What is your household income, how much is benefits, and how are you coping?

With trepidation and hard hat firmly on......

We have £4127.02 per month.

Of which:
£3154.79 is wages
£972.23 is benefits

We're doing great. I feel pretty well off.

Thats down to a couple of things:

1. Pretty low housing costs and frugalish lifestyle (Not really- but by MN standards)
2. Disabled child- which significantly increases benefits entitlement
3. Both working- which UC was specifically set up to incentivise

I imagine a hell of a lot of places. I'm in the North East, you can get properties here for around 70k, some cheaper in really bad areas.
The really nice houses here are around 250-300k so still cheap compared to a lot of places in the country.

We're very lucky and live a very good lifestyle.

DH earns £125k. I get £320 every 4 weeks in carers allowance.

DD gets just under £800 in PIP. That goes toward £300 on a wheelchair adapted car, £120 on incontinence products (she gets a very limited number free but nowhere near enough), £250 on specialist physio (she's been on the NHs waiting list for 4 years), £120 on speech therapy, £100 on hydrotherapy (very cheap as it's in her school's pool), £50 hospital parking pass (she's has a min of 3 appointments a month and it's £10-15 a day parking, but last year had 14 admissions of 2 days or more so it's cheaper over the year), £60 on her after school club (£15 a session but literally the only club that will take her).
We also have higher electricity bills because she has machines plugged in and the heating needs to be higher but can't break that down really.

We also get around £500 in kinship payments for taking in our nephew. That covers most of his nursery bill and a childminder pick up for the one day DD finishes school late (I can't pick them both up at the same time).

The carers, PIP and kinship add up to roughly what my salary was so we're lucky in that respect.

We're very lucky though as we have no mortgage now so we're much better off than many, which I'm very grateful for.
DD received compensation for the fuck up that left her so disabled so we're also 'lucky' (for want of a better word) that adaptions to the house for her and her speciality equipment was paid for by that rather than us having to find the money.

Yes, its more than my wage.

I had no idea how much it was until my husband left, had no experience of benefits prior to that. It includes an £800 contribution to my rent. People in social housing have their full rent covered, people in private rentals have their a contribution to their rent based on the lowest market rental in the area. In reality its never close to what you can actually rent for but its very much appreciated all the same as I couldn't afford to live without it.

The same household income as OP, only benefit is CB for one child. However, I live in South Yorkshire, my mortgage is paid off, we have no debt and we have a good lifestyle.

A 7 year old car isn't exactly ancient jeez!

You can definitely get them in Yorkshire. In all four counties.

About 8k after tax. No benefits. No mortgage so just bills but have 7 kids between us so they cost a fortune😂

The average price of a property anywhere in England it almost £300K.

London/SE isn't the only part of the UK where property prices are bananas. I'm nowhere near London and the average property price here is £300k.

I think the problem is you are both only earning £45k. It’s not a lot. We are all sold a lie. There are billions kicking around in the economy and unless you one of the very few, we never see it. We just get the minimum to feel like it’s enough.

What industries do you work in? Could either of you shift into something more lucrative?

I'm up north so the mortgage & nursery costs seem massive to me 😁
Anyway if I were you op I'd be diverting some of that £1k pm to a pension once your DC starts school. If your gross annual is a pretty even split then it looks like there's not much coming out each month for employees pension contributions from either of you.

Awww god these threads always have people droning on with passive aggressive comments.

£110K a year including bonuses, family of 5, 4 bedroom house mortgage £1200, food around £1000 a month, car, petrol, insurance, council tax takes a chunk and then their competitive sport fees which alone cost about £400 a month just now.

We get zero benefits inc child benefit

So yes our wage is high and so is our outgoings BUT things are still tight some months and thats fine as we choose to live like this.

Not just London.

Even part of the Midlands, Yorkshire, parts of the NE won't provide a house fr that figure.

But also not in Essex or Hertfordshire or Kent or Surrey Or Hampshire or Sussex or most of Suffolk ?! 🤣

@CoralOP I sometimes think I live on a different planet to most (probably quite happily).
Morgage is £467.

Well yeah you do live on a different planet to most young people. You’re not even getting an 80k mortgage at 467 a month these days, so the vast majority of people buying their first home are paying around 3 times that!

As one whose circumstances aren't too far from yours, I would agree that the housing costs are a different planet! Especially if you bought a few years back, which we did. I don't think everyone necessarily realises how expensive housing is in some areas of the UK, if you're a new-ish buyer or having to privately rent. it's very uneven.

£36k & £26k, = £4200 pcm, 104.20 CB,

Bills £1900k per month
CM £220 per month

however I do have some debts so maybe take another £300 off that so about £1800 a month to live on, responsible for 1DS

Outside London.

90k? 🤣 Dh earns 20k (retail manager) I’m currently on maternity leave getting SMP. Bills come to around 1.5k a month, only benefits we are entitled to is child benefit (we have a 7 week old) planning on applying for UC when my maternity pay ends but not entitled to anything right now. We private rent also

We’re the same as you, OP. We bought our first house in 2022 so it was expensive and the interest is high. We’re just chugging away and sucking it up. Our aim is to start to create generational wealth. Buying a nice house was the first step.
The cost of living is very heavy right now. Make cut backs where you can and appreciate what you have for the things you can’t cut back on- for example our energy bill is £300 per month. It’s a lot, but it means our children live in a warm home, which I did not. We spend £600 a month minimum on food. It’s a lot, but our kids get home cooked, low processed healthy food every day which I did not.
I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to change the course of my children’s lives to hopefully be easier than the start I had.
That’s all we want.

Bloody hell where on earth can you get a 2-bed house for £80K?

esa and pip.

total about 900 a month.

ten years ago I was in an accident so I use a wheelchair and can only walk a few steps. I was a teacher and kept teaching through Covid until I wound up with a serious mental illness as a result.

now not working nor likely to again.

also divorced as ExH didn’t cope during Covid and got violent and we had to leave (me and kids) with a suitcase each while the police stopped him doing anything stupid.

used the divorce settlement to buy a cheaper house fucking miles from where I lived so I have no friends and had to make new ones.

living off esa and pip and savings. No mortgage. Bills quite high as if I get cold I have fits. One 13 year old car.

both kids now through uni and thankfully (!) due to proof of domestic violence they were able to access full student loan and additional top up funding from their unis.

at some point I will run out of savings and have to move somewhere with really cheap houses so I can live off the money that frees up.

I should hope not when you have the luxury of the state topping you up to complete your biology degree by £1000 a month.