One Day You’ll Thank Me: Kiwi mum stung by childcare fees reveals sacrifices and clever cost cuts she makes for her kids

Anna Catley, 31, from Napier, has shared her tips for cutting costs when you've got kids.

Welcome to season four of the Herald’s parenting podcast: One Day You’ll Thank Me. Join parents and hosts Jenni Mortimer and Rebecca Haszard as they navigate the challenges and triumphs of parenting today with help from experts and well-known mums and dads from across Aotearoa.

Want to get in touch with the podcast? Email the team at odytm@nzme.co.nz.

Anna Catley knows just how hard it is to finance raising three kids in New Zealand today.

The Napier mum went viral in April when she shared that the cost of childcare meant it wasn’t worth her going back to work.

Catley had calculated that if she worked a 40-hour week and had to pay for three children in childcare, she was left with $170 in her hand – and that was before paying for basic expenses such as petrol.

On today’s episode of One Day You’ll Thank Me, Catley, 31, reveals how she’s made working work for her family and shares the clever tips and tough sacrifices she’s making to combat expenses at home amid the nation’s cost of living crisis.

She tells the podcast’s hosts that her busy household, made up of her 3-year-old son and twins who have just turned 1, incurs a through-the-roof nappy bill and, with a set of twins, often the family is forced to buy two of something at once when her eldest son’s baby items aren’t suitable to hand down.

But Catley says since she first spoke to the Herald about her plight, she’s found a way to help contribute to her family’s costs by taking on a role where she can work from home in the evenings and while her little ones are napping.

“I’m able to do some work from home around our family and bring in a little bit of extra income. I had to put my thinking cap on and try and find something that was going to work for me outside of the normal 9 to 5.”

But as mortgage rates spike and food and the cost of household goods remain high, Catley says she’s still having to find ways to keep to a tight budget.

“We’ve just had to refix part of our mortgage and it’s an extra $600 a month. So actually, this work that I’m doing, just around the kids, a lot of that is just going towards these increased payments. It’s not like I’m getting extra money to go and spend on myself or anything like that, unfortunately.”

Asked the podcast’s recurring question to its weekly guest: What’s one thing your children might thank you for one day, Catley becomes emotional as she says she hopes her children will thank her for the sacrifices she and her husband have made to raise them.

“We don’t get to do lots of things or buy fancy things. We’ll sacrifice that just so we can have that time with our kids.”

• To learn about Anna Catley’s clever cost-cutting tips for families, listen to today’s episode of One Day You’ll Thank Me below.
• You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are out every Thursday.