Having Babies

[Demonic Angel]

Thanks everyone for the informative (and very different!) opinions!

I do want to have children eventually, but after hearing what everyones had to say, I'll put it on hold for now! I mean we have a house of our own with plenty of space for children, but I think our finances need to be in better shape for us to consider a child at the moment....

Plus the way Rich thinks of it is if we can afford to live on his wage and a maternity wage (I'm not sure how maternity is calculated - I think its 90% of wages for so long, then SMP which I think is about £70 a week) and at the moment, with the mortgage and running two cars we know we couldnt afford to do that - unless I gave up my car of course!

Rich has said that if he gets a new job with better pay then we can talk about it more.... but right now its a no-go financially - although if an "accident" happened, I'm sure we would get by, even if that meant selling cars etc, but thats what we'd have to do I reckon....

[Demonic Angel]

em dont you think we should have discussed this first before putting it on the forums?????

how to ruin a great body............. have kids....

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Well I dont have a particularly great body to begin with...... and how do you know anyway - I told you to stop stalking me!

I'll just have to settle with cats - less hard work and pushing!

[dazwan]

Rich has said that if he gets a new job with better pay then we can talk about it more....

That's exactly atitude I used to have until we had our little "accident". If you're secure in your jobs and you're managing now, then there's no reason you couldn't manage with a baby. You could just start to be careless (vatican roulette anyone?), if your partner wants kids deep down he won't care too much if you have an accident and hopefully think "what the hell" and just go with the flow.

Find out what your company policy is WRT maternity pay, some are better than others. If you think it will mean you will go short for a few months, then start saving now to cover any expected shortfalls.

As for the expense of child care, Me and my partner both dropped down to do 4 day weeks (as a parent you have the right to ask for flexible working and your work has a legal obligation to seriously consider your request) we both have an extra day with my son (I get Fridays, she gets Mondays) and we only have to find 3 days childcare and we still earn the same amount of money as before.

I think we're bettter off now than we've ever, been, there's no reason for it but we just seem to have more money nowadays. Maybe its because we're more careful with our money, I'm not sure, but if you want kids you'll find a way to manage.

One final thing, Children are only as expensive as you want them to be! As an example, we did my son's nursery for less than £200, I know sombody who spent over £1000 decorating their nursery and at the end of the day it does the same job. Just be sensible and the only thing that you have to spend lots of when it come to your children is time and love.