Financial ability to have children

pledgeX

I've been thinking about the future a lot lately (too much spare time on my hands!) and have been wondering whether me and the gf will be able to afford to have children.

Ideally we'd be thinking about this in a couple of years time (age 28). Salary wise, I'd be on mid 20k, and the missus will be on high teens. We are living quite comfortably on this amount between us. We don't live the life a luxury but this is enough for us to get by, go on holidays and generally do what we want within reason.

However, if we were to have children, then the missus would be off work for a substantial amount of time. Realistically, it will be ~5 years before she could get to a full time job. How can people fund the initial few years?

Ideally I'd work and she'd be stay at home, but we can't afford to do this. My wage would cover the mortgage and most of the bills, but any unknown expenditure or general purchases would be out of the question, which isn't a nice/safe way to live.

The other alternative is for her to get back to work asap and our child go to nursery or other kind of childcare for most of the day. Two problems with this; I think it's a horrible thing to have a child and not see it for the vast majority of the day. The cost of that many hours of childcare will probably be the entirety of her salary.

I guess there's a middle ground where she could get a part time job outside of my working hours, or at least only overlap a bit so it wont be full time childcare, but getting a job as flexible as that might not be very easy.

I know there are some form of child benefits. Could anyone either give me a breakdown or point me in the direction of what we'd be illegible for that could help ease the financial burden?

Thanks for any advice.

sulkisu

You have at least two years to save. If you cut out all non-essentials, such as holidays etc, live off one salary and save the other, you should have sufficient to tide you over for the first few years. As your wages cover most of the bills, two years of her salary would be a nice nest egg to have. This will also be good preparation for when your partner does stop working and you become a one income family. Benefit wise you would be entitled to CB £20.30 p.w, and possibly some WTC (but probably not a lot) based on a £25k salary. If you live in or near to a large city and your partner is not too fussy about what she does and is prepared to work long hours, jobs such as stacking shelves in supermarkets, cleaning, even working in fast food outlets or bars are often available.

Edit to add: You could even try to find second jobs now, which would enable you to save a bit more.

kevin137

There are many ways to deal with this, becoming a child minder or working in a nursery if that makes sense is one way, you earn and get to be with your child... As a mum i mean, lots of people have relatives that help otherwise it is debt and credit cards for the foreseeable future...!

dundeediva

You have a good couple of years to get saving, if i were you i wouldn't base any decisions etc on benefits, this is no way to raise a family as you (and the rest of us) have no idea what will happen with benefits etc in the future. You both have reasonably well paying jobs and this is plenty of time to save up. This is how I worked it out-

Monthly pay for OH = x
Monthly pay for me while on mat leave = y
monthly outgoings (+£100 to be on safe side) = z

x+y-z is what you will have. If this is a - figure then that tells you how much you need to save, per month, until baby is born/pay decreases. If its a + figure then happy days!

pledgeX

Thanks for the advice all. Obviously we'll aim to save up as large amount as possible beforehand. We're doing a pretty good job so far, but with a wedding to come and some fairly heft work to do on the house, and a car that could go bang at any minute, that will be taking a dent shortly!

dundeediva wrote: »

Monthly pay for OH = x
Monthly pay for me while on mat leave = y
monthly outgoings (+£100 to be on safe side) = z

x+y-z is what you will have. If this is a - figure then that tells you how much you need to save, per month, until baby is born/pay decreases. If its a + figure then happy days!

That's only true while on maternity leave, which shouldn't be a problem financially due to her maternity pay. It's more the period between then and full time education that will be a problem.