How much money do you need to earn for 3 kids? Really?

[Onemorequestionplz]

How much money to you need to earn to have 3 maybe even 4 kids ?

for simplicity, not london based, average mortgage and average expenses, no debts. Older dcs would be 30 funded hrs/ school age, both parents working.

how much do you think you need to earn?

Way too many nuances to provide an answer that would be helpful to you on the assumption that it's why you're asking.

I think if you don't have a comfortable amount left at the end of the month that it wouldn't really matter (within reason) how much an additional one or two (?) children would cost, or you can't sit down and work out how much baby essentials would cost per month and add that onto how much you already spend... the answer is more than you can afford.

This will be impossible to put a figure on because it depends too much on the family's priorities. We have a 6 figure household income, live in an affordable area in a big enough house, but we do not earn enough to raise 3 children the way we would want to, for us, 2 was our limit financially to be able to comfortably provide for.

(And no we don't use private schools)

Same as @namejump
What do you personally see as the most important things to provide? Would you rather have three kids, holidays at home or UK, let them live at home for a while to save up when they leave school? Would you rather have one kid and holiday abroad, more expensive experiences like zoos and theme parks, be able to save up for further away uni and help with house deposit? Is private school important to you? Do you have local family who can help with childcare? Would you need a bigger car if you had a third or do you live somewhere with great public transport and walk and cycle everywhere? Are you and your husband making adequate provision for your own financial future such as paying off mortgage and into a pension? When do you want to retire? Do you have family you would be planning to care for or provide for financially at some point?
Everyone will have different answers, as long as you and your husband are on the same page that's all that matters x

How much is an average mortgage?

DH and I earn around £47k a piece and we're expecting #3. Oldest 2 are in school with no need for wraparound. The 4 days nursery we'll be paying for will still be nearly £1k a month, so a significant outgoing for the first 2 years from mat leave until 30 hours kicks in at 3 years old

Well we have a household income of £32k ish (I'm a sahm), and could afford 3 kids, but I imagine you wouldn't be happy with the simple life we lead, or you wouldn't be asking!

I think you probably need to look at what childcare costs in your area (and allow for future increases), look at the cost of essentials and consider the added costs when it comes to holidays etc with kids. How much are you willing to change your lifestyle? Are you willing to give up holidays? Do you need to pay for babysitters so you can still enjoy nights out?

We have no childcare costs because we have loads of family support with 2 sets of doting grandparents and loads of aunt's/uncles and adult cousins. That's really the biggest expense. All other child-related expenses have been offset by us no longer having weekends away and socialising a lot less. So for that reason I would feel comfortable financially with having 3 children (mentally is a different story).

Google told me it was £750, so I’d say sub £1000 given all the rises of late

If my mortgage was 1k and I was happy with the local state schools then I think I would want a combined salary of 60k to have 3 or 4 children.

We have an extremely comfortable life with 1 on 150k.

No family support and in nursery for four days. 4 bed detached house and 1-2 holidays per year. We also have a lot of savings from pre-DC which mean we can support uni etc when he is older.

Without the savings, I’d feel less comfortable with 3 but as we already have a big enough house and savings, it feels manageable.

What kind of life do you want you and your children to have and how secure are your jobs and what other skills do you have?

I am one of six children and I can say hand on heart all of us have very few children because we had to really go without as kids and it is shut being poor.

I look at how friends lives have panned out you never have a clue what will happen. By 55 I had three friends die, one left two young daughters, another became very disabled plus a few divorces including a friend who has been divorced twice. Plus I know three people whose parents decided to leave their estates to their favourite child and in another the parent had remarried so the stepmother inherited everything.

The more children you have the more complex your life will be and the poorer you will be. All you know is how resilient you are right now at this very moment in time.

On average, depending on location, a four bedroom house that hasn't got anything serious wrong with it would cost £300,000 upwards, so you'd need an household income of c.70,000 to fund a mortgage less a small deposit. But that's hugely variable. Some places you could get a perfectly nice four bedroom house for 250,000 or even less. Others you'd struggle for less than 400,000

Obviously many people do have three children in a three bedroom house, but one bedroom per child seems like a reasonable aspiration.

Nobody can tell you that. There are hundreds of variations to factor in.

We have limited childcare support but some.

so we’re paying our mortgage not making over payments, we both pay into a pension the max our work place allows (they make a generous employer contribution of 12%) we have health insurance through work, and all relevant protection for us and the kids, probably not willing to give up holidays of some description but willing to rejig them, private school is not important to me (I wouldn’t send my kids to private school if I earned a million a year) we have very good grammar schools near us and the best state school in the area too (dc 1 is in the feeder school for it) as our backup.

hubby doesn’t really ever want to retire, he thinks that’s when you go down hill, so wants to always work in some way, although he’d get away from the rat race.

we save for ourselves and £50 per month per child right now for when they are older. Would encourage them to stay at home for uni to limit debt and we’re lucky we live very close to many unis both red brick, post 92 and more.

would need a new car though, atm we just have one and make do as it’s an unnecessary expense for two

Totally depends on your lifestyle. If you’re looking to have multiple luxurious foreign holidays a year, skiing trips, maybe a second holiday home somewhere, private schools, pay for university and house deposit for all 3 kids; then a big income is needed. If you don’t want any of those things, then a lot less! It’s a bit like asking how long is a piece of string isn’t it

Ours is 4 bed, no work needs to be done as a new build bought for 300, now just shy of 400 on the market (others have sold for around that)

The thing is everyone has different expectations and lifestyles...so you will get some on here who assume all their children will go to university and they'll have to fund that. They then assume that they will buy them all a car when they're older and help with house deposits. These things are seen by some as totally normal and expected whilst some other people don't even factor them in.

I guess the biggest expense in the early years is childcare. You can cut your cloth accordingly when it comes to clothes, toys, food, leisure activities.

We never went on luxe holidays when it was just DH and I, but I guess it’s all relative luxury. I do feel like there’s ways around these things, you know, can’t afford luxe hotel but probably could do an air bnb in the same location or heavily shopping around and maybe holidays jusssst before end of term (in primary school)
wont be paying for uni, wouldn’t do that with one, staying at home and degree apprenticeships if they don’t have a vocation that 100% warrants a degree (medicine, teaching, law etc). We’ll have a lump sum for them to pay somewhat to a deposit but my parents had an income of over 200k and I was one of 2 and they didn’t pay for uni or give a house deposit either, they gave some money for our options which I was very grateful for

Nursery is around £55 a day, neither of our kids have ever been in full time, so I envisage about 3 days per week

Let you children move away and enjoy uni life if they want! Not just about the studies but also so much about learning to live away from home. Plus they’ll have tons of fun!
my friend has 4 (two then twins) and they live in Manchester - just extended their house rather than moving. Both have good jobs assume they earn about 100k between them and they seem comfortable enough but no foreign holidays etc and lots of childcare from grandma.
I personally wouldn’t want to raise 4 kids on that but we live in a big house down south and have a big mortgage to match 😅 so we’d need double that really, ideally more (!) to have a comfy life for 4. Plus my husband is one of four and it’s not something he’d ever want after living it himself!

How do you know that your child will want a deposit rather than to go to uni?

Seems quite presumptuous, if you are giving them money shouldn't you just allow them to make their decisions?

Just because you don't value uni doesn't mean your child won't.

I mean they can do what they want at the end of the day they’ll be adults but financially it’s not worth it, I’m on plan 1 student loan (no choice but to move away I grew up in a tiny village in the arse end of no where) but I’d be so much better off if I had the option to stay at home/ local. Hubby did so took no maintenance loan and his repayments are obviously so much less than mine. I did that thing of, meh have to go to uni, I’ll just pick a random subject for the sake of it. I wish someone would’ve told me about degree apprenticeships, the one at my work place pays £20k per year. I can’t imagine being 18 and on that type of money. But the time you’re 21 you’ve got the degree and experience too, that’s huge! I’d definitely encourage my kids to look into that if they didn’t know what they wanted to do.

Impossible to say. We thought we could afford our third easily then he was born disabled, so both our careers have taken a bit of a dive (we share care of him) and all our spare money goes on his needs.
I can’t imagine telling my children they can’t go to university if I don’t deem their career choice worthy enough.

More than we earn where we live. We have two, in a 3 bed terrace mortgage is 1500. Income is circa 130. We have a very comfortable life, kids are able to ride which is their passion. We couldn't afford another one and maintain the lifestyle we have and want.

And the potential of putting them both through uni at the same time is scary so saving for that.