Pay day today

Usually the last day or last Friday of the month. Never mid month. Been in employment 28 years.

@Thirteenblackcat yeah, different workplaces have different pay days. Have you really had the same pay day for every job you've ever had?

Missing the point but Pay day is 18th of the month?

and a bank holiday?

It's shit, I get it OP.

The attitude in society now is that you should be grateful you can pay your bills. It's very much a race to the bottom. Work until you drop. No savings. No holidays. And don't bloody complain about it!

There are a lot of us who worked hard retraining for a better quality of life. I retrained specifically so I could put money aside for savings which would be my safety net for emergencies. I retrained so I could comfortably pay my bills and have one holiday each year. What's actually happened is I got the increased salary which would have given me everything I wanted but as soon as it was within my reach, everything went up a crazy amount.

I now have a lesser quality of life than I did before I retrained. And I'm still paying off the debts from retraining to add insult to injury! What's the bloody point?

And what are we supposed to tell teenagers? It used to be "go to university, work hard in your career and you'll be rewarded". The only reward now is working two jobs for the luxury of being able to pay your rent each month (until it goes up again and then you're really fucked!)

Don’t put £300 away ? 🤷‍♀️ COL is hard at the moment, need to live to your means unfortunately, like we all do.

It’s no good complaining without explaining what your expenses are. I could say £10,000 hit my account today but I just bought a haute couture dress and now I’m overdrawn, life sucks.

You are actually incredibly lucky to be able to save a little. There is a cost of living crisis and many people cannot afford to feed their families, let alone open an ISA. Your post will read like bragging to them.

At least you can save £300! I know it's not a case of top trumps when it comes to survival but I can't help feeling that at least you can save!! I'm a full time Nurse similar income, and I can't save a penny.

It’s irrelevant without seeing your outgoings. I earn slightly less but can save significantly more. It is about being financially savvy on every item that leaves your account.

I generally have what I want but will absolutely not pay for something if I don’t think it is worth it.

So I totally feel your pain, over the last 10 years minimum wage has risen massively and so has exec pay. So although everyone is suffering with the cost of living, the middle earners are the ones who have seen the largest impact in their lifestyle.

So jobs that previously were supposed to be 'good' jobs where you wouldn't struggle and people would think they've 'made it' no longer give the type of life they did 10 years ago.

Over the last ten years minimum wage used to be 50% of the median earner and is now 2/3rds instead. CEO pay used to be 50x the average worker and is now 150x.

So people in the middle may not be poor, they may not be struggling, but are likely to be thinking WTF

Everything is so expensive now. We’ve just built a brick wall at the front of our house and had to massively scale back what we could do as the cost of building materials have shot up since Covid. Tbh I think if you’re still saving you’re doing ok. I can’t afford to save anything currently

I’m confused - you can save £300 a month, that’s a great amount compared to many many people

That's just life though. We work as best we can to earn as much as we can and hope to cover at least the basics. And many can't do that much.

I assume all the rest of the money went on keeping you housed, fed, warm and clean? I mean that is the main reason most of us work - to be able to pay for the things we need to live and be comfortable.

The squeezed middle.
Wages just have not kept up. You'll be on about 40,000 which used to be a good salary...its not now. The billionaires have instead been hoovering it up for a few decades now.

A lot of people don't have anything like £300 available to save even with working full time. Count your blessings or go on these mythical benefits that enable people to apparently live the high life.

I know you are needing to rant but posts like this are pointless as there are so many variables which you haven't told us.

As a comparison I've recently retired but I was working a 58 hour week, with residential night duties, pay was annualised (education) but took home £2250 per month. I was able to put £1000 a month away in savings for retirement and live on the rest, including paying my rent every month.

My point is, your problem is your outgoings are too high rather than salary per se. If you can't increase incomings, you need to tackle the outgoings instead.

Particularly when the money you get from the rat race is buying less in real terms than it did 5, 10, 15 years ago!

How can anyone comment with no idea where the money is going? Surely a fair few people have no money at the end of the month if they always put what’s left into savings?

I’m sure you know this but lots of people are unable to save even £30.00 so £300.00 is not all that bad.

If you really want suggestions you need to list all your outgoings or reduce the ISA to £250.00 and have £50.00 fun money.

If you can’t afford to save £300, then don’t.

So you are able to save more than 10% of your take home salary? Not sure I can really see the problem.

Oh come on, I see her point. This rat race, we have to ask : is this IT?

Where is the rest going? I don’t think £300 savings a month is too bad really if yours is the only salary and you have a mortgage and childcare costs.

Isn’t it a good thing that you can put £300 a month away for a rainy day?

Where’s the rest going?