To think that life is too expensive?

This.

If I could not afford to subsidise a young adult going off to uni I wd expect them to self support including a student loan. There is no way I wd risk my health by potentially burning out working 6 days a week.

Only slightly. We used to go on holiday the minute term ended (private school teacher). So yes, there are some 'bargains' in July if you're lucky.

They both work is a school?

I just found a payslip from 2007 when I was sorting out a cupboard. My take home was only £700 less than now. The lag in wages is insane.

Tough love approach here.

YABU - as other PP have pointed out, you should have plenty of disposable income with your levels of mortgage and costs.

YABVVU - you are presumably two educated people, so WTF are you using credit cards for borrowing? This explains (hopefully the most major way) where you are just wasting money. What is the APR on your cards? Why on earth didn't you know that the outstanding total is £9k rather than £8.5k?

Just sit down, do a proper analysis of your outgoings, and see where you can save money. If it were me, I would attack your debts and have a few REALLY painful months. But in fact if you do an analysis you can improve your situation immeasurably by simple money management. Guaranteed.

Yes, I agree prices have gone up. But you are adults who should be reacting to this by keeping better tabs on your expenditure. Hopefully your arithmetic skills are up to working how much you are giving your credit card providers in interest each month, and how much you will pay them over the life of your loan if you don't buckle to and pay off those bloody loans ASAP.

PS Just found this, written a couple of days ago. I will post it anyway, although I appreciate things may have moved on.

That's what I thought

@Gffbjjgfddbjkkm you say that even clubs and activities are going on the credit card. So where is the rest of the money going?

It really isn't if you have high bills

Assuming as a teacher in a private school you get more holidays than state schools

Get a grip! £80k I year and you can't manage?! Have you got a huge house and mortgage? Encourage DS to get a p/t job like a lot of students do.

We earn less have childcare fees and a whacking great mortgage due to interest rate rises. Even so we are able to save each month and live comfortably. We’ve done one small holiday a year a mixture of uk and abroad, sometimes just a weekend at a theme park. We do not go without and neither should you

If you see a follow up of post of mine I apologised and said it was a "decent" income not "massive".

what is your rent / mortgage? how many kids you have?
do you get any state benefits?
don't you really see how much difference this can make?

How is this a massive income?? it's just only above median UK salary each (£40k vs £37k).

So in SE it's really a very low income given property prices.

Yeh my husband and I do this. We make almost £2k between us each year from examining and it pays for a reasonable summer holiday. The work is a bit rubbish but it's useful CPD too.

If you both examine you'll make enough for a nice holiday abroad. Most examiners make at least £1000 but you can do much more than that if you want to. It usually gets paid at the end of July and again at the end of August 😊 You could also mark for the IB which is usually around October I think from memory.

Our household has half the income of yours and yet we feel quite well off. Manage to put a few hundred into savings each month and have roughly £20k saved. Have a holiday in Sweden booked for a couple of months time and a 10 day cruise booked for next year. Also bought a new car this year.

You need to look at your expenses and make a plan to reduce them. I really can't imagine struggling with that much money coming in.

£20,000 - £26,000 is at the lower end of the average annual rent for a 1 bed flat where I live. This has an impact on everything you buy. A cup of coffee or a packet of biscuits is often more than double the price of the same product in some other parts of the uk. My take home pay after tax and NI is the same as yours (£26,000) Fortunately my DH’s earnings are better than mine.

Dh and I earn around 80ktoo. Our mortgage is quite low (£750pm) but after bills, food, petrol, monthly expenses we always have £500-£1000 spare per month. We go on one holiday a year abroard and usually a few weekend breaks.

Two of our children have been to uni so far. They got loans for uni fees and around 4/5k maintenance loan it covered most of the accommodation, we also sent £200 per month. They then worked to cover the rest of their expenses.

The £26k includes everything I get, all help after my wages - this includes any housing help in that. I get nothing else. I don't get help with utilities or anything else. I am band B in CT and I pay this in full. Their dad is useless and I don't get any maintenance from him (not for want of trying).

We have a category for most things. In your examples - drawing tool for graphic studies comes under education, day out with family is under entertainment and there would be a separate category for pet expenditure (we don’t have any pets). My dh is a retired finance director so setting up the annual budget is one of his little hobbies. We have a financial review at the end of the year and decide how to allocate the following year’s budget. It all sounds a little odd, but works for us.

These types of thread are invariably frustrating - the OP just wants to vent which is OK - but when they have a "decent" household income and isn't willing to disclose their outgoings in comparison, any empathy quickly fades (on my part at least)

ShanghaiDiva

We do keep track but it turns into a mess, eg my son was asked to get a drawing tool for graphic studies- 17€, another son asked to go to a day out with a family- 20€, pet got sick- 200€- you can’t cut out/ down on these things, real question- what do you do in these cases?

Right?? Absolutely mind baffling and my sons would be absolutely mortified at the thought of me or their dad doing that!
They simply wouldn’t have it and wouldn’t accept a penny.
Any half decent well brought up Kid would do the same surely no??

What subjects do you teach? Would you be open to moving schools - if you are happy with boarding schools, could you look for ones that you can live onsite?