To wonder how people are coping?

Hear hear

We cope becasue we make £90k between us which is £5300 a month and these are our outgoings:

mortgage £720
council tax £130
gas and electricity £100
water £20
internet £40
phones £12
insurance £25
travel to work £250
mortgage overpayments & savings £500
nursery £200
food and going out £800
holiday fund £500
personal spends/savings per adult £500
=£4350 ish so around £1K spare per month.

We’ve been living fine on £3700 per month while one of us has been on parental leave with DD. We’ve had less personal spends and diverted only £200 to the holiday fund while we’ve had less.

Perhaps all the people struggling on over 140K should start a support group.

Whilst some may have expensive outgoings & some have "champagne tastes on beer budgets", it is also an economic fact that the UK suffers from widespread chronic poor pay & wage disparity.

So you put up with 1960s ugly ( which doesn’t have to be and is often far superior in quality compared to modern day housing)or move to a more affordable area and commute- like many many people do up and down the country.

Are you aware of how much housing costs in many parts of the UK these days? £800k for a 3 bed terrace in a crappy area someone upthread said they paid. That is the price of housing. That will easily result in the mortgage OP has. Is that luxury???

I live in another UK city. Here if you wanted to live in 3 bed in an ok school catchment you would need to spend £500k absolute minimum. If you wanted somewhere that wasn’t 1960s ugly it’s more like £700k. These are t luxurious places to live at all. That’s the price of housing.

It's your house which is your big problem. It's a money pit which has already absorbed all your savings to prop it up. What's going to happen when there is another structural issue?

I'm sure it's lovely but its only going to get more expensive to maintain.

In your shoes I would be looking at leaving it sooner rather than later.

Private school is always a hostage to fortune. Better to make the step away from it now than have your hand forced during a crucial stage.

I think the problem is far too many have been living way beyond their means. Since when did holidays, massive food orders, endless tech, eating out, endless renovations and clothes , mahhhooosive mortgages etc turn from luxuries into necessities.

People have got themselves into unnecessary debt over luxuries which adds to the financial weight of hugely unnecessary lifestyles.

Anybody struggling on ops income only has themselves to blame and no not everybody lives like that so are living perfectly well on far less.

UK wages outside of London & the South East are criminally low.

Benefits are used to bolster wages as employers don't seem to want to help.

I think it must be mostly that that. We live off far far less in London, but we have paid off our house now (or is not in a particularly nice area or a nice house). We have a very old car (not paid monthly), no credit cards, very small outgoings (I cut mine and DD's hair) and no other beauty treatments. I shop in Lidl. We've never had kids in private school but we did pay tuition in one subject for each (3 kids). One holiday abroad per year (done cheaply, self catering) and a short break or two in UK. (Finally) did kitchen last year but I bought it secondhand from ebay and it has no fancy features like Qooker taps. I think we live quite frugally but we have enough. Our kids are used to not having expensive stuff but they have enough. DH gets all their phones/laptops etc from ebay. We pay nothing on credit.

This is similar to me. Universal Credit massively fucked up and they had to backpay £1000. That meant I was able to buy a second hand mobility scooter which means I can now use the bus.

My washer is broken, I'm currently being helped by a charity to buy a replacement (it is about 20 years old so not really worth repairing).

Last winter I had the winter on three times. I used clothes, heated throw and hot water bottles.

OP

How on earth do you spend that kind of money?

Im on 38K a year, my rent is £1000 a month and I can afford Prime Netflix and Kindle, and eat relatively well 🤷‍♀️

@BustyLaRoux the problem is that coming onto Mumsnet with ‘concern’ about how other people are coping because you are ‘feeling the pinch’ on £160k and worried about Christmas dinner and the Disney subscription sounds inauthentic, out of touch and tone-deaf. Likewise, saying she’s had to pull the kids out of private school while also stuffing a pension doesn’t really land well with some people, because what counts as a ‘struggle’ at that level feels very different to what others are facing. While OPs empathy may be genuine, her examples right now just highlight her privilege rather than any significant hardship that is relatable - even if at one point she was in a low paying job, she isn’t now. The same concern could also be shown without mentioning her income or lifestyle changes, or maybe some of that pension could be used as a regular donation to a food bank or charity (which I didn’t see on the list) - it would probably come across as more authentic.

I fail to see how Trump putting tariffs onto items being exported to the US causes inflation in the UK. Do you realise tariffs are paid by the companies that import into US?

Stealth boast 🙄

This is exactly what I was thinking.Your DH is making over £3K+ per month of pension contributions which is why your household net income is approx £7K pcm instead of much more. It's not rocket science where you can adjust your finances to increase your net monthly income.

Average prep school fees are approx £8K per term so times two = £16K per term so a minimum of £4K pcm just for the fees excluding other costs. Pre 20% VAT fee rise, it would have been £3.5K pcm. Pumping this into DH's pension instead is a good move (if this is what you did).

2 sets of full school fees isn't doable imho with a £2.5K mortgage on your income level I'm afraid.

We have a much smaller joint income, although fortunate to have no mortgage to pay.
utilities and food are crippling us though - fish and chips is now a massive treat, as in, rather than it being a weekly treat, it’s now quarterly.
no childcare costs either, or finance payments for cars etc.
we do, however, prioritise weekends away/short holidays over ‘big’ holidays.

It’d take me many lifetimes over to earn that amount. I do a good job, very rewarding, but the pay is shit. Single parent to two young adults. One at uni, one at home. I bring home 16k a year. I’m just about keeping my head above water.

I think the one thing which is likely to impoverish people in the near future is credit card interest.

It will decimate most budgets. The worry alone is enough to depress.

I have been paying the balance off each month for a very long time so haven't paid interest. My DD covers the whole balance.

If posters can do that as fast as they can, it may be hard to begin with, but it will save so much money in interest.

Yes they do and lots of us, it depends on your job but my last two jobs I easily can do it, I work PT so we do one after school club and then one us us does one of the days and the other does the other day (I then have two days off per week so that is covered). Late lunch break covers the pick up, my DC then chill out either playing, crafting or tv while we continue to work for another hour or so.

She must have diamonds on the SOLES of her shoes...

I hope you are right.

My remark was for the future, that I can see a time coming when the time of stewpots will return.

I meant TV packages in general ie Sky,Netflix,Disney etc not just Disney Plus! I know lots of people paying around £80 per month for TV,£40+ per month for mobile phone,£30/40 per week for takeaway..then complaining that they’ve got no money

Our joint income £110 000 NE Scotland.

Average pay £31 000'ish.

People are clinging on.

It must be so hard on 140k. Like how do you cope? Poor you. My heart bleeds