Family Costs
The childcare arithmetic that decides whether work pays
For a period of a few years, the second income and the childcare bill can nearly cancel out. The long-run answer is different.
Rustam Aliyev
Contributing writer, Money After Thirty
Rustam covers family costs and the arithmetic of childcare against a second income.
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15 articles
Pensions
Self-employed, and the pension nobody sets up for you
Without an employer there is no automatic enrolment, no default contribution and no match. The whole structure has to be built…
Pensions
Catching up on contributions when you are behind
There is no mechanism that recovers lost years directly. There are four levers, and most people only ever pull one.
Family Costs
Splitting costs when one of you earns much more
Equal splitting is neutral only when incomes are equal. After that, it quietly transfers the household's flexibility to one person.
Family Costs
Money with a new partner when one of you has children
A second household is built from two histories, two sets of obligations and frequently two sets of children. The defaults do not…
Family Costs
Choosing a home for the schools, and paying for it twice
Where good state schools are concentrated, housing costs absorb the saving. The comparison people make is rarely the right one.
Family Costs
Grandparents doing the childcare, and the terms nobody sets
It is the cheapest childcare available and the arrangement most likely to end badly, because nobody treats it as an arrangement.
Pensions
The contribution increase you promised yourself for next year
Almost everyone intends to pay more into a pension once things settle down, and the year things settle down does not arrive on its…
Pensions
Pausing contributions for a year, and the decade that pays for it
Stopping pension payments during a hard year is often the right call, and the cost lands much later and much larger than the amount…
Pensions
Separation and the pension that gets valued last
When a relationship ends, attention goes to the house and the accounts, while the largest asset in many households is dealt with…
Family Costs
School holidays cost more than term time, every year
Thirteen weeks of the year run on a different budget from the other thirty-nine, and most households treat the whole year as one…
Family Costs
A child with additional needs changes the earning plan
Support needs reshape a household's working pattern for years, and the financial consequence is mostly in earnings foregone rather…
Family Costs
What children learn about money from watching you decide
Households transmit financial habits long before anyone sits down to explain them, mostly through decisions made out loud or in…
Family Costs
Saving for a child without knowing what it is for
Money set aside for a child accumulates for years without anyone deciding when it is released, who controls it or what it is meant…
Family Costs
Raising a child across two homes
Two households supporting the same child duplicate most of the fixed costs, and the arithmetic surprises both parents in the first…