Is having a baby unaffordable on £100,000?

I STRUGGLE to understand why Nicola Frapwell and her husband Luke, who between them earn £100,000 a year, claim they cannot afford to start a family (Inspire), especially after reading about their lifestyle (one room for her clothes, one for an office, the loft for his clothes, etc.). What planet are they on?

When couples started a family in the 1960s and 1970s, the woman had to leave work. There was no maternity leave and no job kept on hold for her, so couples budgeted their income on one person’s earnings, but they all managed to cope.

This self-pitying couple obviously have no idea how to manage their money

and can’t see that their lifestyle is what prohibits their family ambitions. Does my heart bleed for them? No.

Mrs d. Hare, stockton-on-tees. DESPITE what Nicola says, I suspect her and Luke’s spending has increased with their salaries. And to spend £500,000 on a dilapidated cottage is plain silly. Surely they could have found a nice three-bedroom cottage in Sussex for that kind of money.

My mother said I had ‘champagne tastes on ginger beer pockets’. I wonder if that applies to this couple, too.

CLIVE JACKSON, ramsgate, kent.

NICOLA and Luke could easily afford a baby but, it seems, cannot contemplate tightening their belts and going without what they consider important. Many of us with children had to do just that — and many still do. Instead of bleating about being ‘economically infertile’, this couple should change their lifestyle to accommodate a child. So many people with children can only dream of having an income like theirs.

JOHN REDMAN, spennymoor, Co durham. THEY say that if you wait until you can afford children, you will never have them. MARGARET NODEN, orihuela Costa, alicante, spain.

IT IS probably best that the couple who think they can’t afford a child on an income of £100,000 a year don’t contribute to the gene pool. ROSALIND HARRISON, Catsfield, e. sussex.