Do you know why you are struggling

Mortgage and childcare for the majority of people I would say. Our mortgage + childcare is £4400 a month.

We have 2DC and another on the way. We earn a similar amount to your DS but slightly more so we aren't entitled to any benefits other than child benefit.

We are home owners, our monthly mortgage payment is quite small - about £600 a month - but probably still more than the rent your DS pays especially given he's almost certainly claiming something towards housing from UC by the sounds of it. So we have to pay our mortgage ourself plus the buildings insurance that a HA tenant doesn't need to pay, plus all repairs/maintenance work ourself. For example right now we have a problem with our electrics, we have already paid an electrician to come out twice but that hasnt fixed it and are now looking for another one and that will cost us even more money. In the meantime half the electrics in our kitchen don't work.

Our youngest DC goes to nursery 2 days a week whilst we are both at work as we have nobody available and willing to provide us with free childcare for them, unlike your DS. That costs around another £600 a month. And that's with the 2yr funded hours and tax free childcare.

After that it's the fact that our gas and electricity bills have doubled over the past few years, and likewise the huge increase in food costs too.

After all of that, I still wouldnt say we 'struggle'. We are still saving a small amount, and sometimes manage to make overpayments on the mortgage. We have a nice enough lifestyle - DC1 does two extra curricular activities, we can afford a budget UK holiday once a year, none of us ever want for clothes or shoes or food, anything essential, and we have some money for occasional leisure spending on meals out or soft play for the kids etc. But if anything changes in our financial positions, we would be in deep trouble, so it doesn't feel like a comfortable place to be mentally.

I think being a single income household is probably high up on the agenda. I’m a single parent, my son has no contact with his Dad and I get no maintenance, I often think if only I had someone to split the rent and household bills in half with!

Childcare, yes you can potentially claim up to 85% depending on earnings but 15% of full-time childcare is still an awful lot of money, especially if you are on a low income.

Housing Association rent is much lower than Private Rent which can be crippling. Housing benefits even if you are entitled to the maximum can leave you needing to contribute quite a lot as the maximum local housing allowance often doesn’t come close to actual market rates.

Your son’s household income equates to £54,000 a year, many people, myself included (work full time in above NMW job) don’t even earn close to £25,000 a year meaning many 2 income household earn much less than your sons household and have childcare and high rent to pay in addition which your son is privileged not to have.

From a personal prospective debt is my biggest reason, but as a single parent with high private rent I would be far from flush without any debt and would still be unlikely to be able to afford holidays.

Everything costs more
Rent
Mortgages
Food
Clothes
Days out
Eating out
Petrol
Childcare is eyewatering expensive.
Wages have not kept up. Interest rates have gone up.

That's why most are struggling.

Round me it's £80-100 a day for nursery so full time would be £2000 per month. For 3 days a week it would be £1200. That's an enormous expense to factor in!

I never discuss anything like this people at work because everyone gets offended by everything.
Also jealousy is not pretty, are you not entitled to a holiday?
Colleagues tell me they are off on holiday all the time, I'm genuinely pleased for them.
Sounds like someone is having a bad day. Work environments can be very bitchy at times. For all they know you may have saved up for this for the last 5 years.

I think it might be a bit of an eye opener for you OP if you head over to Rightmove and have a look at the cost of rent and also the mortgage payments people are making. Fairly certain that's the biggest thing impacting most people.

In my experience childcare cripples most people. In our group of friends everyone was relatively comfortable before they had children. We live in Yorkshire so house prices are reasonable and all bought houses in our twenties. Myself and DH have decent paying jobs but are lucky in that grandparents provide childcare everyday for us to work.
In our friends, childcare takes up the majority of one wage until the child is in school.

I think children are the biggest issue. I earn around £1,800 a month and don't have children. My former colleague who earned the same paid £1,400 a month for full-time childcare.

We are struggling because despite me earning quite a lot of money, we have a big mortgage and two lots of childcare to pay for. It hasn't always been like this and I hope one day it will get easier. We will never be mortgage free in our current house though unless we downsize or come into some money unexpectedly!

Just in case you really have no idea (sounds a bit 'I'm alright jack' to me!)
Mortgage 850
Groceries/general shopping 900
Car/fuel 100
4 x mobile phones 100
Council tax 125 ish
Loan/credit card 150
Gas/electric 250
Kids hobbies 150
= £2625
That doesn't include things like netflix, clothing for a family of four, bus fare to school (£20pw!), extras for the kids like birthday parties, trips out with friends etc.
Myself and my husband work damn hard in relatively low paid jobs, our outgoings feel huge to me.
What are your outgoings @Georginana ?

I think so too .

That's the same as luck . The poster hasn't just been lucky she also worked hard more than being lucky

I think we can use the term lucky, rather than priviledged.
To me, priviledged has a connotation that the person has not really done much towards the achievement.

I think it was rude of the person who said you are ‘out of touch’ tbh just because you have worked hard and at a different point in your life OP, the person who said it sounds abit jealous

I think it is:
Housing- including mortgage, council tax and energy bills
Childcare
Costs of commute
Costs of food

I think that is the order in which people spend their money. Actually, if they have several children and they are pre- schoolers, then childcare could be the top one.

All of the above has gone up in price rather faster than wages since the CoL crisis, as you have seen in the many articles about inflation.

I have always thought that the prices of homes and public transport in UK were well out of whack and just getting worst.
The rest is neither here or there compared to other countries, in my view. But that the average wage in UK cannot comfortably buy the average house says it all, to be honest.

Honestly? Rent and the cost of food and heating/electric gobbles up a lot of my wages.

I'm in the north where things are slightly more affordable, but i still don't know anyone who is confident about being mortgage free much before retirement. Some who are relying on working past retirement age. These arent for big houses either, just a consequence of not being in a position to buy until late 30s, and not overpaying mortgages due to the costs of having children, plus rates going up.

And of course those are the ones who were lucky to get on the property ladder at all - those who are renting in the current climate have no chance unless they have something exceptional (eg inheritance) because rents are so high, it's very difficult for people to save for a deposit while renting even if other outgoings are low (eg before children)

@2dogsandabudgie I don’t. I can pay Council tax and gas and electric. Food is a mixture of credit cards or literally any cash I can scrape together.

Having reach a point in your life where finances are not as tight (whether that is because mortgage is paid off, kids moved away, inheritance etc) does not make you "privileged", it is just the cycle of life.
It is not a race to the bottom, those who are in a better financial position should not have to wear hair-shirts and constantly apologise for managing perfectly satisfactory.

How on earth do you manage on £500 a month for all bills plus food, travel costs etc? My Council Tax plus fuel bill is over £400 a month.

I'd like to add.. I am not struggling now but I have very much struggled in the past. I was homeless in my teens and have expereinced all levels of poverty.

Some people just absolutely cannot understand the concept of having no money. Literally no money, and that means none.
I was once at work when I was 20 and had somewhere to live and someone said they saw me walking home. They said "why don't you get the bus, there's a bus, take that, it's raining" and I kept trying to change the subject but eventually admitted quietly that I didn't have the busfare. She laughed like she couldn't beleive it "what you don't have £1.50? How can someone not have £1.50! everyone has £1.50!" On and on in front of the whole staff room, I was so humiliated I just wanted to sink through the floor but she just didn't get it.
And when you tell someone your skint and they say "oh its only a pound!" Skint means skint, do not make me explain the extent of my skintness.
Its like someone people have literally never once in their entire lived had NO money and its like they didn't realise it was possible.

It depends. Some people are savers and have bad luck. Some people are spenders and have good luck.

I pay my ex’s mortgage - £800 per month. I pay all bills and half of my childcare bill £500 a term.

I earn £1300 and don’t get UC. I struggle massively. UC won’t help with my housing costs as it’s a private arrangement. I can’t afford to rent.

I'm looking at moving next door to my mum in a rental as UC will give me something if I move there. I can’t get a HA tenancy as I’m “adequately” housed so not a priority.

I commend you that you’re trying to understand how people are struggling, but rising costs have not been met with the same increase in wages so money is not going very far.

I grew up with very frugal parents, and am very good at delayed gratification, scrimping and making do.

The key to my financial stability is that I have never upgraded my lifestyle by the full amount of my pay rises. So for every extra £100 I earn, I spend an extra £25-50 max per month, the rest goes to savings or pension. It is a very long time since I've had a bill that made me wince because I'm a saver by nature.

But it's easier to live poor if you grow up well off.