MSE Parents Club Part 13

ladybirdintheuk

Morning all. 5:30 is TOO early for good morning time. At least this isn't the normal arrangement. Now we are on the sofa watching teletubbies. I hate it, but Izzy is enjoying herself. DH still sleeping, so trying to keep her quiet (plus the neighbours are probably still sleeping too, but I'm less interested in them)

Jenny - have you trid playing with the tax credir calculator to see what you would be entitled to if you were paying for two lots of childcare? (maybe put it in so that you have one 1 year old and 1 three year old?) And don't forget we all get some free nursery hours the Term after child turns 3. This is all assuming that nothing else disapears in the next few budgets.

Re going p/t now, could you manage without the £200?

We have the same dilemma re second child, but we need to move first (we could manage here if we had to and we had another girl, but once we had two there would be no way we could move once we had two) and we can't do that till I manage to find a full time job (won't stay full time if I can help it but will need to be working f/t to pay as much extra off this mortgage as we can & pursuade someone to give us a bigger one). So by that point realistically Izzy will be at school, so at least will only be paying for 1 lot of childcare again.

In some ways it is no bad thing for me to wait though - I didn't have as difficult a pregnancy as some people do, but it was no walk in the park either. If I end up on crutches again then I would really struggle if I was having to push a buggy at the same time!

hammyhunter

ladybirdintheuk wrote: »

Oh, and Sami, while we are back at the beginning again, please can you add a "still BF" to the end of my bit on the list? Seeing as all the cool kids are doing it

Me too Sami - Can you add still BF for me too

Jenny, I intend to be a SAHM Mum so have no helpful advice sorry

aless02 wrote: »

Jenny, FWIW I have the exact same dilemma. Can barely afford childcare for Finn as is, but really want baby 2. But can't afford baby 2, because can't afford not to work...I even did a calculation that our outgoings are like 2k (lots of debt repayments there ) and DH makes 1.5k on a good month! At least you guys own ur own place...it's all a bit depressing and wish i could figire out how on earth people do it? My usual strategy of plunging in and hoping for the best is not a good idea here.

So sympathetic ear but no answers. Do other people's DHs just have better jobs or what? B'c i'd love to know how others step down to a single income!

Aless, I should imagine it is a combination of factors. I am one of the oldest Mums on here and my DH is older again so we obviously have had more time to sort out our finances! Plus, when we met, I had my own place as did DH so we combined 2 properties in to 1. I bought my first home at 22 - most people my age were out clubbing but it was something I wanted to do and I capitalised on much lower property prices . Plus we have since moved from the City to the countryside where property prices are considered to be very high but are actually much lower than where we lived so we could get more for our money. Anyway, a very long way to say I am a SAHM so obviously have no need for nursery care and it isn't because DH earns massive wages. I don't think this is any help whatsoever to you but I have typed it now so

We had an amazing day at the wedding yesterday. David was very well behaved and had plenty of smiles for everyone :A. I hope Tara had a brilliant day too :beer:

BrunoM

Good set of questions Jenny... relying on the state nursery hours from 3+ makes some difference I guess... we are having second baby in December and I am being enraged at the moment because I can't work out how to pay for some childcare without just eating through savings I'd think second baby would be more reason to have first child in a nursery

But yes, don't forget tax relief and credits stuff will go up when paying for childcare and when not working! Good luck making it work

Aless, I think lots of others manage by not living in London(!)

searching_me

jenny no advice ... i work and philip doesnt so thats how it works for us and philip inteads so get a job for the times i dont work ei weekends/nights so then we dont need childcare we said IF we had a 3rd one would have to be a SAHM/D and one work full time as it would be easier ...

i have beenb up since 4:30am and im currently not happy with my kids but they're happy so they dont care ... yawn x

Krystaltips

DH thinks I have better earnings potential than him... He is in a pretty crappy paid job, but when he was looking for a job elsewhere the wages he was looking at were actually even worse than he's on now!

I'm the same as Hammy in that I bought my house when I was 20 and houses were ridiculously cheap 10 years ago... (Although thanks to KH that is my ex, I owe a lot more on the mortgage than I paid for the house, but that's just one of those things, can't change the past...) It's not on the best part of the estate, and it's only 2 bedrooms... But it cheap, and I believe if we moved to a 3 bed, we wouldn't have any more square footage, just smaller rooms upstairs... And I could convert here cheaper than moving would be...

So I guess that's how we can afford for me to stay home... By my being here we're saving on childcare (yes having 1 in school would cut down costs but if you're working outside school hours then there is still wrap around and school holidays to consider) We have no real debts to pay off apart from the mortgage, and that's still about 50% cheaper than the average... We don't run any cars (yet) and we don't have an expensive lifestyle... We're happy with what we've got

BrunoM

Oh I meant to say though Jenny, congratulations on achieving your life aims can only be good!

hammyhunter

Aless, I meant to also say that we don't have any debt at all so that obviously makes our outgoings much lower!

searching_me

both children happily munching breakfast ...

i want to go back to bed .. so not going to happen though x

Pink_Princess_1

Jenny and Aless - agree with Bruno re cost of living in London. Our situation is DH works full time with quite a good salary , I work 20 hrs per week (for not so much per hour but I love my job) and the fortunate thing is we have no nursery fees - DH has lo 1 and half days on his day off and late night and my parents have her the other afternoon and 1 morning.

I have my own house which I have had for 15 years so not much of a mortgage - the problem I have is that we would like somewhere bigger but if I sold my house to put the deposit down and we get a joint mortgage and we split up I could no longer afford to keep it on my own - I kept this house when I got divorced and have paid for it whilst being a single parent - dont think anything would happen with me and OH but this is my security. Thought about renting it out but ideally we would need the equity to put a large deposit down so our new mortgage wouldnt be huge.

aless02

The thing is about owning though is realistically while it gets you on the ladder, it doesn't solve the problem of month-to-month finances as a mortgage would be similar levels as rent. I do know the solution is to get out of the horrendous London prices, as we are hoping to help slightly in the nearish future by moving out into Surrey (so not great, either, but at least marginally less expensive than in the hart of London). I think our debt is tricky because while not very massive (especially in MSE-terms when I see people's signatures and posts on DFW), it's very spread out over lots of cards/accounts - which is actually more expensive month to month because you have to pay a certain amount on each one IYSWIM. Thankfully DH's DMP is finished in October (:jump:) but we just need to plow that money into another debt rather than be able to do much with it.

Anyway, I shouldn't talk about this now as in rather a dark mood from the most appalling night and feeling a bit emotionally fragile.

Hammy, I'm glad to hear the wedding went well for you. :T