Starting a Family MM

[SquirrelChaser]

You're relatively young high earners with a joint net value around €1.5 million, so you can probably finance the high cost social obligations which are associated with being high earners with a high net value (as illustrated by the €70k wedding). People rarely come from nowhere to get to that position at a young age, so I'm guessing you both have relatively wealthy parents who have supported you financially in the past and will do again through gifts and inheritances. So on the financial side you're probably fine.

The non-financial side may be a much bigger issue.

Parenting is a full time job, it's not something you can really do while you WFH for the first couple of years. It's something that's difficult to do with a child in the house even when someone else is caring for them. Forget that idea would be my advice.

Parenting is tough for two parents, I can't imaging how hard it must be for one parent. If you're working at different times of the day & days of the week etc, you're effectively taking it in turns to parent and not parenting jointly. That's not ideal in my opinion. Cleaning, laundry, food preparation, literally everything doubles or triples when a small person comes along.

It's not so much that childcare is expensive, that it's very difficult to actually obtain. You should put each kid down on the waiting list of every viable creche pretty much as soon as there's a positive pregnancy test. I'm not exaggerating, I wish I was. Get a nanny isn't exactly easy either.

• As Sue Ellen has just posted, you'll need lots of unscheduled half & full days off at zero notice if your child is in a creche.

I'm assuming that those high paying jobs will come with a high number of hours and pressure. In particular, both of you are going to have to make choices between giving time to your jobs/careers and giving time to your children. I'd say give time not money, because you can always make more money to give them but you will never get a minute of that time back if you don't.

 

[tomwa]

I'm guessing you both have relatively wealthy parents who have supported you financially in the past and will do again through gifts and inheritances. So on the financial side you're probably fine.

I've been fortunate that my parent was able to help in the form of what he called a gift of an early inheritance to help towards the house. But despite my age, I have a 20 year career at similar pay behind me (which makes my lack of a pension even more unfrogivable, I've had employer match % sitting unused the whole time). OH is from a large family with any resources available rightly going to her less fortunate siblings, her education was financed with a loan from an older sibling. We got a generous gift of €5k from her parents towards the wedding. I'm afraid it's just us and our current resources, nothing more is expected financially from either side. Her family is close enough though and may be able to help from time to time with childcare, as we do for them now.

Parenting is a full time job, it's not something you can really do while you WFH for the first couple of years. It's something that's difficult to do with a child in the house even when someone else is caring for them. Forget that idea would be my advice.

I'm beginning to understand that wouldn't be of much help at least in the early years.

Parenting is tough for two parents, I can't imaging how hard it must be for one parent. If you're working at different times of the day & days of the week etc, you're effectively taking it in turns to parent and not parenting jointly. That's not ideal in my opinion. Cleaning, laundry, food preparation, literally everything doubles or triples when a small person comes along.

It's not so much that childcare is expensive, that it's very difficult to actually obtain. You should put each kid down on the waiting list of every viable creche pretty much as soon as there's a positive pregnancy test. I'm not exaggerating, I wish I was. Get a nanny isn't exactly easy either.

We've got six creches within walking distance. But have heard the same from local parents. All eventually were offered slots in the creches, but emphasised putting our name down ASAP.

I'm assuming that those high paying jobs will come with a high number of hours and pressure. In particular, both of you are going to have to make choices between giving time to your jobs/careers and giving time to your children. I'd say give time not money, because you can always make more money to give them but you will never get a minute of that time back if you don't.

Agreed. My OH has fixed but long hours, but she's in her dream job and kinda doesn't know what to do with herself when she's not working. She regularly works 12-14 days straight. My own career involves 24/7 on-call time and doing whatever extra hours are required to get the job done outside of normal hours. I normally take care of 90% of the chores/cooking/landlord duties as OH's hours are longer in absolute terms. We're very much both going to face an adjustment.... I just worry about the financial implications of those adjustments and the risks if something goes wrong.

 

[JoeRoberts]

Get 1 child under your belt. Then you will have an idea whether you want a 2nd or 3rd etc and how it will work out. The big difference is going from 2 to 3. After that the jump to 5 is not as big . Don't plan too much

 

[Blackrock1]

Get 1 child under your belt. Then you will have an idea whether you want a 2nd or 3rd etc and how it will work out. The big difference is going from 2 to 3. After that the jump to 5 is not as big . Don't plan too much

very true, also conceiving kids isnt always plain sailing either, its one of those things you just assume will happen but it can be a journey. Anyway after one youll have an idea of how you are shaping up, and 2 will probably help you decide if you want a large family or if 2/3 are enough!

 

[_OkGo_]

1st Buy to Let Property value: €325k
1st Buy to let Mortgage: €77k on a 1.1% tracker
Rent: €2.1k/month

2nd Buy to Let Property value: €465k
Mortgage Free
Rent: €2.4k/month

First things first, your gross rent is €54k, after expenses and interest, you are probably at €45k or less if there are big management fees. Taxed at 52%, you are netting about €21.5k

You are essentially borrowing €713k at 3.3% for the luxury of being a landlord. This is a net cost to you €23.5k!!

It is literally costing you money to hold onto these properties. You should get rid of them anyway for financial reasons but if you are serious about having 4-5 kids you need to get rid of both immediately. It makes no sense to carry that level of debt and the risk associated with it when you are essentially hoping for capital appreciation to beat your PPR interest rate

Been trying to look at numbers but none of the local childcare places list pricing online, and I'm not even sure what our childcare needs will be.

You can usually find the fees on the NCS website (it seems to be temporarily down).

But for reference, our childcare costs are ~€1.1k/m for 2 kids in full-time childcare. That is after the NCS subsidies and the 15 free hours of ECCE for the older child. There's lots of political talk of reducing this further but it will still be significant with up to 5 kids

We have a good amount of flexibility with our working arrangements (I can partially WFH and on flexible hours, Wife chooses her hours and gets higher rates for weekends/unsociable) and might be able to avoid childcare costs 9-5 workers would have no option but to accept.

I say this as politely and well intentioned as possible but this is very naive thinking.

We have a joint income over €200k and both have very flexible work arrangements but there isn't a hope in the world that we could avoid childcare costs. Even the days they get sent home are only manageable in short bursts. We can tag team the day, one starts early, we swap and both work late. Throw a few sleepless nights on top and it's a very hectic week. And that's for mild illnesses, it's annual leave when they are properly sick

You are a little older so if you want 4 or 5 children then you need to start soon and have them all fairly close together. You don't want to be 50 having a 5th child. With having so many so close, at least one of you will need to give up work for a few years once the 3rd child comes along

 

[Sue Ellen]

Get 1 child under your belt. Then you will have an idea whether you want a 2nd or 3rd etc and how it will work out. The big difference is going from 2 to 3. After that the jump to 5 is not as big . Don't plan too much

Very true. Remember visiting a young doctor one day who had 2 children in 2 years. He said definitely not recommended. His eyes were in the back of his head from lack of sleep and he looked absolutely exhausted.

I also feel it would be physically very tough on any woman having 4-5 children over 10 years.

Definitely a thread to be revisited in years to come to see how things pan out

 

[Monbretia]

I think whatever about the whole finance side of things you are looking at budgeting for a nanny/housekeeper or some sort of live in care unless you have massive family back up once you get past 3 kids.

Compared to when my kids were young I notice my grandchildren can be sent home from school/creche for the smallest sign of an illness, can't go in for I think 48 hrs if they throw up at all and you really can't take time off work be it employee or self employed for the amount of things that will crop up like that, I could not have held down the full time job I had if I had as many school/creche/weather absences as my daughter gets, she is luckily self employed and wfh but still it takes a lot of organising. No creche will keep a sick child, it might not be very sick, bit of a cold for example, years ago childminder wouldn't bat an eye at that sort of things, not so these days! I don't know how working parents manage all these minor illnesses not to mind anything more serious and there is way more closed days due to weather too than we ever had and often at a moments notice too!

As it happens my parents had a full time nanny/housekeeper from when I was a few weeks old, 4 kids in total over a good spread of years, when we moved counties when I was 10 she actually relocated and moved in with us, youngest born 2 yrs later, one paye and one self employed parent.

 

[misemoi]

Op it also sounds like your wife loves her job and would miss it if she was to give up. Bear this in mind as well. Neither myself or my partner would have contemplated becoming a stay at home parent. We both were very clear on this and it did inform how many children we planned for and eventually had. We have no regrets but we also knew what was possible in today's working parent world and what wasn't. Our kids are slightly older now so we didn't have the issues that parents have these days with creche availability and illness protocols. Neither of our careers are particularly vocational so I can only imagine how important work would be if they were. Just something to also consider when you two discuss what your future family life will be like.

 

[Clamball]

I think it can be done, but I would definitely factor in housekeeper/childminder/cleaner/babysitters into the cost.

You both sound young with boundless energy so planning to have kids is a great next step. (If I had known how much I would enjoy being a parent I would have started sooner and have had more). I think crèches would be tough to work because they will not take a kid for the day if they show the slightest sign of illness, cough, colds, runny nappies, temperature. If they are on antibiotics 48 hours before they can go back, if they have a temperature they get sent home, even if all they need is a bit of calpol. I had a kid turned away from the crèche because of chickenpox - 23other Kids in the crèche had gotten it already but out for 5 days because they were infectious.

But finding a local childminder can be hard, but not impossible and they can be just invaluable. If you get other help in to keep on top of the house and let them focus on the kids all the better. They often organise the kids life, take them to baby groups, for vaccines, playschool, anything really. You can really luck out, but they can’t come when they are sick etc.

You spending patterns will change with kids, your holidays may not be as extensive or far flung and you probably will see savings on personal spending and entertainment. So there is some balance there. You might even sell the rentals and buy a holiday home.

I think have the children at the pace of your wives health and well being, But it can be great fun having them all close together, they will be great playmates.

I think being very focused on organisation of the house and family will be great to allow you both to carry on working, and your earning won’t take a dive. Having to give up work to be a stay at home parent is both an easy and complex decision. One day you might wake up and say - that is it, I am done. What is harder is getting back into the work force after some years out. With parental, parents, maternity, paternity, force majour leave, holidays, summer hours, WFH, flexitime, you can make it work but it needs co-ordination and flexibility. But all those schemes are in place to help parents stay in the workforce.

School hours/closures/in-service days/summer camps are all a pain in terms of opening hours, starting times etc. I sometimes think that schools expect a parent to be at home all the time waiting to pop to the school for the smallest thing. But at least with WFH, you can pop to the school for half an hour for the concert rather than having to take another half day AL.

I think it would be great financially if you had 6 -12 months of your wives take home pay saved for each pregnancy as her spending will not reduce (lots of baby stuff!), and she will be able to not rely on your wages for spending money.

 

[Setforlife]

As noted above should have also said planning financially around kids isn’t really worth much of your time when you are pretty secure financially. It’ll be expensive but you can afford it. After that your don’t know what the future holds with actually having kids, what needs they might have etc etc etc. So when you feel the time is right you try to and all going well it’ll be the best thing you ever did, you don’t know how long it might take or how well it will go. I can count on one hand the number of kids in my kids classes with more than 2 siblings, certainly there are way more only children than 4 children families. A quite large majority of 2 children families with two working parents. 3 or more usually one parent is part time or stay at home or in a suitable job.

So basically don’t worry about costs of kids. You are well setup to afford whatever that is, once you start a family, your spouse will decide within a year whether it’s going to happen again and whether that’s her future for the next few years or would she prefer to get back to being a functional worker at the job she loves.

 

[Annieindublin]

What does a full time nanny cost these days?

That’s a realistic childcare cost for kids, school age is supposedly cheaper but the reality is 2 in school until 1.30 plus 2 pre schoolers still needs a nanny… chauffeur etc.

I’ve no idea how much that is BTW, but a few colleagues have them, live in is slightly cheaper I gather but of course that means having an extra room and bathroom. Au pairs are not so expensive but change annually.

And older kids.. they do after school stuff, same commitment. WFH helps there if they can get themselves to and from school.

School fees for secondary are about €6k, uni about the same… more if you’ve to pay for a flat for them.

 

[Annieindublin]

Ps… if I’d thought about it, I’d never have had any kids!

No top up mat pay, 12 weeks leave..

 

[ClubMan]

Ps… if I’d thought about it, I’d never have had any kids!

What were you thinking about instead? Ireland?

 

[Annieindublin]

A lot of medical care went into getting pregnant and staying that way… another few k not covered by insurance or hse

 

[Bluefin]

What does a full time nanny cost these days?

That’s a realistic childcare cost for kids, school age is supposedly cheaper but the reality is 2 in school until 1.30 plus 2 pre schoolers still needs a nanny… chauffeur etc.

I’ve no idea how much that is BTW, but a few colleagues have them, live in is slightly cheaper I gather but of course that means having an extra room and bathroom. Au pairs are not so expensive but change annually.

And older kids.. they do after school stuff, same commitment. WFH helps there if they can get themselves to and from school.

School fees for secondary are about €6k, uni about the same… more if you’ve to pay for a flat for them.

6k?

UCD = 3k (reduced in the last few budgets by govt.)
Onsite acc. = 7.5, 9.5 or 11.5 if memory serves me right…2024 charges.

Add in general living expenses - food, utilities, clothes, travel, course materials etc

Hey presto, university costs suddenly hit 20k very easily.

Secondary school costs for private school were roughly in my area 12k per year which would not be overly expensive for the sector (boarding).

 

[Scoobydoobydoo]

Annie touched on it above but beef up the health insurance policy with good maternity benefits now with the view to getting the waiting periods on the increased benefits behind you

 

[Annieindublin]

As I said… uni costs more if you’ve accommodation to pay for. Ours cost fees and a bike. Part time jobs covered their other expenses.

Boarding school likewise is a whole new ball game.

I think education costs really depend on where you live. My sister moved house to be near really good schools. So that is either « free » or a million (ish ie cost of house) depending on your viewpoint.

Third level has always been a major expense for anyone outside big cities or where your kids get places away from home.

 

[michaelm]

Preparing for the expense of starting a family. Not sure sure what to prioritise.

I would prioritise time, because you can, if you choose to do so. For many that's not a realistic option. I wouldn't let highly paid jobs act as golden handcuffs. I'd sell both investment properties and reduce the mortgage on the family home. I'd want to align everything such that by the time the second child landed the children would have a full-time-equivalent stay-at-home parent, whether both worked part-time or only one worked. An ingratitude of children is a lot of work.

 

[tomwa]

I think it can be done, but I would definitely factor in housekeeper/childminder/cleaner/babysitters into the cost.

I'm beginning to think that would make sense. As many have said here, paying for time spent with our family may end up being worth it for us.

You both sound young with boundless energy so planning to have kids is a great next step. (If I had known how much I would enjoy being a parent I would have started sooner and have had more). I think crèches would be tough to work because they will not take a kid for the day if they show the slightest sign of illness, cough, colds, runny nappies, temperature. If they are on antibiotics 48 hours before they can go back, if they have a temperature they get sent home, even if all they need is a bit of calpol. I had a kid turned away from the crèche because of chickenpox - 23other Kids in the crèche had gotten it already but out for 5 days because they were infectious.

The cost is quite a big factor, having looked further into it, the local creches are charging €1-1.1k/month/child. At two kids, we'd be very near the costs I've seen for a properly qualified live-in nanny even after employers PRSI.

You spending patterns will change with kids, your holidays may not be as extensive or far flung and you probably will see savings on personal spending and entertainment. So there is some balance there. You might even sell the rentals and buy a holiday home.

No doubt. We may also rebalance what we both contribute to the household. In theory, together we net just over €16k per month after tax and pension contributions. The basic expenses right now, mortgages, property taxes/costs, utilities, groceries, cars (both electric) and insurance all add up to €6.5k/month. So if we want to apply discipline (which we have before when we were applying for our mortgage) we have a lot of breathing room to save or indeed room to take the reduction in income of one of us giving up work. There are choices to be made but we have the luxury of choice.

I think have the children at the pace of your wives health and well being, But it can be great fun having them all close together, they will be great playmates.

I think it's definitely a play it by ear thing. My wife loves a schedule, a detailed plan and certainty. I plan flexibly and follow von Moltke's maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy. We're trying to learn from each other.

Siblings have gone the approach of four kids in 5/6 years with two high pressure jobs and it seems to have worked well for them.

I think being very focused on organisation of the house and family will be great to allow you both to carry on working, and your earning won’t take a dive. Having to give up work to be a stay at home parent is both an easy and complex decision. One day you might wake up and say - that is it, I am done. What is harder is getting back into the work force after some years out. With parental, parents, maternity, paternity, force majour leave, holidays, summer hours, WFH, flexitime, you can make it work but it needs co-ordination and flexibility. But all those schemes are in place to help parents stay in the workforce.

I think it would be great financially if you had 6 -12 months of your wives take home pay saved for each pregnancy as her spending will not reduce (lots of baby stuff!), and she will be able to not rely on your wages for spending money.

We're going to try, at the very least to save €60-80k over the next 9-10 months. We know that family have been keeping aside baby clothes, car seats, buggy systems for us from their recent babies as well.

I’ve no idea how much that is BTW, but a few colleagues have them, live in is slightly cheaper I gather but of course that means having an extra room and bathroom. Au pairs are not so expensive but change annually.

And older kids.. they do after school stuff, same commitment. WFH helps there if they can get themselves to and from school.

School fees for secondary are about €6k, uni about the same… more if you’ve to pay for a flat for them.

We're lucky on that score, we have a 5 bed house with direct public transport to all the Dublin universities in 15-40 minutes. €6-7k fee paying schools within walking distance, good national schools as well. Part of the reason we feel we got good value on our home.
So live-in nanny is very much an option and au pairs when children get older.

A lot of medical care went into getting pregnant and staying that way… another few k not covered by insurance or hse

We have both a high level health insurance plan and a HSF cash plan which covers a lot of the gaps as a benefit from my work.
Home midwife, antenatal classes, baby box etc. all basically 100% covered. Even a €1k cash grant per baby.

Annie touched on it above but beef up the health insurance policy with good maternity benefits now with the view to getting the waiting periods on the increased benefits behind you

Already made the changes when we got married. Just served out the last of the waiting periods yesterday!