Affording to start a family when female is breadwinner

startingout2016

My partner and I are discussing starting a family.

I am currently the main earner, and he is worried that he will need to earn more before we start for a family as he wants there to be no financial worries when i am on maternity leave.

My thoughts is that I have decent savings to cover maternity leave and then I will be back to work after, although possibly part time.

I hadnt thought that his earnings would be something to worry about before starting a family.

How do we know when we can?

HappyMJ

startingout2016 wrote: »

My partner and I are discussing starting a family.

I am currently the main earner, and he is worried that he will need to earn more before we start for a family as he wants there to be no financial worries when i am on maternity leave.

My thoughts is that I have decent savings to cover maternity leave and then I will be back to work after, although possibly part time.

I hadnt thought that his earnings would be something to worry about before starting a family.

How do we know when we can?

Explain to him that maternity pay is 90% of you salary for 6 weeks and you're willing to go back to work after that time if he's unable to find work and stays home and looks after the baby and household.

If he can get a job earning more than £139.58/week less than you than you then you can go on maternity leave for another 33 weeks getting £139.58 per week from your employer and you can go back to work after 39 weeks.

i.e if you're on £26,000 you would be earning £500 a week. If you're on maternity pay you would be getting £139.58 a week. He only needs to earn (£500 minus £139.58) £360.42/week or more per week so the household brings in exactly the same money. That shouldn't be too difficult to obtain....depends on your salary though.

If you're on a low salary (which I doubt from your post) don't forget tax credits which will replace some of that. It's usually better the lower earner stop work.

beckysbobbles1

I don't think you ever truly know if you can 'afford' a family but it's sensible to forward plan.


Have you considered child care? If you give up work then perhaps it will be difficult to maintain the finances so do you have others to help or could you afford your partner to stay at home?


I guess you also need to consider how he would feel being a house husband. It's always assumed the women would do this so it would be a different balance in the house hold.

HappyMJ

Bobcrowther wrote: »

Just open your legs, pop ten out and let the government pay for them.
Seems to work for all the subhuman scum you see in cheap supermarkets across the land.

LOL...government has taken steps to stop paying for that irresponsibility. You want 10 children you now have to work for it.

Maximum bedroom allowance is now 4 so maximum children to avoid overcrowding would be 6. A landlord cannot enter into a tenancy in which the property would be overcrowded (might not be legislation quite yet but I'm sure it is soon). I doubt there are any 6 bedroom properties at or less than the LHA rate for 4 bedrooms.

Benefit cap is also £500 per week which wouldn't cover the costs of much more than 3 children in a small 2.5 bedroom flat.

spadoosh

Im the male in this situation (min wage earner).

Shes taking 12 months off, we did a budget to the best of our ability. The last 3 months are no pay so will end up dipping into the overdraft if we plan on saving as we do. Will probably still save and just take on the debt for a few months when we'll be able to pay it back once shes started earning again.

I was suprised to find we can get no financial help (apart from the £20 a week everyone gets) as we would be at the bottom end of lowest earners in ft work. My thinking is if we aint entitled to help, it must be affordable, after all the help is there for when its not affordable. Theres enough people who earn less than us yet can raise a child for me to think that we would be more than capable of being able to afford it.

Do a budget. You know how much you spend and theres enough information as to how much or little a baby can cost.

onlyroz

These days you are allowed to share the parental leave. So, for example, you could take off 3-6 months each, meaning that you both get to spend a decent amount of time with your new baby, you don't have to spend too much time on a reduced income, and neither of you has to sacrifice your career.

gayleygoo

spadoosh wrote: »

Im the male in this situation (min wage earner).

Shes taking 12 months off, we did a budget to the best of our ability. The last 3 months are no pay so will end up dipping into the overdraft if we plan on saving as we do. Will probably still save and just take on the debt for a few months when we'll be able to pay it back once shes started earning again.

I was suprised to find we can get no financial help (apart from the £20 a week everyone gets) as we would be at the bottom end of lowest earners in ft work. My thinking is if we aint entitled to help, it must be affordable, after all the help is there for when its not affordable. Theres enough people who earn less than us yet can raise a child for me to think that we would be more than capable of being able to afford it.

Do a budget. You know how much you spend and theres enough information as to how much or little a baby can cost.

Won't you get Child tax Credits? When our first child was born, were were both very low earners and I think we got at least £100 a week CTC. We were also entitled to some housing benefit but didn't know that at the time!

GwylimT

When we had our two my wife went back to work when they were six weeks old, so her earnings didn't go below 90%. As we both work part time it also means we didn't need any childcare.

cyantist

Why doesn't he just take some of the parental leave, and then go part time?

I don't understand why it's always assumed it will be the female who will take all the leave and then be the one to go part time if necessary. I know plenty of people for whom it's the opposite way round, and even fathers who have given up work completely to be SAHDs because it made financial sense, and it works well for them.

spadoosh

gayleygoo wrote: »

Won't you get Child tax Credits? When our first child was born, were were both very low earners and I think we got at least £100 a week CTC. We were also entitled to some housing benefit but didn't know that at the time!

Not according to the numbers ive typed in on the websites. Think part of it is bad timing with maternity and the tax year. If she had maternity in one tax year annual earnings would probably be low enough but because its pretty evenly spread over two her normal wage will mitigate the part bits of maternity if that makes sense?

Not complaining, clearly we earn enough. I just seem to hear tax credits etc bandied about a lot and just assumed as lower end earners in ft work we'd probably be below the threshold. Makes me think people are working for less than minimum wage or just arent working full time.

We dont need any extra, it would just be spent on non essentials, same with the £20 per week (sorry i forget what its called) i wouldn't want to rely on it so it will just get put in a savings account.

spadoosh

cyantist wrote: »

Why doesn't he just take some of the parental leave, and then go part time?

I don't understand why it's always assumed it will be the female who will take all the leave and then be the one to go part time if necessary. I know plenty of people for whom it's the opposite way round, and even fathers who have given up work completely to be SAHDs because it made financial sense, and it works well for them.

I tried blagging this with the good lady and im a proper 21st century man (do cooking and cleaning as well as opening doors and DIY!) it took about 3 weeks for the laughter to die down.

In all honesty shes had the last 7 months of having to constantly deal with all the stuff that goes with having a baby and ive had the same time to squeeze in the last remnants of no responsibility (and ive fully taken advantage of that too!:D). She deserves some time off work if thats what she wants.

Understand some financial reasons but wouldn't dream of telling her that she had to work because she was the bread winner unless it was purely for the well being of the child. It wouldnt be when we have other luxuries that could be stopped in order for her to have the time off.