Is it normal to live paycheck to paycheck whilst kids are young?

[caggie3]

Dh earns £55k and I earn £13k (I only work 3 days a week). We have a 3 year old and a baby on the way. We own our home, dh salary covers everything for the house, bills, food and day to day life. My salary just covers nursery fees and fuel really, but he's funded now so that's £600 extra a month spare as of next month.

We used to have a couple of thousand savings at all times, but we bought a house and decorated it nicely and got married, so savings are gone and we both a small loan to pay back (his 2.5k, mine 1k) and we currently have £4000 on a credit card which is 0% interest for 2 years. At the moment we aren't putting any money into savings, instead we are overpaying the loans at the moment and will then start on the credit card so it's cleared before interest free runs out. I have maternity leave coming up so we won't have a chance to build savings up for a couple of years probably. I'm not sure whether I need to panic about our financial situation or whether it's pretty normal at this stage?

Side note I know my salary is low, hopefully it won't be forever!

It depends on high your outgoings are etc. our combined income is about £55k. We also have a mortgage, have a child in nursery for 24 hours a week, an older child in breakfast club. I have about £300 on a cc, hubby has about £200 on a cc and we have £10k in savings. We save about £300 a month.

Not sure you will get a sympathetic response op, so brace up. We earn more, are older, more kids and are still doing this - mortgage late in life, no help with uni, etc. I think life happens and your previous patterns and savings /debts have an impact - previous marriages etc.

When you say you own your house, does that mean outright, no mortgage? If so then on nearly 70 k a year, with no housing costs, you should be saving.

We have about the same household income split in about the same way , have 3 kids (teen, 3 year old and 1 year old) so that's expensive but no loans or credit cards to pay back ,no childcare costs and one of our car costs (lease payments,petrol, insurance) is covered by work so that may even the difference between the number of kids and yes I would say we are the same , not able to put anything into savings account at the moment.

Normal based on my experience. Our household income was similar and we ended up with debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Getting to the next payday was hard! But DS starts school now and DH and I have had promotions so we're finally sorted, but it's been a really hard 4 years. It's one of the reasons we're sticking to one child!

I'm not expecting sympathy at all just wondering if it's normal or if we've been a bit frivolous. Sorry no we own our house but only for two years now so we have £210k mortgage to pay. The credit cards ramped up between moving and the wedding but have never been that high before so perhaps that's why I'm fretting as our debt has gone up quite a bit. I'm going to see where we can cut back to try and put atleast £100 each a month into savings and start building up a bit of a safety net.

Normal but not really on that income. Once you have paid off the debts though you should have enough to save.

Do you have life insurance and are you on a long term fixed rate mortgage? Can you still pay off the debt with all the price rises happening now and over the winter?

Your mortgage doesn't sound huge, so on that kind of income, I would expect you to have a bit more left over at the end of the month tbh. Do you think you have been frivolous?

We're fixed for another 12 months with our electric and another 3.5 years on the mortgage, we overpay our electric about £70 a month just by habit but we've decided to keep it up so we have a buffer when our fix runs out. It's the debt isn't it, you're right.. dh does get a bonus in December hopefully we can clear a chunk of it then. We do need savings for when all of these fixes run out.

Not outlandishly so but could definitely cut back on food out, coffees and cake, days out, convenience subscriptions etc. I think it's clear what I need to do!

Normal for most people I'd say. You've done a lot ( house , wedding, 2 kids almost) in a short space of time. Not sure how people living like you are going to cope with huge increases in fuel bills though , although you say you will have £600 extra when the nursery is funded. We always struggled when our kids were young. We would still be struggling now had my dh not lost both his parents and inherited some money which means we are mortgage free. We are helping kids through Uni, driving lessons etc- it is never ending unless you can increase earnings significantly which we never seem to have been able to !

We did, we struggled through some really hard times where were wet just waiting for payday for the basics. Our income was under £20k though. I am baffled at couple with a near £70k joint income living pay to pay. Baffled. You must be living way beyond your means.

Yes that's what I'm wondering it's not an obvious life of luxury or anything outlandish but whatever is going wrong we want to reign it in before the baby is here.

Sounds normal, that’s a lot of outgoings in a short space of time.

I feel like it must be. We're earning about £35k each, and with mortgage, nursery, car finance and other bills we can't afford to save anything. Even small amounts for a holiday etc can't be saved at the moment. I'm hoping when we get some free childcare hours that might change.

Most of our friends with young children are struggling. I can sympathise.

Your salary does seem on the low side even for 3 days per week, is there the option of you going for a new job or retraining?

Yes it's normal, but most people can't afford to overpay on loans and CC and live in debt. I think you will find your in a better position than most people.

Yes it's normal but I would venture far less normal on 60 thou a year!

That's a lot of money you both must be spending!!

Side ways same. Ours not much above yours.
Absolutely awful but we got through.
With hard budgeting and make do...lots of free stuff...

You have a much larger household income than we did at that stage but yes, with very young kids we lived hand to mouth. Adding a second salary yet keeping fixed costs the same was an absolute game changer for us.

This was normal for us too when DC were young. I took long mat leaves and then earned bonuses to pay off the debt on my return to work (sales) - wouldn't recommend it but it worked out ok and I was certainly motivated to do as well as I could.

Now they're older, we have savings. It's nice to feel that we have a buffer for once.

My only recommendation to you would be to clear the credit card asap - use that extra £600 per month for the next ten months til it's gone.

Ha! Or don't take financial advice from me... £600 per month will pay it off in seven months not ten 😶

We put everything into a spreadsheet and combed through our bank statements, we are burning through quite a bit of money between the pair of us. It's staggering how much seemingly harmless things add up! I couldn't quite believe it but yes being a bit more aware we can definitely clear the debt and start getting some into savings sooner than I assumed.

Our situation is similar (two kids, combined income about 50k but no nursery fees, £170k mortgage) but we don't have any debt. I think that's the difference and probably why we have a fair amount of disposable income, savings and money left at the end of the month. Is the debt from your wedding? We had a pretty cheap wedding by today's standards.

If you'll have a spare £600 from next month and make a couple of cut backs it shouldn't be too hard to pay it off and get saving again.