To be fed up of being on a good income but always skint?

Extremely expensive part. Hers is obviously very private behind big gates,walls & hedges. There are all house & flat prices in the vicinity but admittedly all private housing.There is a beautiful beach within walking distance. It's on the edge of the city but still Edinburgh.

That’s what OP said, the mortgage had been extended for the refurb and now interest rates are so high it’s much harder to manage

There is literally no way this possible. Even if you were 20 years old, with a 40 year mortgage term at 0.1% your repayments would be double this.

I assume a typo somewhere.

This. What’s the point if you continue to worry and scrimp the same was as you did in a poor family in the 80s.
It blows my mind that people just accepted that would be their life regardless. I really thought my generation knew that we had the opportunity to work our way out of that life

You mention DIY how much did you spend on that. Any major refurb? my guess is most has gone there

You are doing something wrong if you cannot even afford a holiday

Being in top 10% income wise and having to save on heating is a miserable life. Food, water, shelter, heating are basic necessities, if high earners have to save on basics we are deeply in trouble.

Not to be the pessimist, but do you see your SO's salary come in directly from his work (not transferred from another of his accounts)? Could he be squirreling anything away or spending anything 'off the radar' so to speak?

I'm not sure what you meant for quoting but my point was that lots of people have to follow their jobs - I'm a bit tired of the sneering of "just leave London then". Very few jobs exist for DH and me outside London; at one point DH applied for a job in Birmingham and I in Liverpool but no luck. Those come up sometimes but rarely. Living where cheap housing is isn't really feasible especially with primary aged Dc, and Scotland would mean being incredibly far from any family help, as pretty as the country is.

'some of the big bills are the mortgage (£1,900), energy (£270) council tax (£220) water (£120)'

Even on the 100k alone take home is £5,650. Add 12k tax free £6,650

Where is the rest going on? I can understand if you had childcare costs but even with the monthly bills food etc you missed out there is a huge gap somewhere.

Car loan, other loans?

Yep. It's going to be worse this time.

I just do those things out of habit. We’ve not always had that sort of money. We were both on minimum wage with two children needing childcare. DH and I both grew up in working class families with single mothers.

We don’t quibble about heating but I don’t heat the whole house if we are all under duvets in bed. It’s partly money saving and partly environmental. It’s why I won’t throw things out and will sell them if they’re still good.
We holiday both in and out of school holidays, depends on whether it’s a family or just a couples break. We also pay for our other child who is at university. So holidays will be for four adults.
I don’t have to save money with vouchers and look for bargains but I can so I do. The attitude of not doing it is why I think £120 is an amazing household income and not a wage for struggling on. If you have this you are immensely fortunate, and to say it’s depressing is an insult to those managing on minimum wage.

The next 2008 is just around the corner, then it'll take around 10-15 years to recover (if we manage at all).

That's the issue though, we never actually recovered from 08. Low rates masked it and then can was kicked down the road and now we can see the end of the road.

Go back in time by a decade and a half and buy a cheaper home. Bingo.

I know people who maxed themselves on interest only mortgages but low rates really paid off. The landscape is so different.

No idea how you don't have loads left over, we have a joint income of 45k and manage a couple of short breaks a year, run two cars, older ones but well looked after.
Your bills look a lot higher than ours though, I thought our 1000 mortgage was high but yours is almost double, our council tax is 150 a month, water 35 but not on a meter, gas and electric 200

The years of good life for middle classes are over.
There will be no pensions OP so don't worry about that. Our generation of MC will be working till we die. The next 2008 is just around the corner, then it'll take around 10-15 years to recover (if we manage at all).

Go back in time by a decade and a half and buy a cheaper home. Bingo.

It's the mortgage cost, our mortgage is only £650 and that's overpaying. We only have 56k left bought it 15 years ago. I would really struggle paying 2k a month for mortgage. We earn between us about 80k I work part time we are comfortable because our mortgage is cheap. Council tax is a lot too and shopping costs im not surprised people struggle with large mortgage costs.

I feel this so much. We are also paying off debt from my mat leave, plus Covid and DH got made redundant three times in four years. It’s crap. And I feel guilty for complaining as I know we are still better off than so many but it still sucks.

I am on the same boat as OP, we both work full time with £130k between us and we are worse than skint, we are in overdraft every month. But we live in London and we £2.5k in mortgage for a 2 bed flat, plus we pay wraparound care £2.3k per month. We are in debt because we had to use all our savings to cover our costs during my maternity leaves. We spend £800 on food alone per month, and then there’s bills and commute costs. Life is ridiculously expensive and we have nothing to show for it. I absolutely hate it.

In facr one couole living in Edinburgh live fairly close to JK Rowling.

Isn't that an expensive part of Edinburgh? Have have they got such cheap
homes?

I don’t think you’re bragging but the thing is people aren’t always in a steady state. For example, if you’ve had a big financial shock recently like being between jobs, or building work, or a new car, that can take months to recover from, even with a high salary.

a holdiay- maybe they want a holiday they will like, not just any holiday. If op said I havent had a holiday because 2 weeks in the med in August is coming in at £10k for a family of 4 she’d face 40 pages of horrified posters telling her to go 3 star or camp and a what a spoiled brat she is. But it’s ok for OP to feel like she should be able to have that £10k Holiday. Plenty of people do, so surely you can see why someone who knows they are a high earner is a bit fed up that they can’t have WHAT THEY WANT as opposed to what MN tell them they’re allowed to afford?

it isn’t a lack of knowledge or expense tracking, it’s a surprise that so many of these higher earner staples aren’t available to her

@pigtailsandall see quote if you want a better understanding of the lifestyles of many people who have made the move.

Even though you have a very high mortgage, your household income (with no childcare costs) should still mean you are comfortable. Your take home should be at least £6.5k (probably more but your income fluctuates) so unsure where it's going?

Meant to quote this in my reply post further back

I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, but this is the same income as me and DH (120k joint). Our housing costs are £500 less than yours but we have wrap-around childcare and some holiday childcare costs to pay. We manage to have 3-4 holidays a year plus save a decent chunk every month. We run 2 cars that are both only a couple of years old.
Your money has to be going somewhere. I'd write out a budget and share it on a site like MSE, and look closely through your bank statements and see where everything is going