How does the average couple afford children?

henhog

Hi,
Kids are expensive, there is no denying that but it's up to you how expensive you make it. When I had first baby, I went back to work after six months to a well paid job and hardly felt any struggle at all. Infact, I got promotions over the years and although I was paying out £600 a month in childcare, I still was considerably well off. When the eldest was five we decided to have another baby - we thought we would only have one child so we could maintain our lifestyle.
This time I went down the other route - I went back to work on a part time basis without any responsibilities, and also half the income. (I don't regret working fulltime with First born - it was the right thing to do at the time) We also have a bigger mortgage because we had a loft conversion to make room for the baby. We are much poorer, but I am very happy (other half kind of misses the good old days, I think) I kept everything from firstborn, so I haven't spent hardly anything one new baby. The other day we were laughing because I bought him a £2.99 T shirt from Next and we decided it was his only new thing! I breastfed (both of them) and didn't bother with babyfood - both good eaters. Just by following old style common sense and lots of value stuff we can live in this budget. I don't miss my old life style at all - if I wanted to I could go back to career when kids are older anyway.
Often, moms are more than happy to give stuff away to people when their kids have grown up - I got loads of stuff second hand - it's now done both of mine and friend's babies. If you need something, pin up a notice at work "Cot needed" etc and you will get something, I did!
By the way - I have a friend who bought her six month old an £80 designer coat! You could buy all of Matalan children's department for that and still have change!
Good luck

flikkerty

I have found this thread very interesting - being pregnant and soon to go on maternity leave.
I don't know if anyone can help me with this but... our mortgage was taken out with both of our salaries taken into consideration, with me off we will go down to my husbands rubbish salary of about 11k (he works full time and is a student with the O.U), but I will get maternity pay although it may be reduced as have been off sick.

We can manage the mortgage and bills etc because of cutting right back and again using this invaluable website, but only just, hopefully. But, can we claim the benefit we would be entitled to without it affecting the mortgage and jeapodising our position?
I am too worried about phoning up to ask in case it affects the mortgage. Can anyone offer advice?
Cheers.

Spendless

flikkerty wrote:

But, can we claim the benefit we would be entitled to without it affecting the mortgage and jeapodising our position?
I am too worried about phoning up to ask in case it affects the mortgage. Can anyone offer advice?
Cheers.

Which benefit? The ones I posted about earlier? Child benefit and tax credits? You aren't required to tell your mortgage lender that you claim them.

Jay-Jay_4

flikkerty wrote:

I am too worried about phoning up to ask in case it affects the mortgage.

Don't bury your head in the sand or lie awake at night worrying. Phone them up, you don't have to give any details, and ask them where you stand.


Bailey, I haven't read through the whole of this thread but someone once said to me "if everyone waited until they could afford children, nobody would have them".

A baby doesn't so much 'cost money', a baby alters your lifestyle in a way that affects how you earn and spend money. With a baby you don't socialise as much, don't go out for as many meals and don't spend money on yourself, so it all evens out in the end.

If one of you stops working then it's less petrol, less money on luches and coffees, no money on work clothes and a lot less stress while you arrange and pay for childcare.

Squidgy

Flikkerty, you may be better posting seperatly on the mortgage board as there will probably be more people their who can help you with that.

Bailey, I would go with the others. You can never afford children!

Jay-Jay_4

Squidgy wrote:

Bailey, I would go with the others. You can never afford children!

Exactly!

I would even go so far as to say that babies don't cost much at all but when they get to school age and you have to pay for uniforms, lunches, trips, 'voluntary contributions' to school :rolleyes: , dance classes, football classes, fancy trainers, the latest toy......etc etc etc.

Also you can't guarantee that you'll concieve straight away so.......better get cracking now seriously. I planned both of mine and neither went to plan, both taking MUCH longer than I thought....... it happens a lot.

pavlovs_dog

i've also been told that you'll never be financially ready for children, so it sounds like sound advice.

i think where the money aspect kicks in comes down to the way in which you want to raise your children, and the type of lifestyle you want to provide for them. up until they start school, they generally dont care if they are in primark or prada clothes, a boy dressed in pink or a girl in blue...it is the adults that fuss and must have the latest this/that/the other for their darling child. until the child hits school age, its only you as a parent that will ever really be afashionably aware of whether your child is dressed according to the current fashion, or whether their development will really be affected because you bought shops own brand rather than a big name.

so long as your child is loved and wanted, i really dont think it makes a whole lot of difference how rich or poor you are.

bluep

Flikkerty, if you are on a joint income of less than 14,000 you are intitled to all sorts of income support, council tax help, sure start maternity grant ....get down the jobcentre plus and find out all about it! We get over £200 a month on child tax credits although they might be overpaying us having read all the recent reports!! Or call your local Surestart Team and ask about it. A good place to look as well is Babycentre.co.uk - these kind of questions come up all the time on their forum there. I looked into everything and have had to declare nothing to my mortgage company. Once you have a mortgage and are paying each month with no defaults and as long as you aren't plannign to run a business from that address, mortgage companies are fairly flexible...

Bailey - I became pregnant whilst doing my PhD and my partner was a student teacher - our income dropped dramatically (and it wasn't that high to start with LOL), and I didn't qualify for any maternity pay/statutory allowance but I have to say, where there's a will there's a way. I can't remember the last time I splurged out on me - my daughter comes first (I was probably more like your boyfriend whilst mine was always good with money). Yes we are in debt and I am looking forward to going back to work when she is a year old to clear the credit cards. But I am a firm believer that if you wait wait wait..the house is never going to be big enough, you're never going to be earning enough, its never going to be the right time to have children.

Money saving tips:
breast feed - literally saves over £100 a month if not more.

make your own baby food from good veg (especially when the supermarket reduces huge bags of it due to overstock), freeze this in ice-cube trays once cooked and forget jars of baby food full stop -its the equivilant of junk food for babies unless you buy the really expensive organic ones.

Recycle baby clothes - local NCT (national childbirth trust) 2nd hand sales are great, even mothercare has good sales on new clothes and eBay is a gem - buy it cheap (new sterilisers all sorts there) and sell it on when you've finished with it. Same with maternity clothes.

Nappies - we went disposable but every time Boots does a buy 2 get 1 free on Huggies, I stock up on a couple of months worth, especially with 500 points (£5) on over £25 spend on babies stuff... Same with their buy 1 get 1 free baby wipes - by combining deals at Boots recently I got 24 packets of baby wipes for around 50p each LOL.

there's a firm called just-kidding.co.uk in birmingham that do special offers of buy a travel system (buggy and car seat) and get a free £200 cot-bed. BARGAIN!

Collect coupons and shop at a supermarket that takes the money off of your total shop without you having to specifically buy that product - I save around £30 a week on my shopping in this way. See the Vouchers and Coupons section of the Better Buys part of this forum.

Anyway, once you have a baby your outgoings will drop dramatically in one area - going out!! I can't rememebr the last time I had the energy or time to go out on the town and spend loads of money on booze and dinner etc...

In terms of your boyfriend - he's got to be ready to take the step (although this does take some men by suprise at the birth!) because having a baby is the most selfless thing you'll ever do. You cannot, EVER prioritise what you want to buy or do over their needs in the first year or so. He might be like me though, and find it inspirational to change his money-ways!

ravenlooney

I had the (second) best bit of advice ive ever had about having children before I decided to have no2. I had mentioned to someone that id love another child but would need to wait till I could afford it. The reply was that if you waited till you could afford it then youd never have any at all!! children can be cheap if needs be, as long as theyre warm fed and loved thats all they really need. we've always been not too well off but my children are the happiest ever. They only cost a fortune if you let that happen

Caixta

Just wanted to say I wish you well, Bailey.

I've got four lovely kids and I can only speak from my own experience.

I find that when children are young, they needn't cost you much money for their day to day needs. I do know that the cost of housing is the real kicker. Happily, while they are young, they do not need much room. We had two small bedrooms until our third child was born. We used to take them out a lot anyway, to cheap or free stuff like parks, etc. Our home, to them, was the place where they crashed in between adventures! Now, a few years on, the two older ones can't even remember what the place looked like, but they do remember a lot of the fun things we used to do!

A friend of mine who has four grown up children said they didn't really start getting expensive until they went to college. She is quite a frugal lady but was always very caring and creative with her children. They have all followed her example and developed their talents. They are not "consumers" but givers and are lovely young adults.

If you feel so keenly about having children, I think that you will never regret having them. I'm sure you're not like this, but some people wait until everything is "perfect" before having children. (The right house, car, salary or whatever). But if life really was perfect then we wouldn't need families. You are a wise lady (obviously because you're an MSE'er) and you will have so many wonderful things to pass on to your little one.