The 'cant afford a baby' generation?

TotallyBroke

barnaby-bear wrote: »

Ahh I must tell everyone they are just neglecting to use their time machines and failed to ensure they have parents with the space to accommodate (presumably that rented 1-bed flat again) them - in an area with work. I think you forget student loans and universal degrees mean qualifications do not mean great paid jobs.... and 50k is a deposit on a one bed flat, mortgage would still have to be met.

Student loans are only a % of that salary. They are normally taken out of the salary before you get it. So you only live on what you get.
Degrees and qualifications that take 5 years in the example I gave should pay out more than £25,000 per year. If not why waste 5 years of your life doing them when you could be building your nest egg sooner.

Your telling me from your post that if a woman falls pregnant and a couple lose a wage and are living in a 1 bedroom flat that they will still be there 21 years later. Surely any mother will have gone back to work full time when their child started full time school at 5yo. They would then have two wages coming in and would be able to move upto a 2 bedroom place. Or maybe Mum went and did a few evenings a week or worked weekends to move up that ladder earlier. Especially if they were struggling because the baby cost so much in the first place.

barnaby-bear

TotallyBroke wrote: »

This is quoted from a post you made earlier in the thread.



Why is your OH only temping for £8.50per hour? Why do they not get a full time job with a good salary each year?
Why do you choose to work way over the average working week for no extra money? Either have the hours contracted into your job for a better salary or ask them to pay you the overtime.
Do you have to have the tied accomodation if you lived offsite would your salary improve.
It is your's and your OH's choice to have these jobs/careers and work and live the way you do. If you want to make a change in your life by having children then you will have to change altogether with your circumstances.
I'm not expecting you to answer these I'm just showing that your choice at the moment to not have children is due to choices you made when you started working. Not because children are expensive things in life.

Ahhh all the people on the redundancy board are *choosing* to find it difficult to find a job....

Ahhh along with the time machine they should also be using their crystal ball.....

lostinrates

TotallyBroke wrote: »

Student loans are only a % of that salary. They are normally taken out of the salary before you get it. So you only live on what you get.
Degrees and qualifications that take 5 years in the example I gave should pay out more than £25,000 per year. If not why waste 5 years of your life doing them when you could be building your nest egg sooner.

Your telling me from your post that if a woman falls pregnant and a couple lose a wage and are living in a 1 bedroom flat that they will still be there 21 years later. Surely any mother will have gone back to work full time when their child started full time school at 5yo. They would then have two wages coming in and would be able to move upto a 2 bedroom place. Or maybe Mum went and did a few evenings a week or worked weekends to move up that ladder earlier. Especially if they were struggling because the baby cost so much in the first place.

A lot of starting wages, even with degrees are not so high. For example, the first two years of being a trainee solicitor, and after that the post qualification salary can be low in a high street firm. Rewards are reaped later one hopes, but in early ..and coincidentally the 'childbearing years' not always.

We are learning, through the current economic crisis, that many younger couples have over extended and are going to have a very difficult time.

lynzpower

TotallyBroke wrote: »

This is quoted from a post you made earlier in the thread.



Why is your OH only temping for £8.50per hour? Why do they not get a full time job with a good salary each year?
Why do you choose to work way over the average working week for no extra money? Either have the hours contracted into your job for a better salary or ask them to pay you the overtime.
Do you have to have the tied accomodation if you lived offsite would your salary improve.
It is your's and your OH's choice to have these jobs/careers and work and live the way you do. If you want to make a change in your life by having children then you will have to change altogether with your circumstances.
I'm not expecting you to answer these I'm just showing that your choice at the moment to not have children is due to choices you made when you started working. Not because children are expensive things in life.

I just wanted to answer these, as Im trying to wrk out whether im being obstructive and I hope that youll be able to tell me whether I am or not

My OH is from Bournemouth, and we often toy with the idea of moving there, wherre being by the sea/different pace of life, we might be able to afford to live there. I can see you can rent a one bed flat for 500pcm but as it has no garden and we do have a dog ( although she is old and maybe she wil die soon) . We have thought of giving the dog away but neither of us wants to give her up for the sake of being able to rent a flat and it would break our hearts, it really isnt an option.

I suppose I could work in a call centre, but honestly, I have done it before and that really is the last resort, and not anywhere near my experience. I did work in C centres throughout undertaking my degree. I WILL SAY- that im not proud and I would do it if there was no other work, but.... There is a very poor choice of work in Dorset, plus its essentiual that we would have to run cars ( im sure anyone who has tried to rely on bus services in the area knows what I mean!)

Part of the reason my salary is low, is that we have the tied accom, so that makes up for it. Getting paid OT and toil will come up in my appriasal when I eventually have one, but the Director has said financially it isnt an option for the company at the moment, as we are in a recession and need to keep afloat first.

TotallyBroke

No that is not what I am saying. Why are you reading and deliberately choosing to post what you want to see in everything I type?

Lynzpower has said that apart from the housing issue that they are currently in they would not be able to afford any children because of the costs of private housing and childcare. I have mearly pointed out that if they were being paid a decent amount for the hours worked they would have a nest egg available in the form of savings to cover a shortfall in wages while off work. When the nest egg ran out or they chose to return to a 2 wage income then the same career path or a different one could be had. It sounds like Lynzpower and OH have been realising this as they are already saving for a deposit of their own. So based on that, if I was Lynzpower I would be asking for payment for the hours I do.

This has nothing to do with people being made redundant.
Nothing to do with a crystal ball either. You wouldn't buy a car without thinking about saving up for driving lessons or car insurance etc. Would you?
So when thinking about having a baby in the future surely people should think about what they need to do to achieve that right at the beginning.

This original post is about people saying they cannot afford children. And as I say again children themselves cost hardly anything to have. It is the unfortunate circumstances some people find themselves in before having them or after having them.

Pee

TotallyBroke wrote: »

But that is only in recent years due to people being greedy. I bet 10 years ago the same property would not have cost that much. I bet 5 years ago it wouldn't and I bet it is has dropped in value this year compared to last year.
Before people started borrowing exessively people were only expected to put down a 10% deposit and they were only lent 2x the higher wage and 1.5x the lower wage.
If you left university at 21 after higher education and got a job with a salary of £25,000 (which I hope would be a hell of a lot more after 5 years of extra education) you could be living at home with parents and saving 50k easily in 3 years. By year 4 you could've saved enough for a wedding and by year 5 (jointly with partner) you could both have enough saved to have children without any need to ever worry about the costs.

For most people, it isn't practical to live at home with parents after University. No matter how many bedrooms.

BB1984

lynzpower wrote: »

There is a very poor choice of work in Dorset, plus its essentiual that we would have to run cars ( im sure anyone who has tried to rely on bus services in the area knows what I mean!)

My OH and I live in Dorset, and we don't have a car...! Depends where in Dorset you are, but the Bournemouth/Poole area is very well served by buses and trains.

Incidently, we moved down here from London last Autumn (I'm from here originally). It meant a pay cut and a reduction in being able to go out etc, but we wanted the better quality of life. Also, we're getting married this year and want to start a family in the next couple of years. I couldn't face bringing up a child where we lived before, so we made some choices, and here we are.

We are both also considering changing our jobs in order to be more flexible when the time comes to have kids. Yes it means financial sacrifice now, but we are trying to set ourselves up for less of a struggle then. We want to be young, happy parents!
BB

lynzpower

BB1984 wrote: »

My OH and I live in Dorset, and we don't have a car...! Depends where in Dorset you are, but the Bournemouth/Poole area is very well served by buses and trains.

Incidently, we moved down here from London last Autumn (I'm from here originally). It meant a pay cut and a reduction in being able to go out etc, but we wanted the better quality of life. Also, we're getting married this year and want to start a family in the next couple of years. I couldn't face bringing up a child where we lived before, so we made some choices, and here we are.

We are both also considering changing our jobs in order to be more flexible when the time comes to have kids. Yes it means financial sacrifice now, but we are trying to set ourselves up for less of a struggle then. We want to be young, happy parents!
BB

Oh thas great.Really good to know. The only reason im thiking about having a car is that whne we try and rely on public transport it always seems to take much longer than it should. Last time, we took the bus from his parents house to the triangle it took 2.5hours :rotfl: what a joke! ( it about a 10 min drive)

Can I ask how mcuh you guys are expecing to earn there and have you found much choice in work? or do you have any particular skills? Is there much work around? I understand from freinds etc there there are loads of layoffs- are you seeing this?

Maisie11

I sort of see where TotallyBroke is coming from, however the world has moved on and people DO expect more rightly or wrongly. I have a friend who works with people who are on benefit who get themselves into debt. When she first started she asked people to list out their outgoings and quite rightly told them that smoking, SKY TV and mobile phones' were lifestyle choices but was told under no circumstances by her management to tell this to the people on benefits, they were not to be made to feel embarassed about not working and by the way what is wrong with people on benefits having all of these things..... I was staggered. I have an issue with people who choose to live on benefits and have child after child with no visble way of supporting them. We cant judge them, in fact we must not say anything at all, that is their choice etc etc but sadly I think I am in a miniority. During the horrible case of Baby P it was revealed that the scum bag mother who gave birth to yet another baby whilst she was awaiting trial was having childcare 4 days a week paid for by you and I to give her time to herself! Words just fail me.

I take your point re going back to work once the child starts school but unfortunately there are few jobs that offer term time working and childcare is still £45 per day during the school holidays of which there are many. The large company I work for encourage flexible working and consequently more than 90% of mothers come back to work, some full time and some part time. Again I think they are in a minority.

chivers1977

Lynz,

If you want to get actual figures for childcare, have a look on https://www.childcarelink.gov.uk. Martin has a piece somewhere for the childcare vouchers. We pay £35 per day for baby rate in Kent at a nursery. We can pay through our salaries saving £140 pm in tax between us. Therefore for a baby, the net cost is around £560......... not as bad as your figures