To think that life is too expensive?

Op what is your actual household net income and your main outgoings?

Because on the face of it, you bring in over 5k per month and we assume you have no childcare costs. So presumably your biggest costs are your mortgage, household bills/food etc and your debt. For most households 5k would be adequate to cover your costs and save a bit for holidays. Maybe not a luxurious lifestyle, but not struggling.

If you post your actual figures, or at least close, people can help you. Perhaps you need to look at your debt repayments and if it’s possible to extend the term of your mortgage to lower your monthly payments?

OP can you break down the costs. Depending on age you could extend your mortgage to give you more breathing space (move from 10 years to 20 years etc)

its hard to suggest anything without a monthly break down as on paper so far it seems doable to have a holiday

Can’t cope on 80k! Poor you. Try coping on minimum wage!

You definitely needs to share how you managed that one.

Parents are very much expected to contribute to funding their children through university as the tuition fees cover fees and the maintenance loan will not even cover accommodation costs in most cases. It is little publicised but parents are expected to fund their children through shortfall; or students themselves through work.

Firstly, you don't need to pay for a child to go to University. They can take out a loan like most children do, or get a job (depending on the hours of their degree course), or work all summer.

Secondly, you actually have a decent income, so need to look at your spending more closely.

Earning £40k each gives you a take home pay of £5000 a month (assuming you pay into a teaching pension).

Your mortgage is only £80,000 so repayments are only £600 a month?

Food (family of 4?) about £125 a week, so about £550 a month?

Gas/Elec/Council tax/water about £350 a month?

Car - perhaps £300 a month?

So that's £1800 a month on essentials.

What are you spending the other £3200 a month on?!?!?!!?!?!?! There is NO WAY you should be broke each month? You could pay your entire credit card debt off in 3 months!

In a private school.

An 80k mortgage is relatively small. Have you considered extending the term to reduce your payments.
I have 9k of credit card debt and move them around 0% deals to cards that have a 1% minimum payment. If you did that it should cost you less than £100pm in repayments. I appreciate it will take ages to pay off but you aren't accruing much more debt from interest.
Can you both take on more management duties at work rather than getting part time jobs?

On £80k with a pretty small mortgage you shouldn't be struggling that much. You're far from rich, but a holiday should be manageable. You need to budget properly and look at where you can economise.

I would suggest additional holiday tutoring (obviously depends on subjects you teach). The tutors attached to known school brands would get upwards of £50 ph.

It's OK to vent about the COL. But...it's yet another post where the OP has a household net income of 5K+ pm (£80K) with a relatively small mortgage (£80K), no childcare costs and the only visible major expense of credit card debt of £9K. Without scrutinising outgoings via incomings and giving some detail of the debt i.e interest rate, it's hard to advise generally because once again, on the face of it, you should be able to afford a relatively comfortable lifestyle compared to the majority of the populace.

I'd also be looking closely at all my spending and moneysavingexpert tips to see how I could get it down. On a very similar income and mortgage we were not struggling. I really think there are things you can do.

Can you remortgage to a lower rate?
Can you swap your cc debt to zero interest and pay it off aggressively?
Can you swap energy supplier?
When did you last shop around for insurance? They sneak it higher every year, maybe that could come down.
Any unused subscriptions?
How much are you spending on food?
Could you walk/cycle/car share?

Things add up quickly. Is there any "small" daily or weekly thing sucking out a surprising amount of money? Or habit, like buying loads of clothes or something?

So you’re actually only a few years post qualification and have very little left on your mortgage? When I was four years post qualification I didn’t even own a house. I think you’re doing pretty well but I appreciate it must feel tough in the thick of it.

our friends who are teachers tutor : going rate in London is £50/hr for experienced teachers but one friend is a maths teacher and picks up £80/hr. His tutoring pays for all their holidays and extras. I’ve personally shelled out £3k in the last year on teachers who tutor privately for a dc with additional needs.

good luck 🤞🏼

Are you in Godalming by any chance OP… I know many Charterhouse staff who are not having a good time right now!! It just doesn’t make sense to me, multi million pound business, you’d think their staff would be ok!

Easier said than done but really couldn’t you go to any other school in a cheaper area? Hard to uproot the kids, I wouldn’t want to. But not sure what else to suggest.

2 sets of school fees is upwards of £40k at the minute. I'm assuming you're talking a few years ago? Even 5 years ago, 2 sets of fees would have been £10k less.

Are you both fairly early in your careers i.e. is there scope for promotions/progression going forward? £40k is not a high full time salary these days unfortunately. In Scotland I think I'm right in saying that teachers start on about £40k once fully qualified.

But you have a small mortgage so it's not clear why with an £80k household income your credit card debt is so high. It would be worth going through your outgoings carefully as that level of income/mortgage I would have thought you'd be able to enjoy a holiday.

That isn't how mortgages work? That is what is left to pay off, I don't think the OP has mentioned what her actual monthly mortgage payment is.

It sounds like you both retrained at the same time with school age children - presumably that meant a drop in income for both of you at the same time with the plan that longer term it would be a wage increase?

I'm guessing the retraining period and newly qualified years are where quite a bit of the debt originates from as well?

What was the plan originally to manage this period/ car repayments etc?

Is it possible to walk/bike rather than use school buses? How many cars are you running? What are the costs of mobile phone contracts for the four of you? I'd be looking at lifestyle tweaks first before taking on extra work if you are already feeling the pressure. In my experience the extra cash doesn't make much of a difference after you've been taxed on it and had to account for the 'lack of time' related costs etc e.g. more preprepared food/ takeaways, more fuel because of extra trips or lack of time to walk places, more spent on after school childcare.

Something seems off - ok I’m single but that means all the bills are mine
i am paying the same mortgage amount plus student loan plus credit card, all the usual bills on a single income of 27k

Having not much left on a mortgage is not the same as having low monthly payments. It just means they've been paying it off for a long time.

She’s a teacher though?!

This is normal life for most of us I think.

The cost of everything is now is ridiculous.
We went on a short break last year. This year I looked and same holiday, dates pretty much the same and it’s nearly £400 more. 🤷🏼‍♀️
All bills have increased, and whilst some only a small amount, on top of everything it makes a big difference. When you look at all the necessary expense such as food, bills, then extras that crop up such as car services, MOT or something breaks and needs repairing or replacing it often leaves me wondering where the ‘fun money’ is supposed to be.

Wages haven’t risen much in the last few years and that on top of the cost of everything has made it a bit shit for a lot of people, especially if the costs you have can’t be reduced or cancelled.

As pp have said I would be looking at all your monthly outgoings & seeing where you spend your money over and above the usual mortgage, utilities etc. Maybe some of your bills are approaching a date they can be re-negotiated?

You're on £80k. We earn a lot less and regularly go on holiday. We're going to America in August. You could get a, week or 2 in Spain for a few hundred. If you can't manage on that amount, you're doing something wrong.

You earn waaaayyyyy more than me op i live comfortably on a lot less.
You need to find out where its all going.