wife + 5 year old + 2year old + mortgage + nursery fees + car + living

=

1 working 2nd hand XC bike with a pitiful collection of spares and a life spent at car boots, poundshops and trawling the classifieds

It never used to be like this. Does it end?

When you’re to old to enjoy it.

I’m only going to have one child and one car and my wife will damn well work as well. Hope that makes it easier.

Maybe check your expenses?

Not if you are a teacher!

Oh. God. How depressing. Still, nappies, puke, poo, snot, wailing, sleep deprivation, no time to get anything done… Totally worth it, right? Right?? RIGHT??? 😯

Sorry it gets worse. I have a 15 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. After working away last week I was presented with the following requests/demands:

£160 for guitar lessons (10 weeks)
£80 football club fees
£49 gym club fees
£100 down payment for school trip (£550 total @ £100 every six weeks)

Both cars need servicing and the rear wheel on my faithful Marin Rocky Ridge is beyond economical repair.

**** this, me and my missus will stick to Springer Spaniels.

Truly it does. I still have the mortgage and car/living expense but kids are now in college and last year of school with little jobs of their own to teach them about income and that. On the bike front I think we all want the next one up but it will come in time, just ride your one like you stole it. 🙂

Edit. Seems I got off lucky. you are royally fOOOOOked.

The tiddlywinks are worth it. The only having ONE bike is killing me, especially as now I’ve regained enough of a life to start using it.

Nah, it gets better. They start stealing stuff off other people once they get past 12 or 13 and that relieves the burden.

Divorced+living in shared house+no social life+living off pasta= 7 bikes (I may not be happy but who gives a sheet….I’ve got 7 BIKES!!)

Pretty much in the same boat, one three year old, and a one week old. I work full time, wife will go back to work at some point within 6 to 9 months for three days a week. Nice but modest house for them to grow up in, a focus in the drive, and some great grandparents five minutes away who are fantastic and save us a fortune in child minding fees! Couldn’t do it without them.
Had three bikes in my mancave/garage, sold the old road bike (hardly used), the cobbled together hardtail built for the missus (also hardly used) and my enduro sworks frame to fund a new 575 frame a coupla years ago. Upgraded wheels, forks and a few other bits and bobs mostly out of Christmas and Birthday money. My birthday is nine days after the other so January sales are always scrutinised, as are the classifieds!
I don’t ride as much as I used to so happy with one bike, my family and my life. It’s all good, even if I don’t go away skiing every winter!!

haha, my chrimbo and berkday list is always CRC vouchers please 🙂

Ha! serves you right for having sprogs. Get rid of the bloody things & get a parrot.
Miles better value for money.

(I **** hate kids me, can you tell)

😀

Bwarrp sticking with springer spaniels can get expensive too, mines cost me well over £3.5k in 4 years!!

Ha! serves you right for having sprogs. Get rid of the bloody things & get a parrot.

I would, but eBay keep pulling my listings…

Quite happy having my weans..have always wanted a family.
Does mean the wife’s not very keen on getting a dog though..

Apparently gets better when nursery fees finish, helps from 3 when you get some free sessions but even with 1 it is equivalent to a 2nd mortgage!

Just think how they will pay you back in your dotage by bundling you off to a nursing home.

esselgruntfuttock – Member
Ha! serves you right for having sprogs. Get rid of the bloody things & get a parrot.
Miles better value for money.

(I **** hate kids me, can you tell)

No bother, I must remind mine not to pay for any of your care when you are old and decrepit. Good luck getting your parrot to cover that.

In the old days you’d have retirement to look forward to and maybe some disposable from having paid the mortgage off and a good final salary pension with perhaps some savings and great interest rates.

But not any more, and worse you’ll be living longer and get a crap pension, probably with no savings income and still be supporting the kid’s who are up to their eyeballs in debt.

And when you’re helpless in your old age, on life support and can’t do anything for yourself, you can’t even have someone pull the plug for you.

😀

disposable income! are you having a laugh!!

Kenny when you put it like that….if Nasa/Russia/China/the EU space agency turned round and asked me if I wanted to go on a one way trip with a handful of other people to colonize mars…I think I would take it.

I’d rather live fast and die young doing something important, mad and dangerous with my life, rather than wait to die in a death box (ones house).

That’s the problem….. as fight Fight Club put it…. we’re the middle children of history….. we have nothing to do….. no great frontiers to conquer (with the exception of killing the locals in Afghanistan)….besides sitting on our arses in 9-5’s staring at the ceiling saving up for a two week retirement cruise before we die.

oh I do love an stw existential thread. can we have another?

What’s the point?

bwaarp…no great frontiers?
Pish!
Scientists and engineers are smashing down frontiers at a faster rate than our species has ever done.
Theres more to frontiers than colonising space. For the 99% of us that are not pushing these boundaries, thats no bad thing as progress needs a society to develop in, and you are society.

I would, but eBay keep pulling my listings…

Deal direct with the medical research labs, no worries about Paypal gift either.

Having no money I have come to live with but its the lack of time to do all the things I cant afford that hurts these days. With 2 young uns the wife works weekends and evening so fiddling in (guilt and argument free)riding and climbing is becoming impossible……grumble to no one in particular over.

sucks dont it. Wife 3/4 through her maternity leave. Money’s leeching through the account left right and centre. Savings have evaporated and I’ve just had to sell my 29er to ease the situation. 4th year of a pay freeze. life’s quite trying at the moment!

You have disposable icome, you just chose to buy kids with it 🙄

£160 for guitar lessons (10 weeks)
£80 football club fees
£49 gym club fees
£100 down payment for school trip (£550 total @ £100 every six weeks)

I’m quite looking forward to that type of expense in a few years as the cost of childcare in these parts is brain-boggling.

Can’t speak for anyone else but my boys are worth every penny 😀

We had 3 in nursery for two years! Would have been fine if planned – but twins were a surprise in the second pregnancy… More than a second mortgage in terms of costs and only now after 1 year where all are at school are we getting back on our feet. That is the case even with two decent salaries and a reasonably modest lifestyle…

Just got our second one into school, not paying out £ 600 a month on nursery fees has helped massively (as did getting made redundant and finding a much better paying job at the same time). Rapidly clearing our debts and the future is looking brighter. This time last year I was beginning to wonder the rest of my life would just be a treadmill existance to feed to offspring.

Still not saving anywhere near enough and aware costs will increase again at some point but happier for the moment.

Nah, it gets better. They start stealing stuff off other people once they get past 12 or 13 and that relieves the burden.

Samuri, yesterday 🙂

Rewski has it.

Yer just have to see the good around you, you may not have a few quid for beers n inner tubes but you have a couple of sprogs and some folks don’t have that option.

Mind you I don’t have any sprogs..

Kids are worth it but I am worrying how we’ll get through when our 3rd is born in Feb! Oh and the fact we’ve had to buy a (not so) new car after realising you can’t fit 3 car seats in a family estate.

The nursery fees and clubs that seem to be springing up for everything take a fair whack out of the bank every month too.

But just seeing the look of pride on my daughters face on Saturday when she had her first proper dump in her potty was priceless!

My wife disposes of my income for me. Does that count?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what you need is a secret bank account.

Don’t feel guilty I am sure the misses halves the price of any new clothes she buys when you asks and leaves have the shopping in the back of the car so it can be smuggled in when you are not looking. How many time has you asked “Is that a new top” and “Oh no its an old one I have not worn for ages”.

It’s all part of the game. Just don’t go too silly.

That’s just what happens – mainly with kids’ clothes mind you so I shouldn’t complain I guess.

Two kids, 6yo girl, 4yo boy.
Took them round 7.5 miles Challenge Trail in Haldon Forest on Saturday which they both did without needing any pushing for the first time (quite a lot of Smarties were consumed though).
The sun was out, we picnicked, mucked around in the jump park and they learnt how to pull cool skids whilst shouting yeehar like cowboys.

At the same time I’m so skint I could just about afford the car park. Do I care? I’m the happiest/luckiest man in the world.