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?

i have 2 degrees so I value education but I had a student loan like most others, my parents generously gave me a supplemental allowance, which we’d be able to do but I wish I’d have had the option to study more locally or do a degree apprenticeship. When I was young it was uni or nothing basically and nothing wasn’t an option, so I just went and when I finished I found myself foundering which is something i wouldn’t want them to do. I’m half french and in France it’s so so common to stay at home for university, in fact it would be very rare to move away. There’s nothing wrong with this

@Onemorequestionplz it's not as simple as saying "won't pay for uni" your children's maintenance loan will be assessed on your income, if you are above (a quite low threshold) your children will receive less loans and the expectation is parents top, if you're completely over the threshold that could be £6000 a year shortfall for them.

I cannot for the life of me work out what the set up is here already, do you have 2 children already and want more? Do you have a child each from previous relationships?

I just think you are forcing your subjective opinion/ experience on them, and good luck telling an 18 year old what to do with their life if they have different ideas.

Just because you had a path where you found yourself floundering doesn't mean your child would be the same.

Obviously up to you what you do but I think it's a bit rubbish to give them money "for a deposit" and try to force them into a particular life path if they would rather go to uni. It just sounds like you are trying to force them to stay geographically close.

I would offer the money and suggest they use it for a deposit but ultimately say it's theirs to use for large life expenses (including uni, a car, a deposit, or whatever they need at the time).

hah cocksstrideintheevening I was reading this thread thinking ‘depends in any of the kids are into riding or not’… I have 3 kids but luckily only 2 of them ride…

It will be a lump sum but it’s a case of say £25k (hypothetical figure based on todays money, yes I know inflation etc ) Uni wise won’t get you that far but it will get you further for a house, likewise for a wedding, it would be ill advised to spend it all on a wedding but it would be their call and when it’s gone it’s gone.

my concern about giving the cash as young as 18 is lack of financial responsibility, can be frittered away

No, both kids are ours from our one and only marriage to each other, very small age gap

which makes the staying at home point of view more compelling. I think that was the same when I went?

I don't think putting it toward tuition is 'frittering away'.

Anyway, up to you what you do, I just wanted to point out that your adult children may appreciate some autonomy and not being forced into decisions based on your subjective experiences.

I have a bug bear about it because my parents do things like this -

"Here is some money. It's for X"
"I don't want to do X, but I could really use some money for Y"
"No, this is for X"

I then simply don't take the money and it will sit in their bank account until I one day inherit it, when I likely won't need it.

It's a patronising approach. I just think if you have money to support the life of your adult children, that's lovely - so support their life - not the life you think they should have.

@Onemorequestionplz that could still get pretty expensive with 5 (adult) people in the house. And what if the local uni doesn't offer what they want/need?

i meant frittered away on crap, not tuition, a house or even a car, I meant just spending with nothing to show for it. My brother did that, stayed at home for uni (remote learning
not an option when I was at school), took the money and just pissed it away. Food, snacks, and paying for his mates to go on holiday with him… all very ill advised and frittered away

there are more than 10 universities around us, it’s a pretty good chance most bases are covered, always some exceptions though aren’t there, have to see at the time

I agree with others that it's impossible to say. It depends on what your set up already is (will you need a bigger house/car, or can you just turn the home office back into a bedroom?), if you are wanting to maintain a similar standard of living, your jobs, and if you have family to help with childcare. Plus how much 'fat' there is to cut back on without it being noticeable to your existing DCs.
I've done a quick tot up, and reckon if you were to give me a girl of primary school age to slot in as my 3rd DC, I could maintain our current standard of living for about £3k/yr. We have the bedroom space, being a girl would mean most clothes could be passed on, and school age means childcare costs are much lower (I mostly work school hours, so only need ad hoc after school club sessions to cover occasional tight deadlines).
If talking of starting afresh with baby #3, 0-4yrs it would be a lot higher with the added cost of childcare as we have no family help, the cost of a year's maternity, cost of lack of job progression, plus I have already sold/passed on all the baby crap, so that would have to be re-bought. It would run into 10s of thousands over the baby/toddler/preschooler years when combining lost income and added expenditure.
The teenage years would also be considerably more expensive, as hand-me-downs frequently won't work and the stuff they need and want increases massively in cost. School trips jump to starting at £600, uniform is really pricey, and they eat loads (moreso if they are sporty, which costs a lot again just in itself in equipment and training fees). Then there is the cost of another set of driving lessons or Uni fees to consider...

I'm not saying you should give an 18 year old £25k and tell them they can do what they like. I'm saying you shouldn't restrict them to spending it on a deposit.

We just have different ideas on how to give older children money

have to see at the time

Need to think about it now though when assessing family expansion

what if one of my kids wanted to study marine biology for instance? Then probably would be a case of that chunk of change we’ve saved for them with the goal of a deposit would be used for university expenses

For me it would depend on my age and how far along I am in my mortgage. My expectation is that I would pay for my children's university or at least a big chunk of it (my parents were poor, but did this for me), and also be able to help them by a house with a decent deposit.

I guess my question stemmed from the fact that on MN I’ve seen salaries like DH and I both described as low especially for the industry and also substantially above average, so it leaves me iffy on affordability. We’re both early / mid 30s (me 32 dh 34)so would be v unfortunate and unlikely if we stayed as is for the rest of our careers

This is a 'how long is a piece of string' question - you haven't given much away about your circumstances so impossible to say. Are you DC still preschool? childcare is obviously a big factor potentially. If you have 4 bed already surely you don;t need to move, so if this question is about you then surely you already have all the informaiton to hand?

I've got 3 DC and dh lost his job when dc3 was tiny, so we have lived on 30k with dh being sahd, Dh has gone back to employment and worked his way up to 50k so we have much more confortable lifetstyle now but we do still live in a 3 bed house. Anything is doable if you want to, it just depends on what kind of lifestyle you want.

DH earns £270k a year, I earn a lot less than that. We can afford three sets of nursery fees on a part time basis (£3000 a month for all three children for 3 days a week with 15 hours funded childcare for the eldest) and a sizeable mortgage. Not much else though. If DH earned less we wouldn't have been able to afford three children so close in age. We do live in an expensive area of the SE though.

How much do your current children cost you? How much ‘spare’ income do you have a month? Does that ‘spare’ cover the cost of an extra child based on the costs of the ones you’ve got? If so, there’s your answer.
What other anonymous people on a forum think of your salaries is absolutely irrelevant.

See my parents were affluent and gave me an allowance of £400 a month for uni, didn’t pay for a big chunk of it in terms of tuition or living expenses and didn’t pay for a house deposit, they gave about £3k for extras like tiles. But I’m super grateful and don’t feel disadvantaged by that at all. I feel like post 18, they did their bit and now their money is for them to enjoy. I’d do the same for my kids.

@Onemorequestionplz yes I know what you mean, I've seen my salary described as "not much really in the scheme of things" and "out of touch with rest of us" so it can be spun either way! At the end of the day, only you know exactly what you've got coming in, and how much kids cost in your house, because we all have very different lifestyle expectations. We were quite young when we had ours, so now we are on our feet and financially secure we don't want to take it for granted and have higher expectations than we did say 10 years ago. But that's personal to us and our circumstances.

Some people will happily raise multiple kids on below average incomes, others will only have 1 despite being millionaires, money is only one aspect of it as well of course, time is a big one for me, how much time I want to be able to give them. Again, personal to your own circumstances and expectations.

Childcare is £800 per month, plus clothes,
swimming lessons and days out probably £1000 per month for both of them?

no it’s super helpful what other people earn and how they manage, for me at least.

sometimes it can be a reality check, both ways