My job is 50 miles away - can we afford both practically & financially to start a family?

[Donki17]

Really interested to hear from anyone who has started a family in this situation, or knows friends who have.

Both myself & my partner work in a niche market where jobs are few and far between (hence the commute below). We earn OK salaries for our jobs, with total combined income around £50k.

After 4 years of saving & waiting to sell our flat, we were finally able to move this year to a 3-bed house. Its on the doorstep of my partners work (no more commute which is saving us money), and I've now reduced my commute from 88 miles to 50.

Most of the people I know with children have either been in the position that their other half earns enough that they can stay at home; or they both work but are close by their places of work (within 5miles); or don't earn enough so they get alot of tax credits and have local family support (Both our families are 300 miles away at opposite ends of the country to where we live).

Has anyone been in the position that you have had a family, gone back to work and you don't live anywhere near to it?

I think it is doable, but would love to hear from anyone who has had to face this situation, and has the (baby) proof that it does work!

Depends. Do you have a lot of debt or do you spend money like its going out of fashion. What are you mortgage/rent payments like? This really is a how long is a piece of strig question :)

50 miles is a llllloooonnngg commute, IME.

Perfectly doable, especially as it will only be one of you commuting. It may be doable if you were both commuting as well, but with only one doing a long journey you have more childcare options/will be able to spend less on childcare.

My husband commutes over an hour, I work mostly from home. We have a nanny part-time, and now DS1 is at school and DS2 (almost 3) is starting nursery.

Nannies are expensive obviously, but there are cheaper childcare options, and if your husband is very close by that will reduce the amount of childcare you need.

It does very much depend on the actual circumstances. Of course it is doable in theory as flowery says, but when you actually have a child the practical side of things can get sidelined anyway.
I had to give up my commute after DS1 was born, because both of us were doing it, and it just wasnt workable with the childcare available to us. If one parent can manage ALL drop offs and pickups to childcare, and is happy with that, then yes, fine.
In all honestly I couldnt cope with going back to it though, even if DH could do the dropoffs/pickups, because I'd barely see the kids during the week/would miss bedtimes etc. He feels the same.

If you going to use a child-minder or nursery then you could have them near your place of work. It would mean that your child would have a long commute as well, so not ideal, but it is something to consider.

Or you could find somewhere halfway between your work and your DH's.

Or if you use childcare near to home, its your DH who would be the closest, so he would have to do the 'child care run' and not you. He would have to be prepared to do this all the time. My DH would happily take on this responsibility, but others wouldn't, or wouldn't be able to because of the demands of their job.

Otherwise, a home based nanny might suit you.

In all honesty, neither I nor my DH have ever contemplated a long commute. We have turned down very good job opportunities because working too far away from home would mean that the commuter would never see our DD and the non-commuter would have take on all the child care responsibilities.

I have a 40 mile commute each way, my dh only has about a 5 mile commute. We both work full time, I earn more so pt wasn't a possibility for us. Our combined income is less than yours. We receive no tax credits. It is hard, you need to think about the hours of childcare you need, do you have family support? You won't be able to get back quickly if the child is ill or whatever but presumably your dh can. It is defunately doable, just not easy, but it never is is it? Sorry, no help at all.

Should have added, we have reasonably hefty mortgage other wise o maybe could have dropped a day. We only run 1 car, and no holidays for a while yet. Sounds a bit grim, but there are more important things when you have a dc. He is in nursery 2 days and with my mum 2 days and I work some weekends/nights to make up my hours, which is crap but in reality has meant my dh has developed a much better bond with ds since they are together without me more than they would be ordinarily iyswim.

It's a pretty common scenario in London OP - both DH and I work full-time and have a commute of about 1 hour 10 minutes into work (up to 2 hours on a bad train day). Our 20mo DS goes to nursery 3 days a week from 7.30am to around 6.10pm - and LOVES it - and we're very lucky to have DH's parents around to look after DS the other two.

I'd say it's very doable if your DH works close to home and is able to deal with the start/end of childcare if you aren't able to. Whether that's feasible depends on what hours you both work - when you say full time, do you mean 9-5, or longer, like 8-8 (which isn't uncommon in London)? There's a world between the two in terms of managing childcare - clearly it's easier to do if you can get away from work at a decent time every day.

The only issue I've had is the odd occasion that DS has been unwell and I've needed to get back to collect him from nursery (including once just after I returned to work and they had to call an ambulance). It feels like a million miles away in that scenario - but I have the comfort of knowing that there are people there who care about DS and are looking after him until I get there. If your DH works close to whatever childcare you choose you can avoid that sort of situation.

Hi OP.
My job is 10 miles away and my DPs job is 50 miles away. As I'm the closest I get to do all the drop offs and pick ups unless DP can work from home on any day. DP leaves home at 7am to avoid the traffic and can't guarantee to be back by 5.30 or 6 because of traffic, although generally is. I'm also the one to leave work if one of the DC is ill to pick them up from school / nursery. In your case this would logically fall to your DP. If he (and his employer) is fine with this, then there's no problem. But be aware of the assumption (from his employer if not from your DP) that it is 'your' job because you are the woman (if indeed you are - just my assumption).

DH and I both commute that sort of distance. We work together so travel together, therefore can't even stagger our travel times.

My parents have our kids ( 2.3 years and 7 months) for 3 days a week for at least 10 hours, and they spend the other 2 days in a creche close to home (thankfully the creche has long opening hours because many of the kids' parents are doing a similar commute).

If they're sick in creche my parents pick them up.

It's doable for us, but only because my parents are absolutely amazing.

We did try putting DD in a creche close to work when she was younger, but it really, really didn't work. Don't ever try to commute with a baby. EVER. It gets very loud.