Before the election we wrote a blog discussing the pros and cons of who to vote for and noted that this was an unusual election for us! Voting for a government for the next five years was a task that required great consideration as, over the next five years, we’ll see our future little lady go through nursery, start primary school, and we’ll be having to work out the best financial position we can put ourselves in, in order to work out how best to support our new family unit.

Whilst Labour certainly appealed when it comes to money being spent left, right and centre on a fair few public institutions such as the NHS (and to a lesser extent schools), the party itself seemed to be one that was not going to help our family aspire to push on and reap rewards for working hard.

In particular, the fact that the Conservatives offered the opportunity to provide tax relief on both mine and Charlotte’s wages (mine through raising the lower threshold) means that we will hopefully both feel like we have extra money to play with when it comes to affording additional nursery time if we decide that’s a road we want to go down in the future.

Compare this to Labour, who simply said there would be extra time available for children ‘free’ (i.e. paid for out of our taxes). Let’s say we then decided not to go for the nursery option, and you can see how we’d have lost out financially through taxation without gaining anything personally for us or our child.

For us, the approach from the Conservatives allows for the freedom to make our own decisions, outweighing some of the less positive potential changes such as the EU referendum that we are now faced with, as well as some of the reforms to the school system that may see class sizes increase by the time our little one gets to primary school.

Whether this decision to vote Conservative was right or not is certainly up for debate, but given the current discussion of ‘shy’ Conservatives and the complications (amid excitement, of course!) and downright importance of the next five years for us as a family, the one thing that certainly felt important for us was to get out there and have a say on the future!