How to fund having children?

angelil

My husband and I were married in April after being together for 6 years. We're 30 and 25 respectively. We are naturally considering having children within the next few years.

However, I cannot see for the life of me how people fund this - particularly in terms of housing - or is the situation that follows just particular to my area?!

We live just outside of Paris in an affluent suburb that probably none of you have heard of. It is full of expats and people with money to blow, and is a fashionable, pretty and historic town with many shops. This means rental and purchase prices of property are sky high. We currently pay nearly €900 a month for a flat of roughly 50 square metres, comprising a kitchen diner, a shower room, a separate toilet, a separate living room, and 1 bedroom. This is fine for just the two of us, but we would need to upgrade to something bigger if we were to have a baby (aside from anything else, there's no way I'm lugging a buggy or pram up 50 steps in a building with no lift). We would need to increase our rent budget to more than €1000 a month in order to afford a big enough place - even if we moved away from this area to a village in the middle of nowhere (as we are considering doing). The fact is that Paris is where most of the decent jobs are in France, and everywhere in or around Paris is expensive

The average price of a 75m² flat in this area is allegedly €302k according to efficity.com; the average price of a 130m² house is apparently €642k (which I can well believe from walking past all the estate agencies around here). Even to save up a deposit for a place would take us until any children we had were well into their teens, by which point the money saved is better put towards their education or training. I take home around €1500 net and my husband about €2200 net per month.

But even besides the debate of whether to buy or rent - we could probably still afford to move and increase our rent budget a bit.

My point is more about this: if you take time off work to have a baby, you get six months' paid maternity leave. Once the baby is six months old, you either have to go back to work (and on my salary work basically just to pay a nanny or childminder with very little left over) or you quit work and burden your husband with the (increased!!) cost of the rent and bills all on his own. There is no state-funded child care here until children are two.

Neither of the two options above seem satisfactory or cost-effective for a variety of (I hope obvious) reasons.

So what would you do? Or what indeed have you done? At the moment, given all of the above, I just don't see how we can afford to have children and house them adequately (by which I mean us keeping our living room and still having a separate child's bedroom!) without making insane sacrifices or being totally useless in terms of cost-effectiveness, either financially (in the case of my husband if I stayed home with any children we might have) or emotionally (in the case of me if I just essentially ended up working to pay for a nanny and having little/nothing left over). That makes me sad And I would just really like to know how others have managed this as I can't think I'm the only one.

Sorry this is long Thanks

Jesswithwings

Its stressful isnt it?! We bought our house and got married and then 6 months later I was pregnant. We were paying £800 a month mortgage at the time on a 3 bedroom house in a rather crummy area. I think you have to work out what is important to you in terms of living arrangements - we could have bought a lovely 1 bedroom flat in the nicest area with the poshest neighbours who have expensive things, but we wanted space for our children and a garden they can play in. The area we live in isn't wonderful but actually in the 9 years we've been here we've never had a problem. Maybe you will have to move to a less affluent area? Or further out of Paris and commute in to work? With regard to work, I am fortunate in the sense that I can work night shifts so do the bulk of the childcare. I do 26 hours a week which is 2 nights 3 weeks of the month and 3 nights one week a month. DH works 4 10 hour shifts a week so he can look after the kids while I sleep on his day off (after I get home from work at 8am) We wouldnt be able to afford any kind of formal child care and I dont feel I can ask relatives to help all the time so we both work unhelpful/unsocial hours so we can do this.

angelil wrote: »

There is no state-funded child care here until children are two.

Thats good!! There's nothing here until they're 3

Plans_all_plans

Well we saved £40k to put down as a deposit for our first house which helped us get a good deal and a good chunk of the property paid up front. We both lived at home in order to save this and basically did nothing but work for 3 years to manage it. We had the incentive as our daughter had already been born by this point. Because we'd saved this money, we were able to get a cheap mortgage deal (we also moved from London to the North to be able to afford the property we wanted). As a result of all this, I was able to give up work to take care of my daughter and once she started school, I went back to work part time.

It can be done, but it is hard work. I think you should move to a cheaper, worse area of Paris for a few years, in basic accommodation and save all you can if you want to get a deposit together. Also, when the baby comes, it doesn't need everything to be new.

angelil

Jesswithwings wrote: »

Plans_all_plans wrote: »

Thanks for your replies. I should have mentioned - we have no relatives nearby to help out and don't know our neighbours really.

We already live quite far out of Paris - my commute is already an hour and a quarter each way on a good day. To go much further out would be pushing it.
The villages we were talking about moving to are less expensive already thanks to their lack of amenities - but as mentioned, everything around here is expensive, whether you live in Paris or out of it, crappy area or no
Houses with gardens in or out of Paris are going to be over half a million no matter where you look...obviously it will always be the dream

We are also not even that fussed about buying - many people here aren't (renting in France is very normal indeed, whereas in England buying your own place is more normal) and there's also the issue that once we have bought it will probably not prove to be a good investment, so if we ever sold it we would probably lose money.

Plans_all_plans

Could you afford to live on one salary in a cheaper area? Which would you prefer: to be a SAHM or a working mum? Also, would you be eligible for any child related benefits over there?

Kira000

Its not much different here in London- rent for a house where we are is £900pcm+ in an okish area that i already commute 90 minutes+ each way.
Plus you are fortunate to get 6 months full pay. I would LOVE such a generous payment- would you like to try 6 weeks on 90% of your salary, then about Eur138 per week for 26 weeks instead, which is what i am getting as standard uk rates... and as the previous poster said, state child care at 2years? Great! Better than here! I will need to return after 6 months, and pay for the childcare at about £1100 per month. My husband will need to take on more of the bills.

At the end of the day you have to decide how much you want a family, and what you will sacrifice if you decide you want it enough. If you cant live with a longer commute, have less space, if you cant have less space, then commute more, if you wont do that either, then you need to postpone starting the family until you have saved enough to cover higher rent while you are not earning or are paying the childcare for the 2 years. Not easy decisions, but some times has to be done! I saved every spare penny for a year to cover my pay reduction a bit, and we are still going to struggle, but weve done what we can.

angelil

Plans_all_plans: There would be some benefits but I don't know which ones.
Having seen the calibre of the nannies around here (ugh, sorry...and it's ironic as well because I used to be one!!) I would rather be a SAHM from that POV. However, I would be happy to send them to the state nursery when they were two.

I think the trouble is that there is no "cheaper area"...which sounds silly but is I think the case. You either live out of Paris, and pay the premium because it's on the commuter belt, or you live in Paris, and you pay the premium because it's Paris (yes, even in the really rough bits!). Living in Paris (again, even in a dodgy/cheaper bit) would also not necessarily shorten our commutes - we have plenty of colleagues who live in Paris and still have really long commutes because of the way the metro system etc is. As mentioned, my commute is an hour and a quarter even with living outside of Paris - but it's only actually 25km as the crow flies.

As you can see, perhaps, moving would only help very slightly, if at all...and then of course you have all of the associated costs of moving as well (We have also already moved twice in three years into progressively "cheaper" areas that are progressively further from Paris...we have always lived out, but our first place was only 20 minutes' walk into the city).

angelil

Kira000: I think by the time I have saved that I will be too old to have children

Don't get me wrong - I am well aware that we are fortunate in France with the benefits we receive here, and I can see that it can't be that different to London. I was hoping that some London posters would pop up

Plans_all_plans

We decided to move from London to a cheaper Northern city as we couldn't afford what we wanted down South (a 3 bed house and for me to be a SAHM). We moved away from family and friends too.

Just keep remembering "where there's a will there's a way!"

wendz86

I live just outside London and work in London. I will be earning not a lot when I go back to work due to childcare and travel costs but i do want to work so will be doing it 4 days a week. OH is going to be funding our rent and bills , rent being £900 for a 2 bed flat.

It is going to be hard when we are used to being on more money but you just have to prioritise what is more important and I would much rather have my little girl than have extra money to spend on luxuries and as PP said where theres a will theres a way.

angelil

Tbh we don't have family or that many friends here so moving is not an issue from that point of view. We would love to move back down closer to where my husband's parents live (southern France, in terms of property prices, is the equivalent of northern England!) but if we did that then we would not be able to do the jobs we currently do. For me this would not be so much of a problem but for my husband it would mean not being able to do the job he's trained for.

Has anyone here taken out a loan to pay for the extra costs of a bigger place for a short time while one parent is staying home to provide the childcare? (Just something that's occurred to me tonight.) Or would that just be silly?

Of course you are all right too that we would need to give up luxuries, which I think we are prepared to do/would have no problem doing. Really it's the property issue which is the bugbear.

Equally, I've heard it said that if you waited until you could afford children to have children, you'd never have them