How are people affording things atm?

[locomum83]

Bear with me.... I work 12 hours a Week, the rest of the time I look after our 3 young kids, DH works full time.
We can afford nothing at the minute, food costing us at least £700 a month (more than I earn) we run 2 cars as we live rural, and can't car share due to work commitments, our mortgage isn't even that much.
I'm looking at other jobs but we don't have formal childcare, just our parents, all in their 70's so not ideal, and to work more could mean having to pay childcare, so the extra money would be eaten up with childcare so what's the point?
this summer we haven't even been able to have any sort of holiday or even short break organised, we simply have no money left after bills, and often we have to take money from savings to help.
All my mum friends are chatting about their holidays to Disney, turkey, Spain etc, and their new build houses, etc.
My question... how do people do it?? Seriously, and not even people with really excellent jobs, those just with regular run of the mill jobs. Everyone around me is spending money, big money! And I have no idea how they do it.
Are people in debt up to their eyes, what kind of jobs are people doing? Maybe I can do the same! Really deflated at the moment and feeling totally useless.

2 kids , both parents work 40+ hours per week . 1 car ... skint

I do think £700 a month on food is a lot. We are a family of four (incl. two very hungry boys) but I estimate we spend about £500 a month and that’s mostly at sainsburys

Everyone I know with 3+ kids (or 2+ kids tbh) is either; working most of the time and paying for childcare and/or relies on parents or other family to help look after them; or has one pretty high earning parent

I work as a teacher but 22 hours a week. I do evening courses also so we are able to juggle. It’s higher Ed

Aside from that I'd love to do some casual cleaning or else something computer based from home, I could do in the evenings, but I'm not sure what's out there that fits that build, or how to find it?

Things like casual cleaning you may be able to find on the next door app.

How rural are you? Close enough to a town to make it worth travelling to a job? My son used an app called indeed flex, where he picked up shelf stacking shifts as and when it suited him - you may be able to find shifts to fit around your husband's shifts?

700pm on food is extremely high. Are you meal prepping? Using up leftovers? Eating meat free meals a couple times a week? Buying non brand?These can all help. I have 2 very hungry kids who graze non stop and a 6ft6 husband who eats like a sumo wrestler and I eat loads too tbf lol and even we only spend 400-450 a month absolute max, usually less than 400! We shop at Aldi and the odd weekly top ups at tesco.

As for the car/work situation, can you look for remote WFH jobs? Or even hybrid? My husband works away 1 or 2 days a week and works extremely long days on the days when he is actually home so I understand the struggle. However, I don't drive anymore so we manage on 1 car which is obviously much cheaper and saves us loads each year. I work 30 hours a week doing a hybrid job so only need to be in the office once a week and that is doable with bus or even taxi if needs be as it's only once a week. The rest of the time I work flexibly, from home around the kids so childcare is also not an issue for the most part (only in school holidays does it become a bit more tricky, but needs must and we manage)

We are both basically exhausted all the time as we work 90+ hrs a week between us, don't have the luxury of 2 cars and don't drink often or socialize with friends as much as we used to, our house isn't done up as nice as we would like and we don't spend much on birthdays Christmas etc, but as a result we have enough money to get by relatively well and enjoy at least 1 abroad holiday a year and lots of days out/mini UK breaks. Just to add we have regular pretty low paid jobs and have zero debt (besides mortgage). It's doable (for most people - though of course there are exceptions) but it does take a lot of sacrifice and hard work.

I find local butchers much cheaper than supermarkets in rural NI and the food quality is amazing compared to England. Try bulk buying meat directly from a farm? Or more vegetarian meals?

have you searched for work from home customer service jobs? There are plenty online, and you already have experience. But you are going to have to work more than 12 hours to make a difference.

I don't think £700/month food bill sounds horrendous. We spend about £650/month in Morrisons to feed 5 of us (although two are hungry teens and another coming up quick on that), and then their school lunch money is on top of that.

We manage by being old enough to have bought a house when they weren't extortionate, pure luck at locking in a 1.89% mortgage rate for 10 years 18 months ago, and having two full time working parents. We struggled for many years when the kids were small and we made no profit on my salary after childcare for about 4 years. However, keeping my hand in the workplace has paid dividends and between us we now earn about £130k.

We do not spend thousands on holidays though, am currently stashing every penny I can in case all three want to go to uni. One definitely will, the other two want to join the RAF/Police respectively at 18 so we should have some money to help them with cars/deposits etc.

it's really really hard at the moment, if you can find some evening work from home it might give you some breathing space.

People stagger me. Do you really need to ask? Surely you considered all this before you had 3 kids? We worked this all out before we had 2 kids. How much my part time salary would cover. I worked 9-3, 3 days a week, walked from my office to the school for pick up at 3.15pm. Occasionally I used pre school club or after school club. In those days it was cheaper, funded, £2.50 per session. And it was more casual, you could just use it as little or as much as you chose. It's harder now. We had no parental support because Dh's mum died, and my mum lives 2 hours away.

This all didn't happen by accident, though. it took years of planning and strategic job hopping in order to get myself into that job, so that it worked well for me, for the children, for us as a family. When they were in primary.

Once they were in secondary I worked more hours. I do accounts and love my job. But I made that happen. We all make choices, we all have to compromise in some sort of way. What is your compromise going to be?

I've been thinking about retraining in accounting for quite a while but don't know where to start. Do you recommend a particular course? I've heard of AAT but have no experience and don't work in the sector for work experience?

Family of 5. Food is about £500 per month. I cook from scratch. I currently don't work - no childcare support. No holidays, no haircuts ( I cut mine and the kids hair - dh gets his barbered), no restaurants, no pubs, takeaways very rare. Children just do Cubs, so very cheap.

Don't understand why so many have more than 2 children and then moan they are struggling.

If your 3rd was an accident (surprise suprise) then you better make sure there is not a 4th

One child (teenager), single parent, work full time, mortgage, no car (walk to work). There is no way i could afford to run a car.

Try not to compare yourself to others. Looking at other threads on here, the majority seem to be extremely high earners who don't believe that there are people who are struggling financially, because no one in their social circle is 🤣

Enjoy your kids, they are only little once. As long as you can afford the basics for now, I'd not worry too much. Camping in the garden is fun for little kids, I know its not a holiday for you, but maybe for now you need to accept that's on the back burner for a bit.

You can always look to up your hours when they are a bit older.

As others have said though, I would try to cut down on your food budget if possible. That would definately free up some cash.

One thing that’s helped get us through the last few months is savings. You need a buffer. I know that won’t help you now OP, but when you put money in to a savings account every month, I’m not afraid to dip in to it if needs must. Getting the car serviced in August and that will be £700, a new boiler might be on the cards in winter, there’s no way we could afford 4 grand just at the click of fingers, but we do have a buffer that could cover it.

OP no judgment here but look - you are supporting 5 people on not a lot of money. I’d be looking to see what sideway steps you can make now / in near future in your careers. Is your degree in anything that could get you into professional services even starting at a low grade? If you are near Belfast, Derry or Newry you may be able to find something along these lines. FWIW I don’t know anyone who isn’t struggling to greater or lesser extents at the mo, and in my immediate social circle there is no dual professional income fam of 5 having a big ‘away’ holiday this summer.

This thread is eye opening. We have two. I want another. We don’t struggle financially but we aren’t flush. We go on holidays & manage to save £300-£500 per month. Is there really such a big difference financially from 2-3? Our combined is £55k which is set to increase to £65k In the next year. I had my second when my first was 2.5 so we had 30hrs free so we weren’t paying for 2 in childcare. I get what Op is saying though, if you work more you pay more in childcare so there’s no point then secondly you’d have to find something school hours or ask for help. We are lucky we have great childcare & can work around kids

This thread will delete soon. It summaries everything that is wrong with the UK. (I think op is in Ireland actually, but the point is the same). Or rather some people, their entitled view People having kids they can't afford, with jobs that don't pay enough to cover their costs. And then they wonder why they can't afford stuff. God give me fucking strength. It's not hard is it. To do the math.

There are some really nasty posts on here. Why are people so bloody rude? What’s the point?

There is a tone of 'what do you expect?' on this thread. 30 years ago an emergency service worker, a part time working wife, and three kids in rural NI would be very comfortably off. It's ok to want to vent. We are in a considerably worse position than our parents. And many people made the decision about houses, employment and family size before the reality of that had sunk in.

Sorry to hear you're struggling OP.

From time to time, posters raise this question on MN - "How can people afford x, y and z when they have very basic jobs".

A lot of posters respond and explain things like:-

• The poster may be a SAHM but in fact receives income from a rental property (or properties).

• The neighbours assume they're a SAHM but they actually work from home (this was before Covid when WFH was less common).

• The neighbours assume that they (or their husband) have a very low paid job and have no idea it's actually a very high paid corporate role.

• They have family who help out with childcare, saving a small fortune.

• They've benefitted financially from an inheritance.

• They got a redundancy payment at some point and paid off the mortgage so they've no mortgage payments

It's not always debt or a credit card.

You don't know what your friends' true financial picture is. And even if you did, it wouldn't change your own. As the saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy.

If you can find a way of boosting your income without increasing your childcare costs, that would be great. I don't have any practical suggestions though.

Alternatively, you could try to cut back on expenditure a little - easier said than done though.

Ultimately, it's a short-term problem. I don't know how old your youngest is, but in a few years they'll be off at school and you'll be in a better position to increase your hours then. You don't know what the future holds - in a few years time, you could be in a very different financial situation yourself and then other people might be looking at you thinking, "How does locomum afford x, y and z".

Don't lose sight of the bigger picture - you've a husband and three lovely DC. You own your own home (or will do when the mortgage is paid off). You've no debts so no sleepless nights trying to work out how you're going to repay what you owe. Lots of people would love to be in your shoes. Working just twelve hours a week means that you get to spend a lot of time with your DC. Also, the fact that you've continued working means that it will be easier to increase your hours or find a new job because you haven't had a long period out of the workforce. You're far from useless.

Posts like these really reinforce my thinking that on 60k joint we should stick at one! Everyone saying three kids is the reason this person is struggling, is that definitely the case? If she worked I’m sure she would be more buoyant but right now that’s not practical for her

Don’t have 3 kids. It’s literally why we didn’t.

Of course it is. We had 2. With a 3 year gap. Massive impact on childcare costs.

This is not true. The average combined income for 2022 was £31,400.

We stopped at 2 kids and we both work full time. It was expensive for a short period but paid off in the long run as we progressed and wages now far outweighs school wraparound care fees.

I think planning ahead . We have 64 k between us 2 after taxes and ni , we put aside as much as we can for a holiday as I consider them an essential thing . We have 4 depending children ( one older) . We tend to buy things separately so as an example I paid £2500 fir our holiday home 7 months ago then 4 months ago we got the flights then the last 3 months us money to spend etc.