Are other full-time working families finding there is nothing left?

And here I would agree - as someone originally from a midlands mining town and living ‘down south’ - it’s such a huge divide , especially in the most sought after areas and not just London , that it’s a dramatic difference - people say well just move, but lots don’t want to, work in careers/industrys that still have large elements of London centrism, have family and friends and networks etc etc - we all need homes but not everyone is prepared to go where they know no one or not have any networks/support - even if you work from home it’s not nice beyond a certain age to live in such isolation and not even have school /work chums to make friends with

It’s made worse when I know people claiming PIP for pretend ADHD and migraines, and she not the only one

I think it all depends on your mortgage. Bought our house a doer upper 15 years ago and our mortgage cost is cheap. I work part time tto so crap wage, partner full time earns a decent wage but probably not by mumsnet standards!! So between us probably bang on average duel income (70k) . We can still afford to go out for meals and take kids for days out, the odd holiday. I use discount codes for anything I can. We don't have car finance or anything. I can only assume it's people's large mortgages /rents as I know if I bought a house now as a first time buyer it would be very different.

A lot is to do with housing costs and if & when you got on the ladder.

@CoralOP yes I posted earlier about expectations- I’ve got friends in midlands and ‘up north’ with low rents and mortgages , several decent cars and doing 3 or 4 full week or 2 week sunny holidays, nice home and bang on as if they are at poverty level and what’s Farage going to do to make their life better.their life looks pretty decent to me and they are on average earnings- I’m not sure what they are expecting. I do think some people have insane expectations

Friends children living in London top end of primary now still need wrap around care in the school holidays which is expensive. Three bed semi outside London. Dad commutes by train. Mum has an old car. Their income sounds really good on paper but it vanishes fast. They barely have the heating on, shop economically it's relentless. Their holidays are with parents who live in Devon which the children love.

The fact that couples are choosing not to have children makes sense these days.

Access to free nursery places, a tax free allowance and tax bands to be adjusted to eliminate fiscal drag is what is needed..not apologies

Im 38 and husband is 43. We have a combined household gross income of £82k. Even on our heaviest spending months we have circa £400 left in the bank by the next payday. I buy what I want and while I don't have particularly expensive tastes, I spend however much I feel like and don't give it a second thought. I have a brand new car and live in a 3 bed semi with a good sized garden, and I've got kids. I have savings of circa £40k and am on track to have the mortgage paid off at 45.

Here might be the big difference. I live in a northern town. I live 5 minutes from work. My house was pretty affordable since it's the north and a fairly working class area. We've both got good jobs and the transport links to Liverpool and Manchester are great. If I wanted to earn more and commute it wouldn't be a problem, but I love being 5 minutes from my job.

I genuinely think that's the difference here. The north/south divide.

It’s like you can’t even have a normal chat without someone dragging in their jealousy, hate, or just straight-up negativity.

To keep it simple and short in analyzing human behavior:
People who feel broke often harbor strong resentment toward those with more, yet still hope the middle class and wealthy might bail them out. The middle class? They’re getting squeezed so much they fear they might vanish altogether. And the wealthy? They’re holding on to their money tightly, knowing it could all disappear in an instant.

My husband and I are in our mid-to-late 40s and have two children. We both come from large families on all sides, with a mix of social classes, though none are poor. We're doing pretty well for ourselves, but since we tend to overthink worst-case scenarios, we've always kept ourselves prepared for when things go sideways. We're not big fans of debt, but we also believe in actually enjoying life, what's the point of money if you're not having fun with it? We figured out how to live well without overspending, cutting out waste, saving where we could, and always looking for ways to earn more and grow our wealth. I went to a pretty average state school, and by 18, I was already googling the highest-paying careers that suited me and I just went for it. I wanted money, I wanted to be wealthy, and I chased that dream hard. My husband had the same mindset. Over the last twenty years, we've done our homework on the best ways to invest while keeping our eyes open. And since we pay a decent chunk for our internet, we make sure we're getting every penny's worth out of it.

@Crikeyalmighty yes the Tories froze the tax bands but for whatever reason many people have only started to notice the impact in the last year or so.

Perhaps because mortgages and bills have increased. It’s a bit like so many didn’t notice wage stagnation for years and years because low interest rates made things cheap.

Arh ok I thought you paid a lot, a very lot, of tax because of your concern about what percentage of your tax was spent on benefits.
You can lower the amount you contribute to the benefits bill by lowering your tax return.

Yes 57 is ambitious, would help if we all knew how long the pension account needs to last! 62 is much more achievable.

Could anyone explain to me which taxes levied to individuals have gone up under the current gvt( apart from people that have kids in private school)! I appreciate employers tax has gone up but that’s for companies- in my case the gvt actually doubled the allowance on employers NI tax though, so I am effectively taken out of paying any at all now for me and H . I appreciate taxes are high beyond a certain level and yes allowances have been frozen for quite a few years- but they also were with the Tory’s - I’m not seeing this massively increased tax burden to individuals - any tightness as far as I’m concerned is due to generally rising prices, Wars, cost of imports by Brexit or poor harvests etc - I realise they are reducing tax free iSA savings limit, but you are hardly on the poverty line if you can stick away £12,000 a year individually in ISAs although the way some people go on you would think they were.

Exactly what I was thinking. Plenty of people on here support cuts to disability benefits.

Feel the pain, one of us is unemployed (me 😟) and finding it really hard to get a job - late 50s.
We are really struggling.

There has been lots and its disability benefits that are being cut by the government

Sorry that was directed at @Hellohelga

If you've got about 4k net a month I don't class that as a relatively low wage.

There have been many threads of disability benefits but I honestly don't recall any where it was said that disability benefits should be abolished altogether.

Where have you been for the last 6 months

You know as well as I do that no one would advocate cutting benefits to disabled people who need them.
You are being dramatic.

Why do people respond to posts like this?
'Right-wing clickbait', Tory bot, Written by AI?
I suppose it's easier to respond in a way you at least think is clever and/or amusing than actually engage in something that many people clearly want to discuss.

We are earning more than before, childcare costs are pretty low as dc are older & I am having to budget & cut back far more.

Sorry for the entitlement but I've become accustomed to living inside and being able to eat . Sorry if you see this as entitled. Il try not to be disabled when I get up tomorrow

Might be at work I suppose?

The point is most people who earn six figures work long hours. My DH is one of them and works weekends and some long days. This means that most of the household stuff, childcare etc. falls to me. I work full time too so it is not like I have a lot of free time. This means I hire a cleaner once a week, we also have a bigger mortgage than someone on a lower income, therefore council tax, utilities are higher. We also pay higher tax. DH also pays a lot of work related expenses like insurance, GMC reg, RCP, BTS etc. I am not saying we can’t and don’t save because we do. But 10 years earlier we would have had tons of disposable income and now even we need to be careful if we want the same lifestyle we had in the past.