The 'cant afford a baby' generation?

TotallyBroke

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Is that a fair comparison to the nursery fees you mentioned? Is £2.50 the market rate for child minding?

Nursery fees are £900-1000/month here in line with your area, but child minding starts at £6.50/hour for EACH child. So I'm wondering if you've either been really lucky in finding a cheap child minder which must mean demand is low vs supply or you have a preferential rate because it's a family member or friend.

Who would look after other people's children for £2.50/hour?:eek:

No it is not a family member or friend.
My ds has had 2 childminders and both have charged £2.50per hour. Looking through the Sure Start list of childminders in the area and on the childcare government list all charged between £2.00 and £4.00. The highest I saw when looking was for £5.50 and that was in a W5 postcode (near work) but they didn't start early enough for me. The same with nurseries they don't open until 8am 8.30 and I have to be at work to start at 8am.
I'm lucky that ds is the only one she has all day. But some will have a baby, toddler, 1 at parttime nursery and then have older children that they pick up from school. So that is a lot of £2.50's in a day.

Lunar_Eclipse

lynzpower wrote: »

Hi Chivers

Wow, that really shocked me, you are both out for 12 hours a day, is that right?

I'll be honest, I didint know whether "we - ie I" I was putting off having children because of these sort of issues. About 12ms ago I asked a question on here, and people said- as they do here now- you just cope by cutting back. I know you have been moneysaving longer than me I have always been worried about the long hours we work, as it is we feel guilty for leaving the dog alone for 6 hours, makes us really sad we cant spend more time with her. And thats us living in Zone 1- im only 20mins away from work on the tube. Having a baby would mean living further out- to be able to afford it ( Zone 4/5) so less time at home.

Sorry, just thinking out loud and wondering whether my concerns are a) valid- ie we simplty cant afford it or b) im being obstructive.

Yes, your concerns are valid, especially given your guilty feelings towards leaving your dog for 6 hours. Children are a much bigger responsibility than dogs! When we had children, there was not much discussion about me returning to full time work, despite me being the higher earner at the time (although DH was also just a higher rate tax payer so we managed). If I needed to remain in FT work, I would not have had children. I very unwillingly returned part time for 9 months between the two children whilst my Mum looked after my eldest. But it was incredibly difficult emotionally. However, with an almost 9 year old and 7 1/2 year old, I realise that was nothing emotionally!!:rolleyes:

galvanizersbaby

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Is that a fair comparison to the nursery fees you mentioned? Is £2.50 the market rate for child minding?

Nursery fees are £900-1000/month here in line with your area, but child minding starts at £6.50/hour for EACH child. So I'm wondering if you've either been really lucky in finding a cheap child minder which must mean demand is low vs supply or you have a preferential rate because it's a family member or friend.

Who would look after other people's children for £2.50/hour?:eek:

Childminders in my area (South East Coast nr Brighton) are around 3.25 - 4.50 per hour mark - 6.50 per hour sounds really expensive to me!
Nursery fees were approx 32 pounds per day when my daughter left last year.
So I guess childcare costs vary quite considerably across the country!

Marcheline

Hi OP, your 'friend' is being out of order with her comments. Tell her you won't be seeing her again if she carries on. Also you could maybe give her a taste of her own medicine and say something about how "with your 3 kids you'll have someone to take care of you when you're old and wizened, unlike she, who will be stuck in a care home with no-one to look out for her or care about her in the world" See how she likes the sweeping statements herself.

squirrelchops

To be the most financially 'savvy' I would wait another 3 years approx before having kids as have 18months left at Uni then should get on the employment ladder before having kids.

However I also 32 and feel time is ticking. What if I get to 36 and then struggle to get pregnant. I always said i didn't want to be a 40 year old + Mum. Now before anyone berates me for saying that MY Mum was 43 when she had me in 1977 so i know what it feels like to have an older Mum and sorry, I would rather be younger. She only found me 'easy' as I have 2 much older siblings so she and her body was used to having kids (her words).

My OH is late 30s and we own our own houses (well 2 to bank and I inherited one recently) so although a lot of our money is tied up we have talked about it and we survive very well on OH's wage alone whilst I am studying so really having a baby would just be another readjustment. We have found that the biological reasoning for trying for a child sooner rather than later is more important than the money to us but then again I know we are lucky and if the worst happened we have property to sell if we needed the money.

Aaagh

When I was pregnant I thought how will I get my baby looked after for the 5 days I was working, so that my salary won't go down? After having my son, I thought how can I work as few hours as possible so that I can spend as much time with my son but still pay the essential bills? I used to do 8 hours a day (and lunch, which added to the time I was at my workplace) but went back doing 6 hours a day, 4 days a week (and then wasn't forced to take a lunch break). My salary did go down but not as much as I thought it would and it meant one less day to find childcare costs. Also, you get around £18 per week child benefit and every family with a joint income of less that £66,000 (I think) gets working tax credit. You have paid your taxes whilst working and are entitled to this.

I was lucky enough to have two family members that did a day each at no cost, and as it was only for 6 hours it wasn't too much of a burden. I don't work on a Friday now and look after my sister's DD (she looks after my DS one of the days). The other two days I paid a childminder - this was the cheaper option for me because you pay by the hour, not the day, and I chose one close to where I work not where I live, so I had the journey with DS (wonderful). CM charged around £3.00 per hour and I would recommend her to anyone. There are many CM's who charge around this rate and you just need to pay a visit and will get a feel straightaway for the right person.

I paid for childcare through a scheme at work so that it is taken direct from my salary and paid to my CM (Busy Bees - any employer can register with them) so that I did not pay tax on the childcare, saving me around £70 per month.

It is only from when you return to work until the year they are three that you need to arrange childcare all day. The get a free nursery place for 2 1/2 hours every week day from the term following their third birthday and then are at school from the September following their fourth birthday, so costs go right down. Again, I know I was lucky to have a couple of family members to help me out but once they are in nursery/school then they are much easier to look after and you don't feel so embarrassed to ask as it is only for a few hours a day.

Spend the time while you are on maternity leave going to mother and baby groups and get to know other mums. You can help each other out, reducing childcare costs and your children will love to spend time with other children until you can collect them.

Lunar_Eclipse

TotallyBroke wrote: »

Surely any mother will have gone back to work full time when their child started full time school at 5yo.

Why do you think that? There are thousands of women who do not return to work full time when their child/ren go to school. School hours are part time; perhaps that's what you meant. There is a significant amount of childcare hours, cost and major logistical balancing involved in mothers working full time once their children are at school.

The school day for my youngest is just under 6 hours, for example. I doubt anyone would consider that full time.

BattleToy

Marcheline wrote: »

Also you could maybe give her a taste of her own medicine and say something about how "with your 3 kids you'll have someone to take care of you when you're old and wizened, unlike she, who will be stuck in a care home with no-one to look out for her or care about her in the world" See how she likes the sweeping statements herself.

Honestly, it does not gurantee that your children will look after you at your old age and get any rewards from your children. It is so true that there are many pensioners still living on their own in this country. So, Op may have a chance to end up in a care home too. I also see many pensioners still feeding their adult children and their grandchildren. The worst is that the adult children even continue taking money from their banks of parents. You can see the cost of children is a very long term issue. The fact is that we may all really stuck in care home regardless of whether you have children or not. I see all these cases from our church and my friends. Sadly, When the pensioners get sick, the person look after them not their children but someone else from the state. Having children is a kind of risk investment and a huge responsibility.

I don't see there is a problem of not having children. Life is not just only children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. People have their right to choose their lifestyles. My partner and I enjoy very much our childfree lifestyle but we never compain or question those people who have many children, not to work and rely on our tax payers to support their children. After all, it is their choice. I would like to travel around the world when we are still healthy and save more money for our retirement as life is so short.

You can't really expect your children who will pay you back. Having said that, children are lovely though.

TotallyBroke

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Why do you think that? There are thousands of women who do not return to work full time when their child/ren go to school. School hours are part time; perhaps that's what you meant. There is a significant amount of childcare hours, cost and major logistical balancing involved in mothers working full time once their children are at school.

The school day for my youngest is just under 6 hours, for example. I doubt anyone would consider that full time.

I think that because I can't personally understand how someone would not want to. If you have other children under 5 then I can understand. But children are in school from 9am to 3pm that's six hours. Schools are now setting up breakfast clubs and afternoon clubs to do homework. So an 8hour day is possible. Why would any woman want to spend her day doing nothing after the housework has been done? I have a day off work and by 9am I'm bored shitless. There is only so much daytime tv that can be watched.

frivolous_fay

Oh... here's another setback.
My company is in trouble and if it can't be sold it will bite the dust.
No redundancy money, no wages, no chance of maternity pay.
Who'll employ a 32 year old woman with no kids?
Fun fun!