Planning for a future family life, including babies

TediousPhoenix

I thought I'd post on here as DH and I are trying to plan our future together, and it's all a bit scary.

In all honestly, we are both the sort of people who could just sit back and watch 15 years drift by without having made a major decision - it's far easier not to! By writing everything out I was hoping people could offer some advice and 'life experience'.

A bit of background, I'm 25 and I start a new job (very excited) next week and will earn about 42k. My husband of a year is 31 and earns roughly 30k plus a bit of overtime. We have been living in our 1 bedroom flat which we bought about 3 years ago.

Before we got married we had both said we wanted two children. It's still the plan, but neither of us feel ready at the moment, but it feels like we need to start putting ourselves into a position where one day we can have them. (When we bought the flat I said children were 5-8 years away... but three years down the line, in my head they are still 5-8 years away!)

There is no way I'd want to have children in our 1 bedroomed flat - we've outgrown it in all honestly, and that's without a baby and all the baby essentials! We paid 205k for our flat, it's worth about 170k now. I'd like to stay in the same area as we are now. I looked online and a nice 3 bedroom house is about 350-380k. Yikes. Perhaps there will have to be an in-between house first.

How much does child care cost? I honestly have no idea. My current thought is that if I'm earning 50-60k in three years (which I very well could do at my new job) then would it make more sense for my husband to give up work/work part time, as he can't go much higher with his salary?

How much money does a full time nursery cost (by the time we have kids I'll probably be a high rate tax payer)? I just don't know what's better: I give up work/work part time, DH gives up work or works part time, or we send the children to nursery.

My husband works in IT, so would taking a 6 year break be OK?

He obviously has reservations about giving up work (when we have kids), like making sure they met their full potential, housework, getting back into work, etc.. I'd love to be a SAH mum, but I'm trying to think practically about money and earning potential.

We lead a nice life style at the moment; we buy things when we want and go on holiday where we want, but I feel deep down that we've really got to change our outlook and start setting foundations for a family, even if that is 5 years away, otherwise we won't be able to give them the life we want to (DH was brought up in poverty and wants to give them things he couldn't have and educational opportunities he unfortunately didn't get.)



(I'd just like to point out that before I posted this I read it to DH, so any advice people kindly give is for both of us.)

iamana1ias

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

I thought I'd post on here as DH and I are trying to plan our future together, and it's all a bit scary.

In all honestly, we are both the sort of people who could just sit back and watch 15 years drift by without having made a major decision - it's far easier not to! By writing everything out I was hoping people could offer some advice and 'life experience'.

A bit of background, I'm 25 and I start a new job (very excited) next week and will earn about 42k. My husband of a year is 31 and earns roughly 30k plus a bit of overtime. We have been living in our 1 bedroom flat which we bought about 3 years ago.

Before we got married we had both said we wanted two children. It's still the plan, but neither of us feel ready at the moment, but it feels like we need to start putting ourselves into a position where one day we can have them. (When we bought the flat I said children were 5-8 years away... but three years down the line, in my head they are still 5-8 years away!)

There is no way I'd want to have children in our 1 bedroomed flat - we've outgrown it in all honestly, and that's without a baby and all the baby essentials! We paid 205k for our flat, it's worth about 170k now. I'd like to stay in the same area as we are now. I looked online and a nice 3 bedroom house is about 350-380k. Yikes. Perhaps there will have to be an in-between house first.

How much does child care cost? I honestly have no idea. My current thought is that if I'm earning 50-60k in three years (which I very well could do at my new job) then would it make more sense for my husband to give up work/work part time, as he can't go much higher with his salary?

How much money does a full time nursery cost (by the time we have kids I'll probably be a high rate tax payer)? I just don't know what's better: I give up work/work part time, DH gives up work or works part time, or we send the children to nursery.

My husband works in IT, so would taking a 6 year break be OK?

He obviously has reservations about giving up work (when we have kids), like making sure they met their full potential, housework, getting back into work, etc.. I'd love to be a SAH mum, but I'm trying to think practically about money and earning potential.

We lead a nice life style at the moment; we buy things when we want and go on holiday where we want, but I feel deep down that we've really got to change our outlook and start setting foundations for a family, even if that is 5 years away, otherwise we won't be able to give them the life we want to (DH was brought up in poverty and wants to give them things he couldn't have and educational opportunities he unfortunately didn't get.)



(I'd just like to point out that before I posted this I read it to DH, so any advice people kindly give is for both of us.)

Erm, confused!

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

I'm not in London, but we got our notification this evening for DS1.

But the school we got was not the school we wanted. DS1 is really unhappy as the journey to school will be horrible.

I've been desperately looking online for more information about appealing. I half considered for a moment getting a legal representative, but we haven't got the money for that so I took the plunge and bought a guide online. Going to read it all tomorrow. I'm just all over the place at the moment. The guide's not exactly MSE, but at least it was far cheaper than moving house. Just have to wait and see if it works. If it doesn't I just don't know what to do. But I suppose it will be just 'get on' with the school we do have.

Going to put DS1 on the waiting list tomorrow for the school we wanted but appeal any way in case that doesn't work.

We've got a lot of work to do in the next few days. Been dreading it.

(If it helps anyone who is unfortunately in the same situation as us, I got the guide from http://schoolappeals.net)

TediousPhoenix

That was a work friend who was round my place looking for information after getting upset - I automatically log on so I guess she didn't log onto her account/if she has an account. This was one place we looked for help. Apologies for the confusion there.

whitewing

I'm confused too based on the above.

Anyway, my own opinion (I have 2 children) is that you should not do any planning on your DH giving up work. If for some reason it happens (eg redundancy) then fine, but it can be a very difficult psychological adjustment for a woman to make, and even more so for a man. My DH loves our LO dearly and is much better on the day to day practicalities with her than I am but there was no way he wasn't going to work. You may also be surprised yourself at how your feelings change when the baby is there with you - in terms of being desperate to go back to work or not.

On your salaries, I would personally get used to living now on one of those salaries, preferably DH's because that gives you more leeway for the future, and save/invest the rest.

TediousPhoenix

whitewing wrote: »

Anyway, my own opinion (I have 2 children) is that you should not do any planning on your DH giving up work. If for some reason it happens (eg redundancy) then fine, but it can be a very difficult psychological adjustment for a woman to make, and even more so for a man. My DH loves our LO dearly and is much better on the day to day practicalities with her than I am but there was no way he wasn't going to work. You may also be surprised yourself at how your feelings change when the baby is there with you - in terms of being desperate to go back to work or not.

That's an interesting point and haven't thought of it from that side. It's not like he's jumping to be a SAH dad, so I think you're right in that I shouldn't be expecting him to drop his work.

I think half the problem as well is that I don't feel very maternal. I have a brother who was less than 2 years younger than I was so never 'looked after' a baby. When people bring them into work and ask if I want to hold them I get scared, thinking I'll break them, so I've rarely even held one!

On your salaries, I would personally get used to living now on one of those salaries, preferably DH's because that gives you more leeway for the future, and save/invest the rest.

That's really good advice. Currently DH's take home packet is about £1400. The mortgage is £1050, council tax £120, gas and electricity £60, service charge c£100, food £200 (should be A LOT less than this), plus other things we buy. So we could in theory save the majority of my c£2100 a month. Oh, I forgot, DH pays £375 into his pension, so that would have to come out of mine half of the salary.

I think we should set up new IASs for the next tax year and stick c£1200-1500 between us each month.

whitewing

When I was just starting out at work I remember asking one of the mums how you knew you wanted children. And she said that she hadn't been bothered for years (although knew she would have them one day), and then her sister in law brought her baby round, and working mum did not want to let baby go.

That said, of my two one (the scond) was planned and one wasn't. I had horrible postnatal depression with both. I had no maternal urges with either and no experience of friends etc having babies. I have never had any kind of biological urge that you hear women describing. And I utterly completely love them both to pieces and wouldn't be without either of them.

iamana1ias

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

That's really good advice. Currently DH's take home packet is about £1400.

That's not right for a £30k salary. Should be more like £1800 per month.

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

Oh, I forgot, DH pays £375 into his pension, so that would have to come out of mine half of the salary.

If he pays that from his taxed earnings he should be claiming the tax back.

TediousPhoenix

iamana1ias wrote: »

That's not right for a £30k salary. Should be more like £1800 per month.

His student loan payments and train travel come out so by the time he gets his hands on the money is about that. (Just asked him and apparently it's closer to 1500 than 1400, but there's always a bit of overtime in it too, so it's hard to tell. I know when I get my payslip I only look at the bottom figure as I don't like seeing all the deductions!)

If he pays that from his taxed earnings he should be claiming the tax back.

He's a basic rate tax payer and I believe the pension he's in gross the amount up by 20%.

TediousPhoenix

I just spoke to DH and we agreed that if would be great if we could save over 10k a year. The only way we could save it would be if we set up standing orders to ship the money out of the account. It's hard to admit, but I'm not very good if I see 'potential' money sitting in an account. The only debt we have is student loans and our mortgage - we don't spend money we don't have - but have got into the habit of spending money we do have rather than save it, if that makes sense.

We still have our savings (c55k) and have managed to add a little to them, but not as much as I would have liked. The plan was to overpay the mortgage but then the credit crunch hit and I thought it would be better to have liquid cash rather than a smaller mortgage. But we seem to have no plan now, hence I suppose this thread!

Does anyone have experience or could explain child care costs?

wendz86

I am not sure where you live but a full time nursery place here (hertfordhsire) is about £800 a month. I believe a childminder would be slightly less.

whitewing

If you start thinking about childcare costs it will frighten the life out of you. My advice is to leave that until you are ready to start trying. Make the decision to start trying based on the heart rasther than the head. Meanwhile save or payoff as much as you can. If you do that, things will work out. Children are expensive but you do manage even on much lower salaries. The way you feel changes too. My opinion is that expense limits how many you have above two. There is no good time financially.