To wonder how people are coping?

Not sure if that's sarcasm - but a few years ago I managed to get a weeks shopping for around four quid - that's what you have to do when you live well below the line

@CobbleWobble surely you could have text your DH and asked his mortgage contributions which he’s seemingly kept quiet in the last 27 hours?!

one text - what amount goes to your mortgage - one response.

But instead everyone can go back and forth on here about £5 on Disney plus?!

I don’t get how you wouldn’t actively seek the information that you have said you wanted to disclose (ie monthly costs) when people were trying to help and find out why a turkey was causing stress?

If it’s a more complex answer than £X per month (eg to have tax savings, childcare funding under 100k etc) then please realise this is no better than being a ‘benefit cheat’ and you are playing a system to support yourself, taking from a limited pot that those with far lower incomes really need.

pS I am a high rate tax payer so no, not jealous. I am however grateful that our income is so much better than the majority of this country and feel incredibly lucky. if you genuinely feel hardship, why wouldn’t your husbands pension contributions been a joint discussion and decision? Blows my mind.

(Perhaps the cleaner isn’t needed if you’re working 32 hours either btw)

Income irrelevant and if outgoings are huge though. If you are on £170k with no mortgage/school fees etc,yes you are comfortable, but if you live withlots on tick then you aren’t well off.

And even when I didn't I bought yellow stickers.

I bought some yellow sticker items today, a saving of about 80p...

People don't need to have stew pans and stew pots to cook cheaply. I've had a slow cooker for over a decade. And even when I didn't I bought yellow stickers. Used community tables. No one has to resort to fast food - it's a choice.

I can only assume you bought a big house beyond your means? Just because you can get a big mortgage, doesn’t mean you have to! My husband earns about the same (I don’t work any more) but luckily we decided to stop going up the property ladder so our mortgage will be paid off in two years. We weren’t bothered about having a bigger house, it’s just a pretty average comfortable home in an expensive area. We aren’t overstretched. One at private school for another year, one at uni and one at state school. We’ve had a long haul holiday, a week in France and a few long weekends away so far this year. Feel very privileged (and am v v grateful). So something isn’t quite right with your outgoings if you’ve ditched private school and still don’t have plenty of disposable income. Can you downsize to have a smaller mortgage?

Only £160k? You poor love. I'm on minimum wage and have a lovely life - no debt, nothing.

This.

Today I had to go to a food bank to keep my family fed until payday next week.
But let’s all spare a thought for OP having to cancel Disney+.

I will stay away from this thread now as I can feel myself getting irate very quickly.

OP says she knows she’s lucky, but she really really doesn’t.

I mean... I have an income of 23K and I'm coping. I save less, but I do still save. Every situation is different OP, but sounds like you're living beyond your means.

I wonder how people manage too. The problem is that once you give pay rises to public employees, we all pay for it, and food prices rise to cover rises in pay and national insurance, and still the government is spending more than it gets in taxation. November will see people unable to buy essentials. If they taught nutrition and cooking in schools, people would know about the cheaper cuts. There should be more information on TV programmes, about cheap foods and how to cook them, but how does that help a working mother who has to resort to fast food because the kids are too hungry after work to get out the stew pans.

The prices of food are very high indeed. I think more and more families will go back to the stew pot. All over the world it is common to have a 'potage' on the back burner day after day, with everything chucked in it, refreshed each day with the addition of tins of soup. I can see a shortage of slow cookers. You can fill those up with fresh vegetables and why you come home it is all ready cooked, but you cannot live on the same things day after day, can you?

During covid I shopped online for my carer and his wife because they are black and at more risk, and she worked in a London hospital each day.

I explained that Jesus did not feed the thousands because they were poor, but because they were too late to access shops for food. My carer accepted that, because he too is a Christian.

The shopping was for three. I bought the same items for them as for myself.

I now shop just for me, and am paying more now, for one, as I paid for all the shopping for three in the lockdowns.

That experience has shown just how high food prices have risen. I have a cart online now. The reasonably priced items were ''sold out''. I also click on a special offer and get something else at the usual price, so I have been very choosy about replacements.

What world do you live in. Many families live on far less and still can afford Disney plus. Get a grip and think about people who are less fortunate than you.

Yeah, sorry but this.
I don't understand why you've had to remove the kids from their schools. I'd have done anything to avoid that kind of upheaval for them before I did that.
I don't know where you live, but even if your payments HAVE doubled, you'd have to live in an actual mansion for it to eat away that salary.
This is so so so so tone deaf to those of us earning £15k a year and that's IT.

@Sally20099 but how on earth do you fix the productivity problem?

The issue isn’t brexit or Russia etc - the issue is extremely low, chronic poor productivity in the UK coupled with the worlds highest energy costs - gas, electric and car fuel. With these ingredients, nothing will function correctly, and when it does it will costs a fortune because anything and everything requires energy to make it, move it, store it. Until energy costs and productivity are resolved we will have very low growth which means the govt ability to fund anything is extremely limited as its spending in real terms is reducing every year while costs like welfare and NHS continue to grow.

My husband earns £60k, I earn zilch. Lady of leisure. Paid off our mortgage last year at 40. We've taken our kids (18 next month and 14) to over 50 countries (some several times. They've been to Uzbekistan twice!) and 20 US states. Spent the 6 week holidays in the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and had a few days in Gdansk just after. We spent a week in Krakow in the April school holiday, and have had day trips to Hamburg and Amsterdam. Just in the process of getting a mortgage to buy a second house.

I think you need to extend the period of your mortgage OR move to downgrade your home a bit. Choose one subscription service only, cleaner 2 hours a week or 3 hours a fortnight or not at all. You can shave down most of your outgoings a bit. DO NOT STOP PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS! think about putting monthly pet insurance money in pet savings account instead of insurance uf your pets are young and healthy. Pet insurance is notorious for not paying out.

Entirely depends on how expensive your lifestyle is. I don't like restaurants, holidays, alcohol, parties, we only have one car. I like a quiet life. I do work and like nice clothes so I have a lovely wardrobe. Otherwise, the only point of earning a lot is in case there's a problem that can only be fixed with money. My DS has recently needed medical care not covered by my work insurance and we've just paid it without a second thought and will continue to for the next few years. That's where money makes a difference - it can reduce your stress level. But in terms of looking rich or having fancy stuff, I'm just not interested or impressed with any of it and of course £170K is money some can only dream of.

170k and struggling that is most bizzare. With a Mortgage? Very bizzare.

We are single income 60k and we manage fine but we do rent and somewhere where rent is cheap. We have had yo cut certain food items and we don't eat out regularpy maybe 3 times a year and we don't do takeaways. The only thing that is hitting us badly is all the healthy foods. Olive oil, eggs, veggies and fruits, meats etc.

How do people cope?

They are not thick and know how to count 🤷‍♀️

Do you have the trappings of your income bracket? Nice big house/nice area plus 2 luxury end cars?

Saving is a very sensible lifestyle choice but if you have to save less that doesn't make you hard up.

Agree with cancelling things you don't need, there's no need to simply waste money because you have it.

Well of course it I’m entirely depends on your outgoings. In your eyes we would be on a pittance (£75k jointly as I only work part time now), but in the real world of course we earn a decent living. We live in a £1.1 million property, have our own horses kept at home, just back from a lovely 2 week independent villa holiday in the Caribbean, go skiing every year, and our children attend a very selective private school.

However let’s break that down a bit: the house only hs a mortgage of £130k on it as I am from a very wealthy family and have already inherited significant amounts of money, plus we bought it and renovated it so it’s worth about double what we paid 9 years ago. We also made about £150k on our first house by renovating it whilst we lived there.

Horses aren’t too expensive if you keep them at home, but that’s said a bit tongue in cheek as one of mine cost £16k in vets bills a few years ago! We paid that from savings.

We saved hard for the recent holiday and my parents pay for our skiing holiday every year.

The children are gifted academically and in various sports, so basically we have ended up paying no fees for either of them as they were jolly lucky to be offered funded places at various schools that specialise in the sports they do, and they also received academic bursaries which cover the whole cost. My father pays for uniforms and trips etc.

We also aren’t very materialistic, so we drive old cars that we buy outright, don’t bother with Sky or Netflix, wear secondhand good quality clothes, and we spend a lot of time at the nearby beach (which is free). We do spend lots on the children’s sports training and our hobbies but that’s manageable even on our rubbish public sector wages!

No still 8 years left. We have a DS in upper sixth still.

Agreed, our income is about 2/3 of that and we are comfortable (even more so that we're not paying ds' rent at uni!)

What sort of house do you have? Did you buy a too-expensive house when interest rates were low?

Do you drive really expensive cars?

Ultimately people live up to their incomes but there should always be some slack.

A warning to others: live to 90% of your means not 110%.

Ignore the haters, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with reviewing your spending habits to see if you are getting value for money whatever you’re income level. A millionaire should cancel their Disney+ subscription if they don’t really watch it.

Amd for those that are saying you must have a massive mortgage, maybe you just want to save a lot so you can retire early. That’s an equally valid life choice.