3 kids and never been able to afford childcare for any of them even though I earn enough to be put in the 40% tax bracket. It's outrageous around here, even with 2 at school we still can't afford to put the youngest in school. If the Wife got a job it would at best only just cover the cost of childcare and so she'd rather stay at home and bring the youngest up as she did with the other 2.

 

Indeed

www.greataupair.com

My wife left me in charge of choosing the last one we had

 

We are in the process of trying to work this out for our little boy. Mrs goes back to work part time in February. She works at the local Policeforce communication centre so shift work.

Luckily, we have managed to get her some decent shifts for when she goes back. The most she will work a week is Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but that is only 1 week out of 5. The other weeks she will work either 2 or 3 of those days. My mum is going to look after our boy on the Thursday if Marie is at work and then we want to put him into nursery/childminder on the Friday so that he can start to socialise.

But even for just 4 afternoons a month will cost us the best part of £100!
We are just fortunate that our parents are quite happy to help out. However, we had this agreed with them before we even started trying for a baby.


£1300 a month for 2 does seem spot on I'm afraid.

If you can't afford them, don't have them!

 

It's not easy, we have a 6 yr old and a 9yr old which are both at school but we still pay over £600 a month due to us both working, roughly the same cost as a 2nd mortgage, with 2 cars a mortgage and bills we just about manage to get by but recently we don't have a lot of spare cash to do much else with, child tax credits are a joke so don't get me started on them they a f'kin useless IMO and take no responsibility for there own errors

 

We're lucky the kids grandparents look after them 2 1/2 days a week and they're at nursery the other half. Its saving us a fortune (but still cripples us money wise)

 

Damn! I'd best quit my job (bad back ) and claim all and sundry then

We'll doubtfully be in a position to afford childcare so kinda resigned to Nat being a stay home mum and I'll do my best to progress with my career.

 

Could be even worse - we used to pay £1600 a month for our two in the local (fantastic) nursery. It got better when the first one began going to the nursery attached to our local school at 4 years old and now that both (7 and 8 years old now) are in the local state primary it's like having got rid of a big mortgage- even though we have taken on an au pair. No grandparents or family near by.

If you have the room (and (Luan pra Bang) an extra bedroom plus food etc costs a **** lot extra in London) the au pair route works out well. We pay our girl £75 a week plus gym membership (got to keep her looking fit ) and she works 4 days a week - gets them brekkie, takes them to and from school, makes dinner, helps with homework does all their washing, plays with them, etc. Mrs FB doesn't work on Fridays so the girl gets a long weekend. Our au pair is a really nice 19 year old german girl who our two adore and view as a quasi big sister so it works well for us.

 

Must check out your new one John

 

Got this to look forward to soon, the wife plans to go back to work in April when our boy is a year old. Probably going to do three long days a week so roughly equates to 2/3 of her original income. Nursery is £40 per day Taking petrol costs into it too (40 mile round trip) the extra money will make a difference for us but it'll be quite a bit less than before the boy came along

 

When Ez was born the economics worked out that we couldn't afford for the wife to give up work in order to pay mortgage etc, so we spent £1000 per month on a nursery from when she was 5 months old. This was London prices in 2000. We moved out of London and when wife got a job up that way, we put her in a private Montesori school and saved money! Except for last year, she has stayed in private education as we were used to paying for it. The foray into the state system was not a great success, so she's now in the school where she'll stay until her A-Levels are done probably. Still costs the same £1k per month, so her care/education appears to have been inflation proof over the last 12 years!

 

You can turn the tables.
I had 3 kids.We decided that it was better if my ex stayed at home but became a registered child minder.

Helped offset some of the loss of income & she was with the kids & they had some other kids to play with.

In fact my youngest(now at uni) is still friends with one of the girls we looked after.

 

I'm glad Ellie goes to nursery full time she's learnt so much from interacting with other children her age.

Also it's a god send if you have something to do in the week and you need to do it alone.

Oh and if you're off work ill the wife can just pop Ellie in nursery.

Down side is they catch stuff very easily.

 

Well the last one went home after you "checked her out"

This one isn't quite as spectacular, but that's probably a good thing for my heart at my age (and my ***** given that Mrs FB is a partner in a law firm...)

 

But you are doing something to improve your position.
You must have had idea of costs before the little man came along?

Ideally, I wanted to wait until we both had 3 months worth of salary behind us, tucked away in a little nest egg. Didn't work out like that, but I wouldn't have even considered having a child if I knew that it would ruin us financially.

 

Thats an incredible amount to have to find. You must have very well paid jobs.

Les

 

ours is at nursery two days a month, £320 a mth.

is worth it as clearly developing and playing with others is a good experience for her.

get **** all from tax credits etc etc: don't qualify for anything.

we made the decision my wife dropped from 5 days a week to 2 and we'd cope/manage. seems to be ok, but yes its a pinch compared to no children.

 

Yeah we had an idea and sourcing bargains or using charity shops/car booties has saved us a wedge of cash too. But me and Nat couldn't afford kids, no way. We made the decision to sacrifice things. Why I've got a Subaru too I'll never know but I've been fortunate this year with extra cash. We manage and cope but like many get a few quid tax credits, about £59 a week so my tax back

The population would be about 90% less (and I'm not just talking dole dosages either) if everyone that couldn't afford kids didn't. As above we sacrifice stuff so Isaac never goes without

 

My mum runs a child care company and she would never charge that much money. I've seen the bills involved. If you earn too much to get child credits then it's fair enough you have to be on a pretty decent wage to not get anything. I think that part of the system is bang on.

At most my mothers company only charges £80 per week per child. You guys are getting ripped off.

Oh nvm, I just realised this is for babies and full time care.

 

One of the sexiest Polish girls I ever met was an Au pair skinny, pretty with massive ****, I am hoping that my GF will let me have an au pair but I think she is plannig on something different.

 

Crew is that at her house or it's own building?

Does she employ staff?

 

Grandparents

 

We had it all perfectly planned out how much it would cost to have a baby, we could manage very comfortably, we had bought a large family home with a manageable mortgage, I had spent a lot getting the place just how we wanted it. I had my choice of 4 cars in the garages, we knew our holidays would be local rather than overseas for a couple of years until our son or daughter was old enough to enjoy the trip, but that was ok.

Then we had our eight week scan - and there were two of them in there!!!!

Mrs T now stays home and looks after the kids, I work long hours, but try to keep the weekends free for the kids. It is hard, but it is about ensuring the kids come first. Eighteen months in, and it sure isn't getting any easier....

 

Yep. Looks like you could be coming home to this

 

Lee - what are you doing finding pictures like that - are you having a mid-life crisis?!

 

He's doing that all wrong - should start with the sleeves first.

 

 

We both earn average wages, but they add them together ..

 

I think for about the last errrrrrm, 30 years

 

Yes ok, but how frustrating to have to lash out so much for the childcare.

Les

 

I don't mind paying what I can afford to, I'll go without for myself ..