We very soon won’t be able to afford our life

[WhatsHoppening]

We have a high mortgage, high childcare costs which thankfully will reduce but still wraparound. With our mortgage term ending in December and the increase in gas and electric, food costs, petrol and the increase in mortgage when we remortgage on a higher rate we will not be able to afford to live. Our outgoings will outstrip our income. We are both professionals, I work part time (4 days) and there’s no hope of DC getting into after school club on my day off (and realistically after childcare I bring in less than £100 pcm per extra day worked after childcare). I feel sick. I keep getting told by my parents and grandparents we will get through it but how?! My grandparents were post war so it was hard but my gran could be a SAHM for 3 kids on a my grandads teacher salary. This is a pipe dream for us now and DH earns more than a NQ teacher. Just a rant- lots have it much worse. But I’m scared for the future.

Get a Saturday job
Work the fifth day, you’ll get the extra £100 per month and extra pension contributions and it may help career progression.
Hang in there and look at the bigger picture. By the time you are 40 you probably will not need any childcare, you’ll have a house with a shite load of equity and two solid careers.
If you extend the mortgage now to the maximum allowed you can you can reduce the term when childcare costs ends.

I just don’t understand why people do this. What’s the point? Why make up some fantasy story where other posters try and give helpful advice? Some people are very strange.

Loneliness and / or boredom

and possibly an element of mental health problem perhaps plays a part

I can just about believe posting other threads on behalf of a friend (we wouldn't know her, she goes to another school), but not the thread about Archie. So either OP was lying on that thread and pretending to be a "HCP" which is pretty gross considering the subject matter ot lying here, which begs the question, why?? Unless this thread is for another "friend"

OP needs to cut her commute and that will solve her money problems. On this thread she claims to work ay a large institution in the north but a week ago posted that she lives in Devon. With the cost of petrol rising like it is, that commute is soon going to be unaffordable.

I can’t offer any advice to solve her lying problem, however.

And last month she was pregnant with her first boy and ousting on a baby names thread.

Advanvrd search is the gift that keeps on giving…

I'm sure it's already been mentioned but what about you getting a Saturday or Sunday job. There would be no childcare costs. I don't know what it's like where you live but there are loads of vacancies where we are. There are ones paying more than minimum wage. I feel your third day off a week is such an obvious opportunity to earn more money.

Are any of your contradictory personas true OP?

Do you mind me asking which bank the switching incentive is from please? I've looked online and think it's HSBC but I'm already with them. See first direct have 150 switching inventive too though.

current year due to soaring inflation, as the supermarket focuses on supporting customers through the cost-of-living crisis.

Sainsbury’s said the year ahead would be impacted by significant external pressures and uncertainties, including higher operating costs and the cost-of-living pressures impacting customers’ disposable incomes.

It revealed that underlying profit before tax for 2022-23 is expected to be between £630 million and £690 million – a significant drop from the £703 million analysts had been expecting.

March 2022

The previous thread thing is a bit weird but she says she is staying with friends on her holiday thread and flights can cost peanuts so her saying she is going to friends for a week in this thread is consistent. There are also loads of HCPs that work in universities. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Wrong thread!!

Sell your house and downsize so you have a manageable mortgage. Look for a new job. Reduce unnecessary spending…..
At least you have these options. You have two incomes into your household, many don’t have this and so many are ALREADY living in abject poverty.

And even on the thread about flying on holiday this august… why would you dedicate yourself (she posts loads for this “friend”).

why wouldn’t you just say to “friend”… Join mumsnet and start a thread!!

Yes but the op says she has no holidays planned on this thread

and not once has she mentioned a second job as an hcp on this thread

You don’t think just a tiny bit relevant to mention a second job as an hcp on a thread about your income?

Sorry addressed to @Skynorth

I meant @Pleaseletmeconfirm

When our children were under small, we were in a dire situation money wise. I chose to work as a childminder during the day, as it meant no childcare costs and no travel costs, in the evenings, I worked as a proof reader, hubby worked full time in an office. I also used to go to jumble sales and car boot sales at the weekends, I'd wait until they were nearly ending, then buy up bits cheaply that I thought I could resell. The kids were clothed in second hand clothes, and got second hand toys for their birthdays and Christmas, Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles bought them new toys for their birthdays and Christmas, so if there was something they really wanted, it was given by them - it was just an outlay we couldn't afford, which made us feel guilty, but no other option. There were many other practical things we did, eg, free outings only, we never bought any food out if we went on an outing - we took everything we might need with us, hubby took in his own lunches to work (saves a huge amount if you work it out), and I went vegetarian, as it meant one less serving of meat to buy (I'm still vegetarian, but by choice now, not necessity). I have mixed feelings when I look back on that time, it was hellish in some ways, the thought that we might lose our flat if we couldn't pay the mortgage was a permanent worry, but we made it through, and, both our kids learnt a very good life lesson about managing money and not wasting anything! As a side note, one of the other things from back then that was very stressful was finding the money to buy a presents for the kids to take to birthday parties - you can't send a second hand present - it it felt like a lot of pressure to send something that was "in" which usually meant expensive!!

I see OP has brought out her cheerleaders.

Flights to “a hot destination” for peanuts during the August school holidays? Who are you trying to kid? And if that’s true, please share where these amazing bargains are to be found. Others would love to have the chance to fly to a “hot destination” for “peanuts” in the school holidays.

But let’s break it down. In this thread she says she’s going to her parents for their holiday. And they live 2 hours away. On the peanut flight thread she’s staying with a friend. And even if that was “for an (imaginary) friend”, isn’t it strange that the friend has the same number of children with the same ages as her?

In this thread she claims to work in a university in the north of England. In the school clothes thread she lives in Devon.

On the Emperor baby name thread she is pregnant with a baby boy. No mention of that here and it would be vital information to include especially when asking for advice on future finances and how to afford childcare, etc.

In the wedding photo thread she’s been married three years. In the wedding gift thread it’s 5 years. This is the only one that doesn’t raise an eyebrow as many people in here alter facts slightly to avoid being recognized and the length of marriage was an irrelevant fact on those threads.

Shes a lecturer on this thread, a teacher on another. Vaguely similar but not really.

But don’t put your back out with this reach that she’s doing two jobs. She says she’s lecturing 4 days a week and the fifth day is her day for “life admin” (and probably making up stories and imaginary friends for MN). If the 4 days of lecturing is her side hustle beside her nursing career, when does she get the time to go to the hospital? Because she’s also studying for a Master’s, don’t forget.

I don’t care if people make shit up. This is the Internet. It happens all the time. But it’s a pretty low blow to post threads asking for advice and people give up their time to answer and relate their own deeply personal experiences and it transpires it’s all a fantasy. That’s mean.

Good work

the op won’t be back to this thread

she will name change and then under her new name will start a host of new fictional threads, no doubt from her bed sit somewhere alone until she is next outed as making stuff up.

op, your life is worth more than spending your time and energy on making up shit on an anonymous forum. Really, it is

@BigChesterDraws lol, I'm definitely not a cheerleader. I'd missed the bit where the OP said she was staying with her parents and not friends. So, yes, OP is changing the facts or is trolling.

There were cheap flights abroad. DDs had very cheap flights booked to Crete in August. Shite flight times but cheap. They were booked early this year.

This would be a really wierd troll thread but trolls are wierd 🤷🏻‍♀️. Maybe it's like lots of thread where there is an element of truth. Who knows.

I name change very regularly but I always change facts. I was on Mumsnet when posters log in details were leaked. Mine weren't leaked but if they had been and someone wanted to stalk my account they wouldn't have been able to price things together. I think a lot of posters do the same.

Mumsnet has access to the account so they will delete if needed.

Ironically the nurse thread started with “NC as this is outing” so we only have the tip of the iceberg here.

My guess is the next name has already been created and new threads with more fantasies have already been started.

There’s changing facts and trolling. Two different things. As I said before, married for 3 years or for 5 years…who cares? Even changing your location from Devon to “the north”, so what? However, the claim to living in Devon was made to poke fun at a “friend” who used a certain phrase because she’s “from the north”. So it was not done just to protect her true identity.

Did you miss the part where she claimed to be pregnant? I mean, that’s a pretty big fact to change.

I’m surprised that if she really is a nurse she feels the need to invent a life as a university lecturer. Many people hold nurses in almost god-like esteem in the UK so there’s absolutely no need to invent a different career. Especially not one that is completely unbelievable - a well-ranked university promoting people to lecturers who don’t even have a Master’s yet. By her own admission on this thread, she barely made the grade as a tutor.

If she wants to spend her weekends whipping up fantasies on the Internet, that’s her choice. She’s not the first and won’t be the last. But don’t waste the time of well-meaning people who genuinely believe you are asking for help.

This!! The fact that we are discussing working ourselves in to an early grave instead of taking to the streets and demanding those in charge sort out this sh!t show is beyond me. This country has been dragged down to a level many experts warned was coming. Absolute shambles top to bottom 😡