The 'cant afford a baby' generation?

RoxieW

Pee wrote: »

It's just a matter of priorities, I think.
And at least getting together young - plus I'm sure some dedicated money saving - leaves you with a very manageable mortgage compared to a lot of your friends.

Well we'd like a bigger house, esp with new baby on the way - but we couldnt afford both so we decided house could wait as we didnt want a much bigger age gap between children. That was the choice we had to make.

galvanizersbaby

Glen0000 wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]BTW I was a young parent and would not have one now if I had not had any. I would not go back to beeing skint, even if it meant not having kids. [/FONT]

eh!?

Edit - Do you mean in the current financial climate?

DKLS

I agree with galvanizersbaby, I am one half of a DINKY, and if we did have a child we would have to make a dramatic alteration to our lifestyles. We had the kids conversation when we first met and agreed we would be happier keeping our lifestyle and have cats instead of kids.
I dont think there is a parental gene in either of our bodies, I find the broodiness factor fascinating as I have never felt that.

squirrelchops

Agree with Kaz...my Mum always has said that if you wait until you THINK you have enough money to have akid then you neverr will!!!

I'm 32 and would like a child. However am at Uni and don't finsih until 2010. Ideally i would work a couple of years to get on the ladder and of course not to mention SMP etc. However, I do feel the clock is starting to tick and don't want to find myself struggling to get pregnant at 36+. OH has a good wage so with some belt tightening we can afford for me not to have the benefits of SMP so we are in the position of less talk and more action!!

Glen0000

galvanizersbaby wrote: »

eh!?

I meant if I had got to mids 30s (as i am now) and not had any children I would not have any as the financial burden would be too great. When I was a teen dad I was skint and had nothing to lose as I had nowt! I could not face going back to scrimping.

lynzpower

anguk wrote: »

The trouble is some people want to have a baby but also want to keep up their existing lifestyle and aren't willing to compromise, it's almost as if people think they have a right to have everything. I had my first over 20 years ago and things seemed so different then, first-time buyers didn't expect a new detatched house, infact in those days you could only get 3.5x your salary mortgage!

If you really, really want to have a baby you will, cutting back on luxuries, holidays abroad, big new house etc. We managed to afford to have a baby on one low income but we lived a modest lifestyle, didn't go on holiday or get new TVs, we didn't have a car and bought many things 2nd hand. My kids certainly didn't suffer because of lack of money either!

I think as a society we've become very greedy, self-centered & selfish!

I totally disagree with this tbh.

We are ardent moneysavers, and have been for a couple of years. Everything we have pretty much is second hand - all our appliances, tv, stereo etc, and most things we need or want come if they are cheap enough on ebay/ with voucher codes etc.

We live in tied accomodation, which goes with my job. Children are not allowed to live in this tied accomodation, that really is that.

OH temps at 8.50 an hour, and I would not be able to continue working the job I do if I had a child. I work on average a 65 hour week for which no overtime or toil is paid for OT. I also work at home ( around 10 hours pw, again unpaid)

Therefore we have an income at the mo of about 2.3k pcm after tax, but a flat somewhere near a goodish school here is 1k pcm. ( one bed no garden or anything) Bills & childcare on top of that would wipe us out- so therefore we would have to exist being claimants. If I gave up work to undertake childcare then we would have to be living on benefits. Some people really dont want to do that, and would prefer to be independent. We are those people, I do not want to be reliant on tax credits/ LHA etc as we all know how easily benefits agency can get these figs wrong & you have to pay them all back. We do have some savings, but this is for either a) short term stuff like holidays ( we so far have 150 saved in 2009) which we could easily do away with, and longer term savings with a view to buying a house with it. We cant get a mortgage now as we dont earn enough, adn we cant pay a mortgage if I have to stop working full time.

I do feel envious of those who can just have babies and allow themselves to be supported by the state. We simply could not make the decision to have a baby WE couldnt afford to look after.

RoxieW

Glen0000 wrote: »

I do get where she is coming from. Once you are above a certain wage, tax credits tail off and some people are just a little too well off for tax credits, but still on a fairly low wage. I have a friend who earns £12k, has 3 kids and each time they have another baby, their tax credits go up. If we had another child we would get nothing at all extra and we are not exactly rolling in it.

Some people do have different priorities, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong. I grew up in large family and hate that fact we were poor. I swore my child would have more, and that does mean more than a basic existence. That may be fine for some but not others.

We are on £40k between us a year. Yes we could “afford” another, but our lifestyle and more importantly our child’s would suffer. I want to have savings for uni, afford driving lessons, school trips etc.

It may not be important for you to have a nestegg for your child when they are 21 or to pay for uni, but some people see this as essential, especially those of us (like me) who didn’t get that help. [FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
If you don't rely heavily on tax credits or handouts, it is no ones business what you do really.

BTW I was a young parent and would not have one now if I had not had any. I would not go back to beeing skint, even if it meant not having kids.
[/FONT]

I wrestled with this before we decided to have a third child, as it would mean the other two children having less in theory (not that i've seen much of it in practice - they;re still very lucky and have more than enough material things/days out/attention etc) - esp some of the big things you mention such as uni, having a car etc. I'm still not sure we made the 'right' decision head wise but in the end we went with our hearts.
I too grew up in a poor family and because of this i guess my children are a little spoilt -I live my childhood through them lol!
We're in the situation you describe whereby I dont think we'll get any more tax credits - perhaps for the first year with the baby element but still not an amount to rely upon. But I think we have enough money and love for 3 children so thats what we're going for. As you say - it shouldnt be anyones business but friends seem to think they have free licesnse to comment on it. Sure, if we'd had no kids we'd be leading a much different lifestyle right now - fancy cars/house/holidays but as it is, we dont do badly and the joy I get from my children outweighs those material things. Still, maybe if I was used to that lifestyle it'd be a wrentch to give it up.

Glen0000

RoxieW wrote: »

I wrestled with this before we decided to have a third child, as it would mean the other two children having less in theory (not that i've seen much of it in practice - they;re still very lucky and have more than enough material things/days out/attention etc) - esp some of the big things you mention such as uni, having a car etc. I'm still not sure we made the 'right' decision head wise but in the end we went with our hearts.
I too grew up in a poor family and because of this i guess my children are a little spoilt -I live my childhood through them lol!
We're in the situation you describe whereby I dont think we'll get any more tax credits - perhaps for the first year with the baby element but still not an amount to rely upon. But I think we have enough money and love for 3 children so thats what we're going for. As you say - it shouldnt be anyones business but friends seem to think they have free licesnse to comment on it. Sure, if we'd had no kids we'd be leading a much different lifestyle right now - fancy cars/house/holidays but as it is, we dont do badly and the joy I get from my children outweighs those material things. Still, maybe if I was used to that lifestyle it'd be a wrentch to give it up.

I think this is also a good point. To some of us those material things are really important. Sometimes I wish I could be happier with the simple things in life, but each time I try I end up miserable!!

RoxieW

lynzpower wrote: »

I totally disagree with this tbh.

We are ardent moneysavers, and have been for a couple of years. Everything we have pretty much is second hand - all our appliances, tv, stereo etc, and most things we need or want come if they are cheap enough on ebay/ with voucher codes etc.

We live in tied accomodation, which goes with my job. Children are not allowed to live in this tied accomodation, that really is that.

OH temps at 8.50 an hour, and I would not be able to continue working the job I do if I had a child. I work on average a 65 hour week for which no overtime or toil is paid for OT. I also work at home ( around 10 hours pw, again unpaid)

Therefore we have an income at the mo of about 2.3k pcm after tax, but a flat somewhere near a goodish school here is 1k pcm. ( one bed no garden or anything) Bills & childcare on top of that would wipe us out- so therefore we would have to exist being claimants. If I gave up work to undertake childcare then we would have to be living on benefits. Some people really dont want to do that, and would prefer to be independent. We are those people, I do not want to be reliant on tax credits/ LHA etc as we all know how easily benefits agency can get these figs wrong & you have to pay them all back. We do have some savings, but this is for either a) short term stuff like holidays ( we so far have 150 saved in 2009) which we could easily do away with, and longer term savings with a view to buying a house with it. We cant get a mortgage now as we dont earn enough, adn we cant pay a mortgage if I have to stop working full time.

I do feel envious of those who can just have babies and allow themselves to be supported by the state. We simply could not make the decision to have a baby WE couldnt afford to look after.

I think those who have babies and allow themselves to be supported by the state are a different matter - I dont agree with that. My mum was a single parent on benefits with no desire to work and we had a miserable upbringing. Our situation is that we have a decent income but have had to sacrifice certain things. It is not worthwhile me working to pay childcare until our youngest will be at least in part time school so we are a one wage family for the time being. Still, the only way from there is up
I sympathise with what you are saying but to play devils advocate - could you not change your job to something more child friendly/move to a cheaper area? Surely if you really really wanted a child there would be ways around the financial problems?

Glen0000

RoxieW wrote: »

I sympathise with what you are saying but to play devils advocate - could you not change your job to something more child friendly/move to a cheaper area? Surely if you really really wanted a child there would be ways around the financial problems?

Child friendly jobs tend to pay a LOT less. The reason we can't afford to buy a house right now is my wifes job is child friendly, for that read low paid.

Cheaper area...well we have thought of this, but there is a reason usually areas are cheap. Who wants to bring kids up in chav central?