Have you considered second hand?
We did that and adopted one aged 5 and one aged 2. Probably saved us a bit, I sit on a throne made of tenners that I didn't have to spend on nappies.
significantly more than condoms appears to be the consensus
My vasectomy was free! Done after the two kids before anyone asks. 🙂
A serious question for the OP: how old is your son and daughter in law? I didn't have my first daughter until I was 36. My wife is a couple of years younger than me.
We had already done all the travelling, partying and socialising we wanted to and felt the time was right for "the next stage of our lives" (I hate that type of phrase).
Tell them to wait until they are in their early / mid 30s and do *everything* they want to now. Granny in law can wait too.
I just need an average figure to put my son & his Mrs off having any.
Well, a decent headline figure would be - it cost me £40k in Childcare costs for my daughter from 9 months to when she started school at 4 1/2. Admittedly that's without Childcare voucher savings.
To move to a bigger place has cost me £20k in the last 3 years.
The rest isn't too huge, we've been on more modest holidays and less of them, she doesn't eat much, and nappies which everyone seems to worry about just got thrown on the pile with the rest of the weekly shop. Clothes are pennies, unless you're mad enough to deck them out in designer kit they're be sick on and grow out of in 3 weeks.
It was a massive and fundamental shift in every part of our lives, the financial stuff wasn't too much bother really, initially when I found out she was coming (She wasn't planned) I was terrified, the money thing did bother me a bit, not because I was worried I might have to make sacrifices, but because I didn't think I could make it work, but you'd be amazed what you can trim if you have to and bills go paid, everyone got fed, the world continued to turn.
🙂
Not forgetting that if native Brits don't produce enough future workers then Britain will have to import, you know, those horrible immigrant things with their filthy foreign ways, their incomprehehsible languages, their zillions of kids running around... . It's the patriotic duty of every British-looking, British-sounding, Queeny-loving adult to procreate!
🙂
I think that's about as far as I can go without invoking Godwin's law or turning this into another Brexit thread.
Dear mods, this is humour, honest, I think it's obvious it's humour, to be humourous there has to be a minimum of reality so if anyone is offended because they feel personally targetted, perhaps they should be embarrassed rather than offended. 🙂
And seriously, remember the happy days when you one could type humourous posts on the Net and people would assume that you were just trying to entertain. I stopped posting because I'd become so dismally ernest and boring, and after a few days back on I realise I'm typing with my happy hand behind my back.
People are welcome to do whatever they want, it would pain me though to hear someone speaking of thier children as a resentments.
They are, plenty of folk choose not to have kids so they can experience exuberant holidays and homes.
And resentment can be found in the sheer number of divorced parents, and single parents all over the country.
Its not a new phenomenon.
^^could it not just be that the parents don’t like each other?
I’m with Krytron’s post on this. Essle hates kids according to his own posts. Me thinks there’s an ulterior notive at play 🤨 prospective Grandad doesn’t want Grandkids 😉
Imagine if they followed your advice then regretted it? Would they resent you for that ‘pressure’ you placed on them?
This. Talk to them about it, but don't pressure. On the other hand, they'll get shed loads of pressure to have kids from friends, family, society, so arguably you can add a bit of balance. Depends how you do it, though, and how deeply they take your advice and opinions to heart.
They have a great social life/loads of friends.
Theyr’e always being invited to various parties/do’s.
All fine, but what happens when their friends have kids? The parties will dry up, the friends will have their hands full, the social circles will get more and more kiddie-centric. I'm not at all saying that you should have kids to stay in with the in-crown, but deciding to never have kids because there are lots of parties to go to at the moment is a little short-sighted.
But don’t tell the op he doesn’t deserve kids in the judgmental way.
Methinks the OP is using the worry of his sons finances as an aside, the real concern is that OP doesn’t want grandkids, given previous posting history?
Nails on the head with both comments!
Nobeer, you either have a good memory or youv'e searched!
So when I had my two lads over 30 years ago It was one of those 'if kids come along, fine. If they don't, fine, we'll get a dog instead' things.
However, the world has changed, my attitude to kids has changed & your'e right, I don't want Grandkids, & one reason (maybe?) is that I don't want to disappoint my lad & his Mrs by not being the doting Grandad, cos I know I won't. Mind you I wouldn't get a look in anyway with MIL around!
I was talking to the eldest about it the other day & he reckons his brother doesn't seem fussed either way whereas his Mrs kept saying about her mum wanting to be a Granny.
Theyv'e been together 16 years but only got married this summer, both in their 30's.
The eldest one won't have kids cos he doesn't like them either, he's gay, has a rescued Greyhound instead.
So if it happens it happens but I don't want to see them lose out on a lot of what they have & do now for one other 'pleasure'. On the other hand they might think, 'well wev'e had a great time anyway.
We'll see.
We used to run a lot so we bought a Baby Jogger. We used to bike a lot so we put a kiddy seat on the tandem (and did the semaine fédérale when he was 7 months), then bought a kiddyback tandem and every size of MTB up to adult. We used to ski a lot so put him on skis at 22 months. We used to swim a lot so he could swim not long after he could walk. We used to go out now and then so used babysitters. He got into music and all sorts of interesting stuff that we joined in with.
Then he became a gob-shite rebel ado and created chaos till he ****ed off to university. 🙂
Madame misses him so there are now two horses in our lives.
I suspect a kid(s) would add more to your son's life than it would ever take away Essel. And yours too.
Mine have now both graduated to adulthood, last one this year. They don't get any cheaper - four years of support at university and flying lessons to train to be a pilot. I won't be retiring any day soon.
The biggest cost of children is opportunity cost. But you don't do it for the economics. You do it for the intangibles. That hug from the 18yo for picking him up in the early hours, that emergency online shopping delivery because the uni student is broke (again). I'm hoping for a rest of life cheap air travel to nice places and an unhealthy interest in sea-floor geology!
Get a dog.
Easily over £10k per year, on average... Think of all the extra bike gear you could buy! 😮
£100 a week seems about right.
What are you forgetting to cost in? there's no way it's that little.
I remember being told a couple of years ago that from Birth to the end of a university degree is something like an avg of £300k per child, that's probably for a more middle class version of "average" as it clearly costs in a degree...
I can believe it though, if it were just the two of us We'd probably not have more savings but we'd have more holidays and eat/drink out more and own a smaller house, simply housing a sprog or two adds a fair chunk to your outgoings before you even feed or clothe them...
The biggest cost of children is opportunity cost. But you don’t do it for the economics. You do it for the intangibles. That hug from the 18yo for picking him up in the early hours,
Yeah, the thread where parents were having knives waved at them makes me wary of this.
Tell them to wait until they are in their early / mid 30s and do *everything* they want to now.
I'm 41 with two kids aged 13 and 15. I look at people my age with toddlers and think 'poor bastards'.
Nappies are such a low cost item these days as to be effectively free - I think the lidl ones are 6p each so around 50p a day. Compare that to childcare at £60/day.. I've heard they were expensive before - maybe they got cheaper in the last decade?
The honest answer is 'all your spare cash plus some you thought wasn't spares. If you're on minimum wage and have a few, you can probably raise one for £2k a year, if you're the notorious £5k/month londoner with an only child you might be spending 10 times that per kid
I’m 41 with two kids aged 13 and 15. I look at people my age with toddlers and think ‘poor bastards’.
Why? I’m 41 with a 5 year old and a 1 year old. If I’d have had them 15 years ago I’d have been an exceptionally shitty parent. Now I’m calmer, wiser, probably fitter and loving it. Save your pity for someone that actually requires it 😀
as 5lab said - they expand to fill your disposable income. Mine are completely spoilt because we can but if we had less cash it wouldn't have stopped us having them and i'm sure they would have been just as happy.
What would have made them unhappy was if they could clearly see we could afford stuff their friends were doing but just spent it on ourselves instead.
We also tend to spend money on experiences or things that will lead to experiences so they have lots of trips, good bikes, camping gear etc musical instruments etc but not the latest tech gadgets or expensive clothes
But don't underestimate school expenses which are getting more and more each year as the gov cuts back. Now its normal to pay for textbooks, laptops, art materials and of course the millions of trips
You’d like to think that they had these conversations before getting married. IME millennials are shite with money, spoiled and have stupid expectations for life – I blame the parents!
Ahh nothing like a bit of millennial bashing thrown in for good measure.
I'm a self entitled, spoilt millennial aged 35 with two young kids. No social life anymore unless it's with other parents. Haven't been abroad for 4 years. Don't go out as we never have a sitter. Best thing I've ever done. I adore my children. My 19 month old doesn't sleep. I'm fatigued. Doesn't matter. When he's trying to feed me with his spoon it makes it all worthwhile. Yesterday my 4 year old rode his pedal bike without stabilisers. What a great feeling. As for cost I reckon it's about £700 a month for us when factoring in childcare costs. Really hard for a millennial to digest, don't have time to think about it really. Too busy building brio tracks.
I say let them do what they want. You don't have to be a doting grandparent. My mother/father live 15 miles away and see our kids 5 times a year when we take them over. Their loss.
Millennial at 35? My wife is the same age as you and magically is a child of the 80's. Other than that I totally agree with you
I'm born in 1983 therefore a spoilt, demanding me me me millennial. 1980/81 onwards are millennials.
My wife would disagree with that. Surely you'd have to be born after 2000 to be a millennial? If not it makes no sense. It's like me claiming to be a 90's child when I was born in the 70's.
This is 1 in 3 Beagles all over again.
Millennials are Generation Y, early 80s to early 2000s.
Too much, tell them not to bother. I did't. Never looked back.
PS nothing better when you get the kids coming biking with you. My two are now 15/18 and not as keen on biking as they were (computers). It's great when they tear off down hill and you are 'use the brakes' just before they hit a stone wall....
Can't complain. Teens are hard work.
Main thing is to work out about child care - we went down the route of my wife stopping working for some years, and she is still only part time now - it has been a big impact on money, but we have enough.
Life is busy with kids, wouldn't know what to do without. Don't know how my slightly younger sister manages - no kids late 40's -I'd go stir crazy (we are from a 4 kid family).
My other sister is early 30's but has had loads of health issues (adhesions/various ops) and we don't know if she will be able to have kids - married 2 years ago. she is still having treatment. Then the youngest, my brother, has just had their first (early 30's too). Must be hard for my younger sister seeing both lads having kids, she would like them, but hasn't been well enough to have any.
Count your blessings...
I remember being told a couple of years ago that from Birth to the end of a university degree is something like an avg of £300k per child
There was a lot of utter tripe spouted a while ago on the BBC website IIRC about the cost of a child. Their logic was massively flawed and basically went something like
- need new house, £300k
- need people carrier £25k pa
- need laptops and ipad and iphones £5k pa
- need Ugg boots et al £xxx
and so on. The price was considerable but much was based on 'having' to move into larger house in school catchment areas blah blah and mumsie needing a top of the range Ford Galaxy every two years. And possibly IIRC £50k for bank of mum and dad for uni fees and possibly more for a deposit for their own house.
Too much, tell them not to bother. I did’t. Never looked back.
You're at least 20 years older than I thought you were.
Edit: no scrub that, if you were at least 20 years older than I thought you were you'd be having doubts by now.
To answer the original question: priceless.
They’ve taught me so much. Given my life so much meaning. Continue to be a great source of pride and joy.
They’ve also cost many thousands of pounds and continue to do so. Infact I expect them to be a draw on my finances and time for a good many years yet.
Would I have been able to make a ‘business case’ no, would I repeat the experience if I had my time over, ABSOLUTLEY!
at least £60 a day in nursery fees
They LOVE holidays abroad, so have to save like heck to pay for them (American road trip stylee holidays)
They have a great social life/loads of friends.
Theyr’e always being invited to various parties/do’s.If they don't understand that a child will likely mean the end of all this then quoting a random figure at them won't make any difference.
Shouldn’t have read any of this!
OP needs to stop worrying about others and let them live their own lives. Just because MIL is clambering for kids doesn’t mean sons wife will start popping them out straight away. My MIL has been going on at us for years but didn’t make a difference to us.
I’m now 44 with first kid due in March. Wife is 42. Loads of you will think we’re mad, looking at you Mike, but on the other hand I’d have looked at you when you had toddlers and thought the same. At 28 I was skiing in the states every winter holiday, riding bikes in the summer and peeing money away on modified cars. Everyone has their own path. Mrs and I didn’t meet until I was 31, and we spent our thirties travelling on doing all the couples stuff most people do in their twenties. Now it’s the right time for us for a family.
Let your kids find the right way for them.
Ours haven't cost much yet. My wife wasn't working at the time though so she stayed home. Now they are in school I don't doubt we've lost money as she didn't work, but it wasn't money we had to spend.
Most recent expense was a new drivetrain for the eldest's bike to get more range. Didn't mind that so much 🙂
Exactly same as you molgrips, apart from the drivetrain, with cost of nursery it just made sense for one of us to stop working. I just wish it could’ve been me, feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of firsts as a result.
If I’d wanted to be rich I wouldn’t have had kids. In my opinion, if the financial implications even cross your mind I don’t think kids are the right choice. Who looks at a baby and starts building a spreadsheet FFS? 😂
It could well be that I am missing something in this whole discussion, but what many of you have said slightly bewilders me.
As you know, I have eight kids. It was something that Mrs SR wanted because she came from such a small family herself, and while I was neither here nor there about the number we ended up having, each one has been wonderful in one way or another.
That said, we aren't now, nor have we ever been, wealthy. Fortunately, I have always been able to make enough that we haven't had to resort to benefits; but regardless, we naturally try to live wisely and within our means.
We knew, for example, that having children would limit our opportunities for travel; yet to me travel is important for education, so we were determined to do it anyway. Consequently, we have camped everywhere from Spain to Poland and across the UK. We also believe that a classical education is important, so we have both endeavoured to do a lot of extra work with the kids at home, and tried to be discerning about the stuff they watch and read.
Most importantly, though, I have never felt as if my life was somehow diminished by having children. They don't "cost" anything. My kids are an extension of my life. I have never been limited in my riding time; I have never not been able to do something I really wanted to do; the worst I could ever say is that when I am in the midst of writing something, it can take longer that it would if I wasn't also having a chat with my five year-old about the leaves he saw in the park on the way home from school.
I haven't read through the whole of this thread, but I hope that what I have said casts a slightly different light on the question of having children. Sorry if it hasn't.
EDIT: Just read funkmasterp's contribution, above. He says in one sentence what I am trying to suggest.
Well posh holiday's and partying every week does get a bit tiresome after a while, and it's not a particularly healthy lifestyle either. We had kids in our mid 30's so had a good 15yrs or so of partying and exuberant holiday's and I was just about done with that by the time we decided to have kids. It gets a bit tedious. Also we were no better off then without kids compared to now with kids, you always end up living to your means. Also it gets to a point where the people you socialise with start settling down and having kids themselves, so you start running out of people to go partying with.
We've got no regrets. Kids would work out quite expensive I guess if we sat down and worked it out, but so what? money is just meaningless tokens - a means to purchase a lifestyle...you choose the lifestyle you want to live within your financial means...or just over it in most cases!
