Childcare costs forcing us into debt.

merlin68

Surely the answer is to give up work and get the extra in ctc and have no childcare or travelling expenses. You'd probably end up with about the same amount of money.

hanes

vroombroom wrote: »

so really its not a case of childcare forcing you into debt, but you living beyond your means and you want government handouts to pay your child care costs;)

sorry to be harsh, but I think thats the reality of it;)you've got two realistic options - a) go for a cheaper childcare alternative or b) radically reduce your outgoings

we did the latter and combined with my student loan and OH's wage, we still manage to run a car each (bought outright), pay our rent and bills each month and put a bit into savings (we've just come back from holiday that we saved for and we've just booked next year's holidays) :cool:. CB for our son is put into his savings account as well:D

well yay for you. but please dont assume we are living outside our means. these bills we took with us before our daughter was born therefore there is no way out of them. at with my partner being on maternity that didnt help. but in no way do we live outside our means.

we dont eat fancy, we dont have takeout, and we certainly dont do anything that will make us short. im by no means looking for handouts

after all the press issues regarding this i was looking to see if there would be any new info on the situation.

merlin68

Talk talk is only £33 a month, who we are with. You can downgrade sky to £24 a month with no penalty.

vroombroom

yay for me indeed

other than that, I'd give tax credits another ring - make sure they have the correct hours you both work, the correct salary etc. Last time I phoned them I apparently had a 19 year old son at uni:eek: (

only_mee

Regarding the car https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3486329 keep an eye on that thread or have a search around the motoring section, as I'm sure it wont be the first time this as been asked.

puddy

help with child care is a relatively recent thing, so im sure everyone is glad that they receive help

i agree, it is a horrendous amount of money to pay out but i also have to agree with the others, you say that you took the bills with you when your daughter came along, but you're clearly only 3 months into your internet contract, you were pregnant for 9 months (presumably) so you didnt plan well with that one

however, is there a way to deal with the car as that must be a huge burden too, find out whether you can hand it back and stop paying, or sell it on and pay off the rest of the oustanding balance with what you get for the car

vasseur

Unfortunately very few people are better off when they have children (unless they win the lottery the next day....) so you just have to cut your cloth to fit. I'm a single parent and still had to find £200 p/m to cover the nursery fees (and it doesn't get any easier when there is after school club fees to pay for either).

Have a look on the Old Style board, there's excellent advice there for saving money on food which IMO is a large outgoing that can be cut down considerably if you are clever (it's also quite an empowering feeling too).

Surely it is worth downsizing on the car, tv package and other unnecessary luxuries if the nursery is as good as you say it is?

puddy

i wish people would read the responses sometimes.

she cant downsize her internet package as she is tied in. they wil charge an exorbitant amount for her leave. we had this with BT (spit), we were changing as we were disgusted with their 'service' as well as their prices. so we took the hit and paid their charge, but if we were struggling for money in the way that OP is, it wouldnt have made financial sense

hanes

puddy wrote: »

i wish people would read the responses sometimes.

she cant downsize her internet package as she is tied in. they wil charge an exorbitant amount for her leave. we had this with BT (spit), we were changing as we were disgusted with their 'service' as well as their prices. so we took the hit and paid their charge, but if we were struggling for money in the way that OP is, it wouldnt have made financial sense

thank you. i dont believe people actually listen. would just prefer to thrown down what they pay and how much they like to gloat.

its not really productive to my question and i find it immature to do so.
we had no idea of child care costs at the time we took certain contracts out. were naive in the amount of help we would get based it on 70% towards. which we didn't actually get.

what im asking is if there will be any change to the system. perhaps i've missed something as i have seen it on news feeds a lot lately.

but never mind i'll just stop reading all the gloating posts. and stick to the ones based on fact.

Hammyman

hanes wrote: »

well yay for you. but please dont assume we are living outside our means. these bills we took with us before our daughter was born therefore there is no way out of them. at with my partner being on maternity that didnt help. but in no way do we live outside our means.

Really? Just how much is the rent and the car finance? Your joint take home pay is over £2100 a month plus child benefit of about £120. So you've got going on towards £2300 a month NOT including child tax credits.

You must have some serious debt issues if paying £70 a week childcare out of over £2100 a month take home pay plus child benefit and any tax credits is meaning you're struggling.

Even if your rent was £1000 a month, after paying for the childcare it leaves you £700 a month to feed a family of 3 and pay utility bills. I think you need to go on to the Debt Free Wannabee board and get some of that finance sorted out.