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.

@BatheInTheLight my god that sounds boring

When we stay at home to raise our children, there's a trade off. To me it was worth the penny pinching and sacrifice even when times were really hard. Growing a garden is a way to cut expenses and gives you something to do with the kids. People say work from home, but I think that depends on the children's ages. Could you mind one child for someone elses?

You say all your mums friends talking about their holidays, presumably they are older, no young children, lower mortgage etc. So they probably have more money to play with.

Honestly the people who are affording luxuries are probably getting help from family. All our nicest stuff has come from DH's generous boomer parents who have also inherited themselves. Because they have no money problems they share their inheritance with us.
And no I'm not boomer bashing, but they bought gorgeous properties on one low income, absolutely impossible nowadays.

We’re not getting help from family to afford our luxuries.

No, we aren't either.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people take their own experience and aims that the same thing applies to everyone else as well.

TBH I think it is a mix of people who are both working full time with either less or older kids, and people who are living in debt up to their eyeballs.

£700 a month on food is a lot though. Hae a look at what you’re spending and where/how you could cut back. Buy own brand where possible, especially cleaning products, Domestos bleach doesn’t have anything that own brand bleach does, apart from costing twice the price.

Also own brand snacks, I shop at Sainsburys and I practically buy own brand everything. DP complained that I buy cheap biscuits, I told him he can have whatever he can afford. We don’t live together so the shopping is my domain and people get what they’re given.

With three kids it’s possibly harder to batch cook, but I would utilise everything you can. So e.g. when making mashed potato cook a large pan full and freeze what you don’t use. I find potatoes start to sprout incredibly quickly, so I cook them and mash them and freeze what we don’t eat. Mash freezes incredibly well.

TBH I think it is a mix of people who are both working full time with either less or older kids, and people who are living in debt up to their eyeballs.

We aren’t both working full time, I work part time. We have a young DC in nursery (no family help) and another on the way. We have no debt apart from the mortgage. Not everyone is struggling and not everyone has debt.

Yes, it’s like they assume most of the population is the same as them, and don’t seem to get that there’s a lot of different situations, income levels and choices that have been made that is different to others. Another post below!

For us, it's because we have low outgoings (paid our mortgage off over 8 years)

No, not everyone is in debt but an awful lot of people are.

And very few people have no mortgage, so in that regard anyone who says they can afford it because they have no rent or mortgage is in the minority.

It’s therefore not unreasonable to say that a lot of people afford their expensive holidays every year by either both working full-time or sticking the bill on the credit card.

The figure of people without significant debt is less than 20%. And even if you don’t have any debt, most people have the cost of rent or mortgage which is going to significantly impact their ability to afford a holiday.

If you don’t have a mortgage or rent then you are going to be hundreds and hundreds of pounds better off every month than the average consumer.

Apparently 1 in 3 households have no mortgage so quite a high number of people.

We do have a mortgage but we can still afford holidays without going in to debt.

You asked how people do it.
We only had one child as that is all we could afford with no family for childcare and taking into account our wages etc to live a reasonably comfortable life. This means we can holiday together once a year

Over a quarter of households are mortgage free, and the rest are split between mortgaged and private rented/social housing.

https://www.money.co.uk/mortgages/uk-mortgage-statistics-and-facts#:~:text=37.5%25%20of%20the%20UK%20population,without%20outstanding%20mortgages%20or%20loans.

Please link to the source of 'over 80% of people have significant debt'.

But even if people have a mortgage or pay rent, it doesn't necessarily impact on their ability to afford holidays. We don't have a mortgage any more, but when did, it was about 8% of our monthly income. Conversely, the mortgage free aren't necessarily cash rich as this will include a lot of pensioners that have a relatively low household income (around £10-15k pa) where they can afford their essential expenditure, but don't have a huge amount for extras.

If you take your own very narrow view of circumstances and try to apply them to the population as a whole, it paints a very misleading picture.

You're struggling because you have three young children and only one full-time salary coming in.

I don't personally know any family of five that survives on one income anymore - it's just not possible without making some serious sacrifices and cut-backs.

The figure of people without significant debt is less than 20%

Do you have a source for this, please? And can you explain what is meant by "significant debt"? What's the threshold for "significant"? Are you including things like mortgage and student loans in this?

Over 80% of the population having "significant" debt seems very high to me, so I would like to understand where this figure has come from.

X post with @BarbaraofSeville.

A third of dwellings in the UK are owned outright with no mortgage.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-11922413/More-people-England-homes-outright-mortgage-rent-figures-reveal.html

There are more owner occupiers without a mortgage than with one. It's just not true that very few people have no mortgage.

I'd also question the points about significant debt and putting holidays on credit cards. What does significant debt mean? There are millions of people who have mortgages that are low amounts and/or a long and affordable fix. If you have a repayment plan you can easily afford, it doesn't necessarily interfere with the ability to go on holiday.

In terms of credit cards, lots of us pay partially or fully for expensive items on them purely for the consumer protection. I always put holidays on credit cards, even though we have the cash to pay in full.

None of which isn't to say there is loads of problem debt in the UK. There is. But you're getting some basic facts wrong here.

I think some other people going on expensive holidays etc will be getting into debt to do it. It sounds like you're juggling things quite well to me.

It's not really "affording" it's more like prioritising. You've spent extra on food whilst others spend about 500 a month and spend the extra 200 you would spend on something else.

Firstly, you are not useless and your children are fortunate to be able to have their mum at home.
Look for anything free going on in your area, go on picnics, play hide n seek with them, paint stones, bake, go on bike rides.
It's not about who's going on the best holiday, or wearing branded clothes, it's about creating memories together and you don't have to go to Disney, Spain or Turkey to do this.
Are there any car boots, you could do, could you start a reselling business by looking round your local charity shops etc to see if you could make a profit from this.
What about growing some veg in pots or starting a veg plot, the kids will relish getting involved. I don't know how much space you have, but you could plan this for next year, look out for pots going cheap or being given away for next year.
I was very much a do it our way when my kids were young,
Let the kids make a tent/ hide out 4 chairs and a sheet.

Your not useless, for some people it’s really its hard at the moment, costs seem to be going up & up - I know quite a few families with 2-4 children and they are all struggling and in a not too dissimilar situation working school hours due to childcare costs and no family help. Not one of them are going on holiday this year.

Living in a rural area really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be! We have to drive everywhere and need 2 cars as Dh works in opposite directions and I work from home but need to do the school run and occasional office day then, factor in a 24 mile round trip for the school run five times a week and the nearest big aldi/supermarket is 15 miles away I spend a minimum of £40 on fuel that’s not including all the running around after the kids.

Car insurance has just under doubled!! Went from £440 for both cars to £890 a year - that was the best quote we could get, nothing had changed! Expect we had another year old no claims…

I’ve cut the kids activities down, back to the bare bones (they only do swimming now and that will probably stop in September) the subs for football went sky high and the kids didn’t really enjoy it anyway.

On a 2 adult, 2 kid family I’m spending around £180 a week on food, it’s not easy to get it down much more.

1/3 are owned outright but if you break it down to family aged mortgage payers I would imagine the percentage is much higher.

I have zero debt zero mortgage but still hard up as self employed and income is often down over the summer.