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?

But at least one of them must be about to start nursery/school or will be by the time another baby is born.

We have 3 children (youngest only a few months old and oldest starting school in September) so a small age gap. We live in the SE and have a 4 bed detached house but a fairly large mortgage on it. Our combined annual income is about £140k although I'm currently on Mat leave so less than that at the moment. I feel we have enough to raise them as we want to. We have good local schools so not private but that's fine for us and we have some kind of holiday every year. We are finding it tough at the moment though with everything going up and me not being on full pay but we are also doing up our house so a lot of our money is going there. We really do need to start saving once the house is done though for help with uni fees etc. Best of luck if you do go for 3, it's exhausting but totally worth it in my view.

You do sound like you’ve done very well for yourself kudos to you! (That’s not sarcy btw, sometimes things read sarcy when they aren’t)

side note what do you do for a living?

we earn less than you (about 110 with bonuses) but live in the midlands, so it’s not as pricey as SE. Always feels a bit up in the air, and I always feel like I could be doing better work wise, hence my question, but I do love the idea of my kids always having each other, I only have one sibling and it was very lonely when DF passed away

Oh yeah definitely as had 2 under 2 and wouldn’t do again cost wise

It may not make much difference. Wraparound at our school is £25/day. If you do it every day, with two kids, it's c. £1k a month

Obviously the OP may not need to every day or at all but for us it's no cheaper than nursery when we got the 30 funded hours was (because we had to top it up)

Op, you can afford another child. The things you are talking about (driving lessons, uni etc) are a long way in the future and a lot will change between now and then. Most of the population will have no house deposit gifted to them, no uni paid for etc etc. And they will be just fine.

I would focus more on the time needed and whether you have enough of that rather than the money.

It’s about £18 where we are, still pricey though. We’re fortunate that we only need it one day per week. The nursery ours went to, has their 30 hrs as funded in term time so all that’s payable is lunchtime supervision and a hot meal but you can send packed lunch, so it’s about £20 a week, all snacks and tea and milk are included.

That’s what I thought but I’ve seen a lot of other threads on mn when someone has more than 2 and it’s very negative about affordability so I thought I was missing something

I have 3 and you need to do your sums based on housing and childcare. For remaining expenses add 35%. I needed a bigger car, a station car and that doesn’t come cheap.

Im a single parent and have a high income. For me the biggest issue with 3 children is making sure I have enough time with them. Bedtime is 30min with each child. That 30min extra would be when I tidy up and do lunches. Now with 3, tidy up and lunches often takes 45min after the 90min bedtime. I have help because I can’t do it all on my own, but that’s not cheap.

No, you're not. Mumsnet is often a middle class bubble and not really rooted in reality! There was once a thread where somewhere said that if you couldn't afford to put your child through uni then you shouldn't have had them in the first place. 🤔 that would probably mean most of us would never have been born. Also imagine a world of people who had been handed everything on a plate.

Is only needing one day because of your working patterns or grandparent support?

If it's grandparents, I would want to have some contingency money in case they were no longer able to do it - health problems etc can come up suddenly

I have found that they become much more expensive as they get older. Driving lessons, clubs, clothing, holiday costs and then their is Uni. I encourage mine to leave home for Uni to get the full experience. Yes that means we have to top up their maintenance loan as is expected but we always new that would be the case.
I would have loved more children but the cost would have meant compromises for the two we had and a change in lifestyle. Oh and we have a good salary coming in - they just cost a lot!

This is ridiculous. You presumably have more than 12k net coming in a month if your husband earns 270k and you also work. You can't afford much else?! We probably take home half of what you do a month and live comfortably with three children.

We have 3 (10, 7, 1.5 yrs) and are mid thirties (36 and 37). So far this is what they cost us at the moment. Before food, clothes, days out, holidays etc. We're in Cork and things are a bit expensive here but slightly cheaper than Dublin.

Childcare cost €600/month for 3 days per week.
Homework club €64/month
After school club€40/month (1 child)
Taekwondo €90/month (€1080/yr)
Swimming €130/month (€1560/yr)
Tennis €200/yr membership excluding lessons
Cricket €300/year membership
Soccer €500/yr
Rugby €250/yr

Above activities exclude kits, cost of competitions, etc. Then there is holiday clubs to be paid for in the summer.
They absolutely do not have to do most of the activities except swimming but they enjoy doing them. If we couldn't afford it they won't do some. The baby doesn't cost much but that will change as older two are boys so no chance of hand me down to third child.

We're on good wages now but when the first two were born we were on low ish but still good wages. Our childcare bill was around 2k a month. No way we would have been able to afford a third childcare fee.

both of our work, we have one day in the office per week, the rest wfh, so we’re able to pick kids up at 3:45 and they have a little snack whilst we finish up our work one of us finishes work at 4 (we start earlier to make this possible) then the other works a little later and we alternate. We both can do 9/10 too for when they are little and in fee paying nursery

We have a mortgage of about £1000 a month and 3 kids. We earn about £65k .

We have an old car, one holiday in the 5k region a year and a few camping trips. Go out a few times a month with friends. Kids do quite a few sport activities a week. We are very tight with what we spend on clothes and food as prefer holidays and doing stuff.

We have zero savings as they went on a boiler and have no money at the end of each month.

That sounds good and sustainable.

My friend had her mum doing wraparound and when they had the third, the mum was like "nope, not having more than two at a time" which was reasonable for a 70 year old but also took my friend by surprise!

We are in a similar position. I would love 4 children, but with school fees etc, we could not give them the lifestyle we would like. Two makes sense.

@3WildOnes

Yes £270k is a high income but it’s shocking how far it doesn’t go when basic childcare is £3k and housing is probably £4k a month because of location. Add to that activities and the third child tax (family deals are nearly always 2 adults and 2 children so you have to buy an extra ticket which isn’t discounted), and I can empathize with the poster.

The Uk has the worst tax system for families. Basically higher earners are punished for having children. It’s a ridiculous system that makes zero sense.

My childcare costs & school fees are 3k. Admittedly my mortgage is a lot less than 4k a month but I live in London so it isn't a 'small' mortgage. I live a relatively comfortable life despite our taking home being probably close to half of that's posters. I think some people just loose sight of what a normal income is.

FFS

We’re just 6 figures too, and I mean just, they must live in a very expensive part of the uk

@newjobnewstartihope what? Care to embellish what was wrong with my comment?

@Onemorequestionplz no I live in the midlands like you!