Affording to have a baby

sulphate

This is not something OH and I are thinking about atm but we want to have a baby within the next 5 years probably. I'm sure this topic has been done to death on here so apologies. I have spoken to several friends over the years who say "if you waited til you could afford children you'd never have them".

We have no debts other than a small mortgage (well, small in comparison to some) and student loans. Neither of us earn a fortune, not to support the other 100%. Saving up to cover maternity leave is feasible, what happens after that? I haven't looked into it enough but I doubt we'd be eligible for anything other than child benefit. Both sets of parents have offered to help us if we had a baby so we would have minimal childcare costs, so one of us would work part time... I still don't think that would be feasible financially. Currently we can save a reasonable sum per month so I am not concerned about the cost of things like prams, cots etc (which can easily be bought cheaply anyway) - my main concern is the drop in income which would be around £800 a month.

Yet we are still in tough economic times and almost all the women I know who are between the ages of 25-35 have either had a baby within the last year or are pregnant now.

Genuine question - how do people do it?

con1888

I guess they just cope.

I didn't plan on any kids for at least 5 years and well... I'm pregnant LOL.

Only extra we will get is £20 child benefit... childcare will be about £150 a week I estimate, just gotta change priorities I guess.

kimbers84

You're lifestyle changes dramatically once you've had a baby, I went back to work recently & took a paycut of £750pm. We're fortunate not to pay child care & like many only qualify for child benefit. You'd be amazed at how much you cut back as you never 'waste' it on coffee/take aways/ meals out/ pubs/holidays/ lunch for work I could go on!! xx

Cookiee

For years I have asked this question and all I ever got told was you just manage. I tell you if I had a pound for everytime I read this or heard it, I would not have to worry about money lol

Every family is different and what works for one wont work for another. Your lucky to have no bad debt and can see how to afford childcare, prams etc. You will have to make lifestyle choices and think outside the box. Kids will change your lives in ways you will not expect but then again it will only change as much as you want and allow it.

There are no set rules for having a family. You make them up as you go along. The main important thing is to have love, compassion, patience and lots and lots of muslin cloths ha ha

Cookiee x

JodyBPM

We saved up and paid down the mortgage before we had children. We were financially secure enough to cover mat leave and dropping down to part time work. We also had built up careers before children (particularly important if you go back p/t, as often your progression stops - not through discrimination, but because your focus is often not on career building, but more on home life)

We saved *more* after we had the children - our social life which used to account for a lot of our spending became a lot cheaper as we did barbies or dinner parties, rather than restaurants, pubs and clubs. Weekends away are less frequent, and holidays tend to be beaches in the UK rockpooling, rather than expensive overseas destinations. Even our clothes budgets etc dropped, as who wears designer clothes to look after a possetting baby or to rough play with a toddler!

So yes, you just manage, because your focus and priorities change. As long as you have a sensible approach, a safety net in the bank and your careers established, you will be fine.

Bangton

I had a baby 3 weeks ago. When I found out I was pregnant in January this year I thought we'd be screwed financially. However, because we'd (luckily) paid some debts off we had quite a bit of disposable income meaning although we'd have less money we could make the SMP work by cutting into this disposable income and accepting it was no longer disposable!!

I earn around £900 on maternity leave as work top up the SMP with 10% of my annual wage and I opted out of my workplace pension for 3 yrs so I get paid this as part of my salary until LO goes to school so this also topped up the SMP. I also get full pay anyway for three months. It could be something your workplace does too.

When I return to work, I will pay for childcare. Using my mum (the only grandparent) is not something I wanted to do as she does a lot for us as it is and I'd feel guilty not paying anything to her but letting her look after him week in week out. Childcare is £600 which again eats into that disposable income but still leaves some left over to have a decent ish lifestyle. Oh, we also had £4000 in bank as a residual in case (we still do actually!)

To buy everything he needs we spent £600 all in, including pram and car seat. So it's not cheap but some people spend that on a pram alone !! We found a mamas and papas outlet and there are so many offers online at various times that help cut the cost. Plus, we accepted everything people who'd had children wanted to offload onto us (and they really do like to clear their own homes of things!!) so we ended up with tons and tons of clothes, a moses basket and a cot free of charge! I had a healthy pregnancy and worked tons of overtime to buy baby things even though I'd have coped without

So basically, we are worse off than before he came along but I'm happy to be worse off in order to have him

Spendless

We managed because we never got used to 2 incomes. We both had our own places as we met and were used to managing alone. Returning to work wasn't an option for me as my employer didn't offer part-time positions (the right to request flexible working didn't exist 13/14 years ago) and the amount of childcare would be equivalent to my wages making our household no better off financially. When son was 7 months old I got a part time weekend/evening job which meant no childcare costs due to DH being at home to do the caring.

fluffnutter

Once you're past the initial outlay for things like a carseat, somewhere for the baby to sleep and a pram they don't cost much, particularly if you breastfeed and resist the temptation to dress them in expensive outfits (they shit all over them) or buy them toys (they're not interested). The nappies they use are easily covered by child benefit (assuming your OH doesn't earn more than £60K).

You'll never go out again once you've got a baby, you don't buy any new clothes because you're a funny shape and you've got no time for books or new music so you'll probably find your expenditure dramatically reduces.

If you have no debt and you want a baby, have one. Life's too short to worry excessively about money and once you have kids it will feel even shorter.

meer53

fluffnutter wrote: »

Once you're past the initial outlay for things like a carseat, somewhere for the baby to sleep and a pram they don't cost much, particularly if you breastfeed and resist the temptation to dress them in expensive outfits (they shit all over them) or buy them toys (they're not interested). The nappies they use are easily covered by child benefit (assuming your OH doesn't earn more than £60K).

You'll never go out again once you've got a baby, you don't buy any new clothes because you're a funny shape and you've got no time for books or new music so you'll probably find your expenditure dramatically reduces.

If you have no debt and you want a baby, have one. Life's too short to worry excessively about money and once you have kids it will feel even shorter.

Brilliant ! Post of the year

This_Year

fluffnutter wrote: »

Once you're past the initial outlay for things like a carseat, somewhere for the baby to sleep and a pram they don't cost much, particularly if you breastfeed and resist the temptation to dress them in expensive outfits (they shit all over them) or buy them toys (they're not interested). The nappies they use are easily covered by child benefit (assuming your OH doesn't earn more than £60K).

You'll never go out again once you've got a baby, you don't buy any new clothes because you're a funny shape and you've got no time for books or new music so you'll probably find your expenditure dramatically reduces.

If you have no debt and you want a baby, have one. Life's too short to worry excessively about money and once you have kids it will feel even shorter.

As soon as I see Fluffnutter's ID on a thread... I know it'll be a good response. Brilliant!!

LondonDiva

One of the main considerations people tend not to think about is child care - how are you going to manage to cover costs if you are both working full time?

Would you both be able to change your work patterns (so each doing compressed hours to a 4 day week or work part time?)? Who would be happy to reduce hours? How easy would it be to get back on track (if you want) after giving up work? What impact would it have on your relationship if one was earning significantly less than the other? Have you talked about how money would be handled - the worst threads I've read around this subject tend to be one where the mum seems to have only CB as income and 'asks' or justifies to partner for money.

There isn't a right time to have children, but you can do something to anticipate how you will cope with the inevitable pitfalls.