Jobs around your kids

heather38

i have one child, i took a £500 pm pay cut when i had her, and went back p/t.
i work in a supermarket pharmacy and work 2 evenings and a saturday. uptil recently my DH worked as a checkout manager at the same place but he is now working for a bank.
i don't have to pay childcare as my mum or mil has the baby when i'm in work and my DH doesn't work saturdays anymore.
i earn £400 pm and dh earns £1100, we also get £150 p/m in tax credits and £18.45 p/w cb, but the tax credits will go down next year as they are based on me being on maternity leave last year.
any you know what i have no idea what we spent all that extra money on !!

CharleneUK

I've always worked part time.

Am currently doing 23 hours over four days a week. We have three girls, 2 are school age, one is at home.

Daddy works 4 shifts on, 4 shifts off. He looks after baby while I'm at work. Sometimes this will mean him having to wait till I come home to sleep. It's HARD very hard, but this way, one of us are always with the kiddies.

I'm looking into doing national statistics field interviewer (arrange hours and workload from home, but minimum 21 hours per week) The pay is not great (£8.52) but it will mean more flexibility.

I may do this on top of a proposed job share meaning I'd work 2 days (14 hours) at £12.60ph which is what I'm on now (and get rid of 23 hour job, this is a switch in departments) I also get essential car user allowance on top, which is roughly an extra £50 per month.

Bargain_Rzl

overlykeensaver wrote: »

1012donna's thread made me think of things like virgin vie, phoenix trading and other things where you can hold parties or sell your products at school fetes and things - that may be a good way of supplementing your income and you can do it either from home or at weekends and evenings so no childcare costs either. (I don't work for either of these companies they are just suggestions!)

This was nearly 20 years ago now but my mum used to be an Usborne book rep, selling at school fairs and private parties. My brother was under 5 at the time and she just used to take him with her to the daytime engagements (which were mostly playgroups anyway). My parents only had one car at the time; if Mum needed the car for her Usborne work, she used to run Dad to work in the morning and pick him up in the evening.

P.S. Lynz - I feel for you! I'm so glad I'm not broody

izoomzoom

Hiya Lynzpower

Haven't seen you since the sagas of buying / selling SO.

We had an accident earlier this year, and have found ourselves expecting an addition to our family. Not looking forward to the added hardship (home ownership is very expensive, we have discovered) but we will cope.

Both my children are now in FT school so our childminding fees reduced drasitically, however, with the addition of this baby, we are almost back to square one fykwim.

In the past I used to work PT in the evenings, and the eventually I started working full shifts on Sat and Sun too. Earned about £500 / month. This meant no childcare fees. About 3 years ago, when DS2 was 3, I went full time (needed two incomes for a mortgage), but any gain income (+ childcare element of CTC) was more than wiped out by childcare costs. In Herts I used to pay £130 per week for DS2 (had 2.5h of free nursery) all day whilst DS1 just had before school care. However, moving to Beds, (and both children now being in school) our childcare is £40-60 per week. But school holidays are a killer, and I choose to work afternoon / evening shifts (which means I hardly see DH) because 4 hours of 2 children's childcare is far cheaper than 8 hours each. For the summer hols, my childcare is going to be
£26 per day (generally work 3-5 days during the week).

Baby number three is due Nov, but come end Jan, I will be down to SMP for six months, which is £112.75, but I am sure there will be some little extra top up of CTC (only get £40/month at mo), and with 1 extra Child Benefit I am sure we will manage.

In Sept next year, I would like to try and get into school work (as I would have already had I not fallen pg, (you can't transfer maternity pay)) but worst case, I'll go PT in the evenings / weekend again. The biggest problem around this however, is that I will see little of DH, and that has had a determental affect on our relationship in the past.

At the end of the day, you will survive / manage, so Good luck.

Look forward to hearing some exciting news in the future.

lynzpower

thanks for all replies- I knoew you lot would come up with the goods :j

We rent, so no mortgage holiday.

Oh does earn quite a lot less than me ( in on 25k, plus extra from part time ) but with projected complications, plus a driving desire to nest, Id like to stay at home ( as does OH!)

I wouldnt be able to keep the part time job going - the shifts are daytime 9/12/6 for 3 hours each and these are while OH is working. If he remains with the company he is with ( promotion or not) then these hours will stay the same. He works11-7 but leaves at 9.30 to get there and gets home at 8 so little room for manoevre with my current PT job.

Spendless- no thats INCLUDING TCs! which is why im so worried as of course, Id prefer not to have to have TCs as the government give and take them whenever they please. Which of course does not make for stability!

All great ideas adn very helpful do keep them coming

conradmum

I think all the posts so far have shown that everyone muddles through somehow. Often circumstances dictate what we do but if you stay in control of the circumstances then you're living your life according to what you want from it, rather than letting your current circumstances control your life IYSWIM!
In other words, go for it. When that baby comes along it becomes the most important thing in your life and you will do whatever you need to to provide for it.
Good luck!

Bargain_Rzl

Hi again Lynz, I've got a few more questions:

(1) I thought you had a five figure lump sum in the bank after selling your flat and paying off your debts

Perhaps you are waiting to use it as a deposit in the event of a house price crash, or investing it for your retirement, but might it be prudent to use some of it as an "investment" to enable you to survive in the first few years of your child's/children's lives?

(2) What is your OH's job that only pays £13k a year? (Sorry if you've already said.) It's just that practically every job in London or the South-East pays more than that these days (those requiring specific experience, anyway)

(3) You said you're already "down to the bone" lifestyle-wise - do you mean NOW or do you mean your projections for when you have kids? Currently your joint income is in excess of £38k - when you say you're "down to the bone" does that mean you're living frugally and managing to save, or do you mean you're living frugally and only just managing (£38k per annum including 2 lots of personal tax allowances, with £9096 per annum going in rent would seem to be a perfectly reasonable joint income to have some savings left over from, but obviously I don't know what your other vital outgoings are).

Sorry if this is all a bit personal (I don't mean any offence) but I'm just trying to understand how much you might have in savings by the time you come to have your first baby, as I'd have thought you'd be in quite a good position...

Trying_to_Budget

Hi Lynz

Have you worked out that you will get approx 200pcm Tax credits if your OH is the only one working but earning 13k? That sounds too low to me. We get slightly more than that (every 4 weeks) and are on a household income of approx 15.5k. (I do Avon). Dont forget child benefit as well, £72 every 4 weeks.

I worked our Tax credits out on entitled to, which came out the same as Tax credits worked it out, so Im sure its right. Have you phoned Tax credits? I did before my daughter was born to ask with different scenarios what we would get. (If I went back to work or not, how much we got towards childcare etc).

You will also get the baby element of Tax credits, which if I remember is an extra £10 per week for the first year as well.

jo1972

Oh Lynz, just do it...you know you wanna

I guarantee you that whenever you decide to go for it there will always be something not right at the time. It's a decision that you will not regret no matter what is thrown at you. Hey if worst comes to worst you can childmind my youngest 2 cos my current childminder is becoming a bit unreliable!!

lynzpower

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

Hi again Lynz, I've got a few more questions:

(1) I thought you had a five figure lump sum in the bank after selling your flat and paying off your debts

Perhaps you are waiting to use it as a deposit in the event of a house price crash, or investing it for your retirement, but might it be prudent to use some of it as an "investment" to enable you to survive in the first few years of your child's/children's lives?

(2) What is your OH's job that only pays £13k a year? (Sorry if you've already said.) It's just that practically every job in London or the South-East pays more than that these days (those requiring specific experience, anyway)

(3) You said you're already "down to the bone" lifestyle-wise - do you mean NOW or do you mean your projections for when you have kids? Currently your joint income is in excess of £38k - when you say you're "down to the bone" does that mean you're living frugally and managing to save, or do you mean you're living frugally and only just managing (£38k per annum including 2 lots of personal tax allowances, with £9096 per annum going in rent would seem to be a perfectly reasonable joint income to have some savings left over from, but obviously I don't know what your other vital outgoings are).

Sorry if this is all a bit personal (I don't mean any offence) but I'm just trying to understand how much you might have in savings by the time you come to have your first baby, as I'd have thought you'd be in quite a good position...

No, you are right there Bargain

I do have a fair wedge sat aside, and I am saving a lot at the moment too. however, this was in the eventuality of us emigrating in due course as we both dont want to raise our children here. this is something that I am particularly "dead set" on and almost, Id rather not have children almost than raise them here ( mainly educationally) , and the money we are saving should faciliate that in the future. However, some of the moeny from selling the flat hs paid off my debts, but Oh has them, and we are overpaying and getting rid right now. ( still circa 6k to go)

Oh works in a shop selling specialist equipment, would rather not say anymore than that in case it identifies him. He isnt trained in any thing in particular, left school with few qualifications. I did suggest to him that he might want to thnik about retraining, but he doesnt know what he wants to do and wants to hold off randomly just training for anything ( as Ive doneLOL) and paying it off forever ( as Ive done! ) . Amazingly, he is getting more money now than he has in 2 years of living in london when he was temping with zero security.

We are down to the bone, now, we barely go out, have a strict budget for clothes ( ie dont buy them unless they are falling apart!) I deal with the food budget at 125pcm. We went to madrid which cost 70 all in on the 4p flights, and we are going on a big hol later in the year which Im paying for to thank OH for doin all the work on the flat which meant we could actually sell quickly.

im very particular that im not going to fritter this money in savings at all, I need to get it back up to what it was when the flat was sold ( I paid some debts off with it) and im replacing that right now.