We know about the external courses, but (selfishly) I don't want him to study that way and be working full time because I would have even less support around me - I need his support to get through each day down here - so if I had even less support I'd probably go insane or something... LOL Plus, he's the type of person that if he's going to study, he wants to be the best in the class type of thing, and get really high marks, so he probably wouldn't have enough time to devote to study if he was still working full time.
We are still talking about it, he misses his family too - and Sunshine Coast Uni is a uni that has a pretty good rep.
He's asked me to go through the budget and see exactly if we could afford it, and what we would have to get rid of to live on it. (obviously private health cover would go!)
But I'm sure it is possible to live simply and we don't go out a lot anyway (and if we do its to do free stuff with the kids!) so I doubt that would change. And at least I would have support up there if we couldn't manage it and he had to work (I would get a job but if we do this next year I would have just had a baby!)
Well DH and I can and have but that was with 5 kids which adds 2xFTBA and LFS to your sitch. My sister has 3xFTBA, FTBB, PPP and DH on NS and things are much tighter for her. A big factor is how much the rent is. We can afford the $350pw but I wouldn't want to try with 3 less kids. A big help will be to goto RE.com.au and check out the rental prices via Map View around the area you are looking at with the bedroom setting. That way you can be sure you can afford it before you put the house on the market! LOL
Thanks BR - I was looking at real estate the other day, and it is possible to get a place for around $300 p/w - just depends on which area we want to live in. He wants to live close to the uni (if we were to do this) so that sorta limits our choices....
And I'll have 3 kids, and then 4 (if all goes well)
I get what you're saying about his time, Mel, but studying full-time internally will not guarantee he's doing it all in 'work' hours either. There's still lots of time outside of that you need to put in, assignments, reading, etc. IME it made no difference, external and internal, to what I needed to do at home. The only way to limit the time I had to spend studying was full-time vs part-time. While external, I'd pop off to the library for allocated study time where I needed to, but when I was internal, it had to be mostly at home because of DD (class time was also sometimes after hours). It was tricky to do things at home and complete the workload. Part-time made a big difference and the stress decreased enormously.
Bear in mind there are lots more holidays for uni, months at the end of the year, for eg. So whatever form of study he and you do, you get lots to downtime. So when you feel like you're killing yourself in the lead up to exams and at the end of the semester (and your partner has had enough of handling kids alone!), you know you've got a big break coming up. DTMS?
Yeah Jen I hear ya DH said if he's going to do it, he'll treat it like his full time job, so he'll get there early in the morning, study, go to class, go to tutorials, study, then come home. So it won't be too much different than the hours he spends away from home now, except I'll have my mum and MIL around to help out if needed
Plus up there - DS can go to kindy next year for a few days a week, down here we have to spend $800 to see if he can get an early entrance into kindy because he's 9 days over the cut off, and there's no guarantee that he will actually get in, so for us, it just makes sense to go back to Queensland. Well makes sense to me more than DH probably.. LOL
We've been chatting to my SIL about her workload and hours (she's a first year nursing student) and she's got 3 kids as well, so she's told him the reality of it.
I think it just comes down to whether we can live on the little money we would get -considering he wants to get a place close to uni so he can ride there instead of wasting petrol. At the moment we would be spending more than we need to on food, I don't even know what most people spend on food a week, but I'm sure its less than the $300 we spend.. LOL
Plus, it would be a good incentive for me to breastfeed the next bub cos we couldnt' afford formula God knows I would need all the incentives in the world to have a successful breastfeeding relationship after all my troubles!
SIL sounds like she'll be a great source of info on how much study, etc, is required. You guys are doing the right thing to consider it so seriously and investigate so thoroughly!! If he's studying full-time you will get the benefit of all of that time he has off too, mum and MIL notwithstanding.
I think mature age study is such a great idea, you're so much more focused, committed and disciplined. Finishing both of my courses are probably two of the best decisions I've ever made. GL with it all!
Jen - yeah we investigate and research EVERY decision we make, seriously, sometimes its annoying because we never do anything on the spur of the moment, its taken months and months of debating the pros and cons of the decision before its made. Which is good, but can be bad if you want something to change in a hurry!
Rivlas - nope we've only got the one car, and its a good car, so would never sell it.
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DH said if he's going to do it, he'll treat it like his full time job, so he'll get there early in the morning, study, go to class, go to tutorials, study, then come home. So it won't be too much different than the hours he spends away from home now, except I'll have my mum and MIL around to help out if needed 
God knows I would need all the incentives in the world to have a successful breastfeeding relationship after all my troubles!
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