One income family of four - can we get ahead even after pay cuts?

joedenise

It was the same for me @Spendless in that there was no childcare cost help when mine were little and going to work just wasn't going to work with 2 little ones as the childcare costs would have been almost as much as I'd have been able to earn!  I worked it out that I would be £5 a month better off working full time and decided it just wasn't worth it so I waited until they were both at school before I went back to work part time while they were at school.  When the youngest was in her final year of primary I got a full time job and my DH was working shifts so was able to have the children most days between them coming out of school and we getting home and on the days when that didn't happen they went to m-i-l's for a couple of hours.

When I did go back to work most of money money was used to pay off debts and holidays.  So things definitely get better as the children get older.

Bluegreen143

I did go back to work after Monkey was born - they allowed me to work three (long) days a week which was fine, but then after 6 months told me I’d need to go back to full time. I did make money after childcare at that point (as only had one child) but I hated working with a toddler, felt I had no time with him or to do the things I was interested in (like baking, growing veg etc), and life felt like such a rush and a grind on the three days that I really couldn’t handle the thought of that being every day. In addition, they had restructured my department while I was off and my role had changed from an interesting creative type job to primarily administration of other people’s creative projects. I worked in a large corporate environment but my previous career experience had been with a small charity, and I found the politics, bureaucracy, conservative attitudes and red tape in a large company to be frustrating and stifling. I’ve vowed never to go back to that kind of environment if I can help it! 

I think now I’ve got two kids I’d be lucky to be breaking even after childcare and tbh having now taken three years off I’d be unlikely to be able to step back into my old career. I’ll be totally honest that I absolutely love being at home so am in no rush to be back. I think even once the kids are in school I could probably fill my time quite happily with an allotment, various creative hobbies, volunteering (I’m a qualified breastfeeding peer supporter and really want to start volunteering with that again) etc. However I know that I will need to find paid work in reality. 

Like some of you have said, I would be happy for my income to cover extras like holidays and bulking up our savings. What I don’t want is to take a cut in our quality of life (and we do both agree we currently have a good quality of life, low stress levels and plenty of time for our interests, kids and each other) simply to inflate our lifestyle. I don’t want to trade what we have for more “stuff” - I’d rather skip the stuff and have the free time! Likewise I’d be more than happy to work a couple of days a week if it freed Red up to work part time, but in a very “male” industry it just seems to be unheard of for any of the guys to work part time.

Spendless

I do think being asked to return f-time  is so much tougher than being able to work part-time. Not just in terms of time spent at home and with baby, but because f-time wages mean you hit paying tax and NI so you have a worse 'day rate' then if you'd worked fewer days  to avoid that, whilst daily childcare costs remain the same. I was put in the same situation but straight from maternity leave which is why I couldn't go back. I used to love my evening job for this reason, all day at home and no childcare costs incurred.  When I became in the position to look for daytime work once again,  I also had to re-train, in order to be able to do the same sort of work, purely because technology advanced so much during my stay at home years. I completed upgrading just as a global credit crunch kicked in, so it took me well over a year to get a job. What I found with kids was though the childcare costs go down, they can become more expensive in other areas such as any hobbies or when they start socialising independently . 

Bluegreen143

Yes, that’s very true @spendless. I worked out that after childcare and tax I’d be about £70 a month better off working full time than when I did three days. Not including increased petrol costs, the cost of likely buying more convenience foods etc with being busier. It didn’t seem at all worth it to lose at least eight days a week at home with my little one. Tbh I was really angry at the time with my manager etc for putting me in that position. There was another woman in the team who was temporarily seconded in working two days a week. So if they had kept her permanently and kept me on three that would have made up the full time hours they wanted. Ironically one of the tasks of our team was to change the company’s abysmal record in recruiting and keeping women employees so the senior management (women themselves) all talked a really good game... but ultimately they wanted the lower cost and convenience of having one full time employee instead of two part time. I’m sorry you had a similar experience.

Little Bambi is turning two tomorrow- she has a hazy idea, helped by the fact it was just her brother’s birthday. Though she keeps insisting she will be five like Monkey bless her. As we are now in tier 3 I’m taking the kids to a museum tomorrow after I pick Monkey up at lunchtime which will be nice - absolutely everything was closed for his birthday last week!

Bluegreen143

I wonder if anyone on here has ever successfully navigated conversations about reducing gifts for kids without causing offence?

I am surrounded by piles and piles of Bambi’s birthday presents and, while I’m so thankful she has so many people who love her and are really generous, I feel so uneasy with the amount - with the waste, the levels of plastic and with the fact that I know most of the gift givers are living paycheck to paycheck or in debt - it’s not like we are all swimming in cash and have nothing better to spend it on. I mean Bambi received two dolls - she has now had nine in her two years - I do regular toy decluttering and donations to barnardos with the excess but it does feel ungrateful (however I have no choice as our house is simply not large enough to keep all the toys they’ve ever been given). 

I do offer suggestions and run an Amazon wish list for both kids. Usually suggest books, puzzles, art supplies, clothes, Lego/Duplo and cool new junctions etc for the wooden train set. I would love to ask people to give experiences rather than gifts but I think most of all I’d just like to ask people to buy LESS. It seems standard now for an aunt/uncle to give 1-3 toys/games, 1-2 books and an outfit all in the same gift. Multiply that by the impressive number of grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends we have (Red has a large family) and it’s impossible NOT to end up with an enormous pile of gifts each birthday and Christmas. Since when wasn’t ONE book or toy enough? 

(I also think this tendency has crept into adult gifts too and we are not immune. I normally give my parents and sister a big pile and wouldn’t dream of buying just one big gift. So perhaps I need to learn this lesson myself too, but I worry about looking mean).

Bluegreen143

Another thought. I wasn’t into dolls as a child but my mum always tells me about how she had two, one which closed its eyes and one which cried when you pressed it’s tummy. She still vividly remembers loving and playing with these two dolls, and also talks about her earnest yearning for an electric car (which she never got. My children have one which was a gift from my grandfather when Monkey was the tender age of 1. It’s rarely played with). I wonder if we are raising an entire generation to which the feeling of yearning for anything is a foreign concept. I also wonder if a two year old child who has possessed nine dolls in her lifetime (with many more to come in future years no doubt) can possibly feel the same devotion and attachment to any of them as a child who has only had two (or even one) in their life.

joedenise

It's not an easy conversation @Bluegreen143 but it's one I think is an important one.  A couple of years ago we found we were being given "stuff" just for the sake of it and so much of it ended up in the charity shop which like you say makes you seem ungrateful.  So now we have a pact where if anyone WANTS to still buy presents they mustn't spend more than £20 and it has to be something which is useful or can be eaten!  We actually don't buy any presents now particularly at Christmas - for this Christmas as we can't see each other my sister and I decided we would treat ourselves with something we wouldn't normally have, funnily enough we both chose to treat ourselves to a bottle of brandy (something which I really like but can be more expensive that I'm comfortable spending on alcohol).

Our grandson who earns far more than DH or I ever did and is single and living at home so has plenty of disposable income decided he wanted to treat everyone this year and organised online deliveries to us which was really nice:  he sent us a bottle of wine, some Spanish tapas meat, a nice cheese board and some crackers so we will really enjoy that over Christmas and New Year.

For birthdays we always take the birthday person out for a meal with their partner although I think that is going to be difficult for our DD2 in February as I suspect there will still be some sort of lockdown then so will have to be put off probably until our DGS birthday in May and we can take them together (which will also save us some money.

Anyway I've got a bit off track there so what I really want to say is - it's too late this year but start early in the new year with making the suggestion that you would be happier if they didn't buy as much and perhaps if they want to spend more then that extra money should be donated to a charity (perhaps for the children's birthdays it should be a children's charity); and then continue to reinforce it at intervals throughout the year!  Also let people know that in future that is exactly what you and Red will be doing.

Sarahwithlove

What about asking them to buy premium bonds or a gift voucher instead so that it can be used for when it's needed? Maybe suggest a secret santa or booking a day out all together instead of presents. 

Nonnadiluca

You are one of those rare people who has grasped the concept of "enough", a vital ingredient for a happy life!
OH and I have a big enough house, a good enough car, enough good food and are always warm enough; there is nothing material that would make us in the slightest bit happier.
We live in a two bedroom bungalow with a big garden in a nice area, and most of our neighbours have extended upwards and outwards to make very smart 4 or 5 bedroom houses. If we spent about 100k doing this, the house would be worth about 200k more and nobody can understand why we don't do it and make all that money. However, we would have to borrow the money and the only way we would realise that money would be to sell the house, and we don't want to, we like it. There's only the two of us so the house is plenty big enough, and we have enough money, ( though not loads!) . Maybe we are crazy, but there you go!
I fully appreciate that we are incredibly fortunate to be in this position, particularly at this time when so many people face an uncertain financial future, but we have spent our lives working and being frugal, and we are now reaping the benefits of appreciating that what we had was enough.
Well done for following your own path and not the one others think you should! Your husband and children are very lucky to have you 😊

Spendless

This was something I struggled with too and never really  found a solution. My kids had 4 Granparents, 2 Great Grans, 2 sets of Aunt &  Uncles, plus Godparents and Great Aunt/Uncles all buying and as you say heaps of stuff. At one point that coincided with me not finidng work and DH taking a pay decrease, I cut back on what WE were buying, partly for fnancial and partly for volume reasons. One relative used to buy a combination of plastic tat and the most boring presents for young kids, plain coloured dark socks for example. I used to come home from visiting during Christmas day and the plastic stuff would be broken and in the bin by the following day and the socks unappreciated by the kids as just something that turned up in their bedroom drawers when they dressed. Do you reciprocate gift buying with those buying for your children? You could agree to all stop, for some it might come as a relief. It will become better with time. I stopped buying for several after their 18th birthdays and that's been the same with others and mine, but you are waiting a long time for that one to kick in!