they no longer fit your lifestyle. They're our best mates
Parenthood, having a baby, isn't a 'lifestyle'.

If you really want a baby then in your position you are going to have to make some hard choices.

If you don't want to face the choices then start being happy with what you have. You have a DH and two best mates. You have a good career ahead of you, and you will have a house of your own some day.

And if you manage to keep the dogs and have a baby, you have no guarantee that the dogs will accept the baby without issues. You may have to swallow hard at that point anyway.

At least you’re thinking of the financial implications so credit to you. If only everyone thought like you!

Why are you the breadwinner? Maybe your partner needs to step up. (And marry you.)
The dogs sound expensive.

What do you mean “the breadwinner”? How could you both earn more as soon as possible?

What are the debts?

Lots of people don’t have pets because of the cost.