Money, how much is it worth?

As I have mentioned before, in 4 weeks I will be going back to Romania with my 2 girls. My husband will be coming over with us but just for 2 weeks after which he will be returning to England and moving into a room somewhere. One of the reasons for doing this, of which there are quite a few, is because of the increasing financial struggle we are faced with here in London.

As everyone in Europe is fully aware there is a constant struggle going on between the money you earn and the amount it costs to live. Every month it seems that the shopping bill is slightly higher even though the stuff we buy remains the same. Even If we try to make food go further and buy the cheapest stuff on the shelves the bill at the check out never seems to drop.

Then there is the running costs of the car. We have had the same car for 5 years and this is the first year that the insurance has gone down. Even though my husband has no points on his license and hasn’t had any accidents. But this is off set by the ever increasing cost at the fuel pumps.

But the most worrying cost and the one that has influenced our decision most is the, impossible to meet, childcare costs.

When we have mention this to people without children we always get the same reaction. Don’t you claim tax credits, don’t you get allowances, don’t you get this money or that money. Well yes we do get some of those, the ones we are entitled to (which don’t amount to much) but they don’t come any where near the amount we would need to cover half of the costs.
If I go back to work then we will have to put Baby A in a nursery so there’s that cost to start with. But then K will start school in September but as we both work she would have to attend breakfast club and an after school club (otherwise one of us would have to start late and the other would have to finish early which is impossible for us to do) so there is that cost as well. My husbands wage pays all our bills, including rent with not a lot left at the end, of the month so it would fall to me to meet all these costs. After all this there wouldn’t be a whole lot left of my wage.

And lets not forget that there’s the future to think of as well. When K was born we immediately set up a bank account online for her and started putting money for the future but as time has gone on and things have got more expensive the money we put in there has got less and less. How can we dream of giving her any chance of a decent future when we are struggling to live right now.

So why go back to work you might say.

Well If I don’t then as I said my husband pays all the household bills and his travel for work. After paying all this out he has very little left so what would we do for spending money if I didn’t go back to work. There are all the other things in life that need paying for like clothes for the children (the rate they grow they need new clothes every few month) there’s birthdays and Christmas. All my husbands family live up north and mine are in Romania so if we want to go see any of them it costs money. The little I would have left if I went back to work is better than what we would have if I didn’t but?

IS IT WORTH GIVING UP TIME WITH MY CHILDREN FOR??

After much discussion we decided it wasn’t but the only way I can stay home is if its home in Romania. Sure my husband will miss out on a lot of family time and the children will miss there daddy badly but they will have me all the time, they will have their grandparents just next door, their cousins up the road and we will be in our own home. Not a rented flat that will never be ours.

Living here my husband can save money to build the extension we need on our house to make it big enough for when the children grow up. We have already started a college fund for K in Romanian as it is so much cheaper over there and the education is as good (if not slightly better) We both have pensions over there and we have a future we can believe in.

If we stay here the possibility of owning our own home is small and the future for our children is bleak. There is very little chance of providing them with the money for a college / university degree and we have no family around us at all. It will be hard on all of us but we have to believe that it is for the best. Because right now it seems to be the only hope we have of having any kind of comfortable struggle free existence.

Are you feeling the strain?

How are you dealing with the burden of rising costs and diminishing savings, and have your children’s bank accounts seen a drop in deposits as your pockets get emptier and the spare money gets less and less?