What should a joint income be before you decide to have children?

[sofia1991]

Hello,

A bit of a broad topic and I know everyone will have different opinions but what's your thoughts on what a joint household income should be before you decide to get pregnant?

Personally, I would like me and my DH to have at least a joint income of £60K before we decide to have kids and get pregnant. Not quite there at the moment but not far off.

We live in a fairly nice neighborhood in Cheshire with good schools but can only afford rent at the moment as it's just us two. If we have a child, obviously our expenses will go up and on our current income - we wouldn't be able to stay in this area.

What's your thoughts and why?

Thanks 😊 xx

It really depends on outgoing debt; rent, car/transportation, loan repayments etc.
you need both surplus and cushion for emergencies.

It's not something I'd overthink because my own life experience has shown me that the best laid plans don't always work out and life can change quickly in ways you don't expect. Relationships fail, people get ill, industries change and jobs become redundant, children can bring challenges you can't anticipate. As long as you can cover the costs until your child starts school (maternity leave and childcare costs) I think that's good enough.

I don’t think you can really set a “minimum” income required to raise a child. A lot of families live on low salaries, and happily manage. In my opinion, 60k is way more than enough to add another arrival. I guess it depends on your standards. Tbf you sound like you’re in a secure and stable position; married, stable etc. If you want a baby, the rest will follow. Good luck! X

Depends on the outgoings. Car payments? G&E? Council tax?

You say you rent but will you ever want to buy ?
Mortgage payment will need to be factored.

Have you considered childcare options once you return to work and how much that will cost? (Even with 30 hours). Will you return full time or part time? If the latter how much salary will you lose? Are you happy for reduced pension contributions? Potential loss in career prospects?

Do you have any savings?

Just thinking out loud ....no need to answer, things to think about which I'm sure you have.

Joint income isn't quite the same as net disposable cash. You're taxed on the £60k for a start and then you need to work out how much you have after rent/mortgage, bills, car, pension etc. Everyone has quite different circumstances. Looking back, DH and I were on around £80k joint when we had DS 9 years ago but moved from my flat to a 4 bed house when he was 18m so our outgoings looked very different within quite a short space of time.

How long is a piece of string? Depends on outgoings, mat pay policy, childcare options etc. We could cut our cloth a lot, we still spend like we did before but I’m on 60% of my wage prior to having children as I went part time plus now have £600 a month going out on childcare, plus maybe £100 a month on swimming, ballet and music classes for DD.

Our joint income is around £50k and we have two young children. We are homeowners in a naice area part of our city in the north. We live a modest but nice, happy lifestyle, the only thing we can't really do is holidays abroad especially as our eldest is in school now so tied to term times.

Why do you say £60k? Have you done the maths and worked out how much you need, or have you just plucked the figure because it seems like a decent amount?

If you're going to set a target then you need to think about your incomings and outgoings and make it a necessary/ realistic target, rather than a random figure.

Personally in your position I'd want to be comfortably affording rent and other outgoings each month with leftover for savings and some extras. However much I needed to do that - which will vary by the area you live, lifestyle etc.

Some people are less concerned and happy to have a child in less secure circumstances, some people want much more security and want to own their own house before they will consider it. Everyone is different.

Had our first living on a single Post-doc grant... Lived in one bedroom, tiny flat. We just bought second hand and coped. Had our second after buying a house and finding that the mortgage rates went up to 15%. After the mortgage was paid we had £200 per month to live on (even in the '90's it wasn't a lot for a family of four). Once again clothes and Christmas/birthday presents were second hand. Money was tight but we survived. - Just read this back and it does sound a bit "4 Yorkshiremen from Monty Python", but the argument still stands. We couldn't change the financial situation but we wouldn't change the decision to have had our children.

It is of course personal preference however one of the biggest factors to consider is whether you have wider family support.

If you have parents/grandparents around who are able to assist with things such as childcare you can have a reasonable life on a fairly modest income.

If you have to do and pay for literally everything for yourself and I mean every single penny such as every stitch of clothing the child ever needs, pram, cot, every toy and book, all childcare even if it just to allow you and your partner to have an evening out, then I wouldn’t even start thinking about having a child until household income was north of 100k.

The biggest considerations are housing and childcare. Can you afford nursery and a eventually a bedroom for baby? There's obviously not a set income that makes that affordable.

I think ours was approx £60k (ex DP had variable hours at the time). We managed on his income and my SMP for the year I took off work, our outgoings bills wise were quite small. After maternity, I changed jobs, took an almost £10k pay cut, we've had to remortgage so that is higher, and now we have separated. So really all the forward planning didn't make a difference in our case!

It depends on what you as a couple feel is your own acceptable personal standard of living for you and any potential offspring. I am an err on the side of caution kind of a person. My DS is now in his early twenties so it was very different times as housing was much cheaper but I remember we had a mortgage repayment of 19% of our total income. We have relocated for work and the closest relative was 250 miles away with half our relatives living overseas so we knew zero help with childcare.

Some people have parenthood thrust upon them as not planned. All you can do it look at all outgoings now and then look at all future outgoings with the extra expense of childcare and potential loss of earnings due to ML, PT hours etc.

For me I wouldn't have had a child if I didn't own my own home. I knew it would be harder to save for a deposit with dc.

I wouldn't even take it into consideration for my first child. Obviously I wouldn't carry on having them If I couldn't afford them but I was on benefits when I had my twins. I'm not working full time and got plenty of money to spare so it doesn't always work out how you think it will anyway.

No one can answer this.

For us it was more about age than income. We did own our own place though.

I'd be much more interested in savings than income. Have you got 10k in the bank not earmarked for anything else? Nursery costs us 6k a year and that's only term time. Childcare costs are collosal and my view is that they should be budgeted for separately and before the baby arrives, otherwise you get stuck in the trap of thinking that they should come out of the mother's salary, it's not worth returning to work etc.

This is massively irresponsible advice. Of course you should think about finances before having a child.

There’s other factors to take in to consideration. We own our house and I get a very good subsidised company maternity pay so we have financial security during that time. We’re still having to save like mad and I won’t be able to afford to take the full year off. We’re also very lucky that childcare will be provided by our parents.

We both have quite well paid jobs but with outgoings and cost of living we don’t have much spare cash at the end of the month but we know that we can make this work. Some people may earn more or less than us and decide it works for them too.

Can’t put a £ on it as it depends on so many factors but I’d def prioritise owning a house first

fwiw we are in the north west and it was 10 years ago now but at the time our joint income would have been about £90k and we had a (not huge) mortgage. Which was comfortable.

We did a detailed expenses calculator - you put in salary, any other income, pension contributions etc and it works out what you have left over, it then covers every possible expense. We did it to make sure it worked without bonuses so we could be confident we had enough. The one we used was from the Martin Lewis website.

No one can give you a definitive answer. Totally depends on your living situation; lifestyle, debt; savings. Ideally you’d have a buffer whilst on parental leave; and some for baby items but you honestly don’t need much. It’s never even crossed my mind to set a random target. You can’t plan anything when it comes to pregnancy and babies either.