Are you 44, in a graduate career, and also unable to afford basic emergency stuff??

[FeelingPoor]

As new user name and title suggests:
I am middle aged
Middle income
Employed in a fairly specialist field (postgrad, professional membership bla)
Rocked by unexpected bills

We have woodworm. This month it has cost £420 to sort (not done yet). So not a huge amount
Adult son with additional needs has found a better living situation. I will need to lend him £500 for this.
Younger son's birthday party - £140
First payment on child's rugby tour - £75

And that's our meagre savings gone. I thought at this age and this stage in my career I could absorb these things more easily. Its just a bit shit when you have so much responsibility, work so hard, and are still scraping along.

We are lucky - fed, clothed, have lots of nice times... But today feels moan-worthy! Anyone else in a similar position??

Right - last post before starting work:

Not all of us skint-os on the thread are moaning a lack of savings while staring at a financed Audi parked on a heavily mortgaged drive. With all of my degrees and qualifications comes a tiny (v tiny) bit of intelligence.

Nothing in my life is glossy - not hair, not cars, not furniture. That is not where the money went, and not really what I was posting about. I am not dismayed at not being able to afford fancy stuff, I don't like fancy stuff, I live halfway up a mountain and spend most of my time in walking boots. I will never have the money nor the desire for fancy stuff. I'm fine with that. It's the more basic emergency house repair stuff that prompted this.

Exactly the same FeelingPoor, we aren’t and don’t care about being glossy, I’ve always shopped second hand, don’t care about cars, not into hair or anything… but I did think professional jobs (still paying back student loans for DH’s!) would mean having to pay the deposit on the Y7 residential in the same month as the 14 year old car needed a new cambelt wouldn’t be a crisis.

@FeelingPoor
At the risk of asking a stranger a wildly inappropriate question, how much do you earn? I ask because you describe yourself as middle income and I wonder what that is. 20 years ago I was a teachers earning 32k and I could afford lots of luxuries. I’m now part-time and earning the same but my money goes nowhere in comparison. I think middle income might be a red herring as what seems like a decent amount of money has been so eroded by inflation.

Not all of us skint-os on the thread are moaning a lack of savings while staring at a financed Audi parked on a heavily mortgaged drive. With all of my degrees and qualifications comes a tiny (v tiny) bit of intelligence.

My post wasn't really talking about cars on finance or heavily mortgaged houses, I was more referring to things like dishwashers, tumble driers etc. - stuff we happily drop hundreds of pounds on and can't imagine life without, but that would have been considered real luxuries not that long ago.

Yep, same sort of career, just had a £400+ car bill. It's reliable but it's 14 years old and we can't afford to replace it.

I remember when the guidance was you have 6 months' worth of salary saved in a rainy day account, and laugh. We have nothing like that and we're looking how to go away next summer, in the UK, as cheaply as possible. Caravan on the Yorkshire coast isn't cheap enough any more. No decisions until we know whether DH's job is safe though, they've just announced volunary severance. Sigh.

My earlier post wasn’t a dig about OP, or other pps (I’m very sorry if it came across that way); I know a lot of people IRL in their 40s who either replace cars every 2 years, and / or pay a lot in personal grooming or food deliveries from Ocado, and don’t have much spare money beyond that. I suppose it is choices really. My main point in earlier thread was that when we were first getting on property ladder it was possible to buy a small terraced house for £8k (mid 80s), a 2 bed flat for £22k (early 90s), and a 3-bed terrace house (London) for £88k (early 90s) and £145k (late 90s). The terrace house costing £145k in London in late 90s, would now cost around £900k. So has increased by more than 6 times. In the same period, salaries have probably less than doubled (certainly in the post-grad quals needed, but only small salaries sectors). Maybe that disparity is only of that scale in London, but the £8k house (not in London) from the mid-80s, is now worth approx £140k. And salaries in that region will also not have increased as much as that. I really think the spiralling costs of the housing market plays a major role. And I am so sorry.

I agree that spiralling housing costs are a huge issue - high mortgage costs, food, energy...we have to find ways of surviving. OP you need to look realistically at your outgoings, patch the problems in the house, accept that £140 does not need to be spent on a party - a few friends to tea instead - your child will survive.

Exactly. People are talking about not being able to afford to replace 15 to 20 year old kitchens and bathrooms as if they're ancient relics or both their showers breaking at the same time.

Our (only! ) bathroom must be 30-40 years old as the style is 1980s/1990s but it's not worn out so not a priority to replace although we could afford to if we wanted to and could be arsed with the upheaval.

There's so much more to spend money on these days that people simply didn't have until fairly recently (eg pre 2000). As well as ensuites and a constant cycle of home improvements there's all the electronics, subscriptions, eating out, deliveries, coffees and lunches etc etc.

Obviously it's impossible to say if anyone in particular could have saved more without details of their incoming and outgoings over time but for many it's down to priorities and most people can't have everything they might want.

Having said that, for a lot of people the impact of CoL is a significant reduction in disposable income, which is probably coming more noticeable as time goes on.

We are almost 46 and 51 and in the same boat. Graduate career but HE sector.
I need regular bail outs from my parents sadly! They volunteer it, they’d rather we had it while they are alive than in inheritance. But still, I had to accept £800 this month for an emergency repair which is hard although am very grateful.

We had a tumble drier and dishwasher in the 80s growing up.

People have to drop a couple of hundreds on them as they help in a household with 2 people usually working full time. 40 years ago there was usually someone at home most of the time or working part time.

70 years ago running water, an inside toilet, and a twin tub was seen as a luxury shall we go back to those days.

We are definitely feeling the pinch for extras. No axe to grind here but whilst our salaries have increased maybe 4% over three years, tradespeople seem to have increased a lot. Scaffolding is much more expensive.Paint is much dearer. We need two new Veluxes, that won’t be happening. I used to get frightened about the cost of my mot in my 20s because of the bill for repairs. This year the mot bill was £1800. A lovely lady does some cleaning for us - a long standing arrangement where their time cost roughly the same as mine in work per hour Now I’m on about £16 per hour and they charge £22.50

Love the idea that in the 1970s a twin tub and running water was a luxury.

We have some savings but won't take much to wipe us out - few years older.

We tend to have to plan - gifts, trip payments, their uni funds - over paid mortgagee. Only got those saving with last house move.

First house did everything right - fixed the rate as couldn't afford for them to go up - got stuck with high rate and a house where we couldn't leave thing that needed doing. Cost a fortune and sold for less than we bought.

Lucked out here - more expensive house but much cheaper mortgage and things not going wrong - even the fridge freezer they left 8 years ago is still going strong. Some thing are being ignored - and left to some future point.

Again we've had financial and practical help from both our parents which has made massive difference to us and out kids. Inflation hit us badly - spent winter before last very cold and damp in house - food still cheaper than before COL crisis - DH managed job change and pay increase.

Don't run a car, do cheap UK holiday and not every year, charity shop for clothes or supermarket or amazon and sometime have massive guilt to saying no to trips for kids.

We not doing badly at all - but not as comfortable as perhaps anticipated or expected.

I said 70 years ago not the 70s

@Teenangels - oops sorry!

You're missing my point @Teenangels.

Lots of people expect those things as standard but there are also millions of households who don't spend hundreds of pounds on those things.

I'm not saying they're not useful to many people but they're still way out of reach of many (for various reasons).

I think it's also a mismatch in wages for some sectors. A few posters have expressed suprise that I am not earning as much as I should be in a graduate career. Full disclosure: I earn £36 pa in a highly specialised role in a school. It's statutory. Your kids schools have someone like me. The wage is what it is, to earn more I would have to set myself up as a private contractor and charge middle class parents a lot of money. I don't want to do that for various reasons. My husband earns similar for a role in our local council. Again, he could only earn more by going into consultancy.

So clearly we are not rich, but I'd class us as middle waged. I don't want to live a rich person's lifestyle and care very little about 'things', I'm just a bit disheartened at how hard it is to build a normal buffer

It’s this, isn’t it? House, kids, cars, pets. Those are my expenses. I am very very lowdown on the list.

We finally fixed a toilet early this month that’s needed doing for ages. Only for unexpected car costs to crop up, in a month of family birthdays and whatever. Yes, ideally we’d have more cash in the car pot month by month. But there’s always something! Eagerly (not) awaiting my ruinous council tax bill for next year…

Oh god, bracing myself now for a load of posters telling me that we earn next to nothing and are ridiculous to expect to be able to treat woodworm on our meagre wages! Or alternatively that we ought to be rolling in it on those wages and clearly have been making bad choices.

Which is it going to be?? 😬

We have 2x public sector incomes. Both professional jobs, but neither of us trouble the top tax bracket. We do ok, but that’s with some caveats. Our housing costs are low. This is mostly luck – we bought in an affordable area 15 years ago. But also we continue live in a house that many of our peers would think unsuitable for two adults and two teens – small, 2.5bedrooms, no off-road parking, no downstairs loo, just a courtyard garden. We still have the same downstairs carpets that were there when we moved in, a leaky roof, and lots of other stuff that’s pretty tired but we let it limp on. In many ways I’m glad that we’re not really houseproud, and the bits that need sorting probably don’t bother me as much as they should.

This isn’t to slag off anyone who has a nice car or house - I do feel that it’s perfectly reasonable for people working hard in their forties to expect to be able to afford the odd luxury, rather than grinding from paycheck to paycheck.

What worries me is that we’ll be doing much less well when DC1 starts university in 2025 – we’re just into the income bracket where she will only get the minimum loan, and we’ll be expected to make up the difference between minimum and maximum loan of £5.5k annually, which is basically like a second mortgage.

Looming university costs also scare me.

Degree apprenticeships seem like a good way to go re: fees (they even earn a salary at the same time), either that or dc heading for a local uni where they live in halls year 1, then move back home for year 2 & 3.

Yep. I’ll be 40 this year and earn more than I ever imagined I would but the car is ancient, the house is tiny and I’m still resorting to beans on toast at the end of the month. It’s madness.

The middle aren't rich though - they are just that, i.e. the 'middle'.

I just googled, the Institute for Fiscal Studies have a ‘Your household’s income: where do you fit in” calculator (sorry not sure how to add the link on my phone), so you can work out yourself actually what income percentile you fall into, if you are interested. I think these things are more about your own personal experience and perception though.