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??

OP to be clear I agree that fixing woodworm isn’t glossy and materialistic 😁

I think some of your ££ comes from having a young adult who is at an expensive time of life - I always think 15-21ish they’re a massive money drain. Hopefully as they get more independent you’ll find your money goes further.

You must bring home about 4k a month between you, I think for most people that would be 1k mortgage, 1k other bills and food, 2k spending/saving/giving to teens?

Nobody has said either of those things, though.

I just think our expectations today (as a society) aren't necessarily very realistic.

I honestly think that it is a bit of a perfect storm at the moment - when housing costs are x6 (from 25 years ago), but salaries are only x1.5 or x2 (during the same period), then housing costs are in real terms 3 times what they would have been, not taking into account energy / food / services / inflation, and interest rates. I think there are a lot of issues contributing to the mismatch.

But I will say keep a look out for banks and energy companies that report the ‘highest ever’ profits this year / last year (as our bank did)… are they passing on interest rate drops or actual energy costs to their customers - No! It seems to me that some companies are realising that in this ‘cost of living’ crisis, they can continue to grow their profits, at the expense of consumers, because there is just an understanding that interest rates / brexit / inflation is so bad. And as for mortgages, it feels like a monopoly market at the moment - why are there so many 5-10 year fix mortgages about? (When shorter ones are rare, or prohibitively expensive). Interest rates will fall, and people will be left paying massive monthly payments for years while banks continue to grow massive profits. They are exploiting peoples’ desperation and financial pressures. It makes me really angry. Sorry for the rant!!

Haven't RTFT but regarding the woodworm, it's way cheaper to buy the stuff snd just spray it on yourself.

Our Edwardian house was riddled with it, had someone in who quoted us silly money to treat it, OH thought sod that, had a look at a YouTube Tube tutorial and treated it himself.

Might be worth considering..

I'm really struggling to understand how you can't afford any extras, your housing costs must be quite low relatively if you're living rurally?

Our income isn't much more than yours (both of us are working 4 days) but we have 2 days asc and 3 days of daycare to factor in. Mortgage is around 1k in a medium city, ok area and we manage holidays, restaurant once or twice a month etc. National trust membership for days out. I have about 18 months of salary in savings, small amount in investments and a pension. DH has less savings, about 6 months salary but has an endowment policy and pension. We save jointly for car replacement, home improvement and unforeseen joint costs (that's at about 15k currently) and put away 1k a year each for DCs

I'm with you OP late 30s and DH is 40. Be both graduated during 2008 crash and really struggled to get first graduate level jobs jobs so we ended up working out way up the NHS from cleaners to qualified staff. However we had more disposal income 10yrs ago when we both were unqualified porters and HCA.
Mumsnet ppl seem so split on ppl who are like us and those that feel we have 'done something wrong' or wasted our money on holidays or loans or luxury ect. I posted earlier this week and got told that I must have wasted my money on tatoos as a reason i needed help to pay for house repairs!!
I had to remind myself that money makes money and starting of with very little always puts ppl on back foot even if you work ' extra hard' and also hard work does not mean extra money and in turn it is not a value judgement on how 'good' we are as people despite other ppls judgements.
I'm not very eloquent at writing but I hope you understand the sentiment.

Thank you for your post

Omg OP I feel this so much. I worked my socks off, am on what I thought would be really decent income, my DH is also doing OK. We'd have been well off 5 years ago.

Now with all the increases, childcare (!!!) we have no savings left and some debt to pay off because of a number of unexpected events, such as my car being written off by a third party and having to buy a new one, 4 things have already gone wrong this year in our house too and don't get me started on car insurances and tax, all due now too. Am dreading April and we're getting no help from anyone, anywhere. Exactly that, rich on paper only. It's awful after investing so much time, work and money into our careers and being in senior roles now, it's nothing like what we hoped for. It's quite depressing.

I think you're optimistic with 1k mortgage and 1k bills these days, tbh.

When I look at our expenditure it's far above that and our mortgage isn't even fixed at a peak rate, bills also higher, and childcare equivalent to the second mortgage plus some debt payments too. The figures in total are eyewatering comparing to just a few years ago.

@Sailawaygirl I think you have articulated it really well actually. I didn't do anything wrong per se, but I was a single mum on a low income for years. I guess that accounts for the 15 years it would have taken me to save £18k - I didn't have it! And I still can't save 1k a month, we just can't. That seems wholly unrealistic to me, and I am as shocked by posters who think I can, as they are by my failure to do so!

Give me 3 months where nothing goes wrong, no big bills pop up, no changes or increases and maybe I can make some inroads!

Exactly the same boat. Professional qualification, professional services job.
I do earn more than you, but still under the higher rate band.
I drive a 12 year old car that sounds like it's going to blow up every time I take it on the motorway. Home is a 70s semi. I love my house but it could do with a repaint and some carpets. I can't afford it. I COULD replace the car but it would take every penny I have out of my savings (lucky enough to have a one off work bonus last year, never to be repeated so I am loathe to spend the money as it will NEVER happen again)

I barrel along ok on a monthly basis. But any replacements/repairs/luxuries are a no go.

It's embarrassing being reasonably highly paid at work in a professional job but turning up to the office with my yellow label whoops sticker lunch.

Honestly, no. But we're 40 and 42 with a household income of approx £125k, with no kids and low outgoings.

Our monthly mortgage payments are only £500 for our 4 bed detached thanks to flipping a couple of dooer-uppers when that was still possible, and we own our (old and crap) vehicles outright.

However, I'm shocked at how ordinary our lifestyle looks. Sure, we can currently afford to do whatever we want to the house within reason, buy whatever clothes and toys we want, go out for dinner a few times a month, go on holiday a couple of times a year.
But holiday home in the South of France, wine collection, personal trainer, and brand new sports car on the driveway - it is NOT, and that's honestly what I thought this income would afford us at this point, based on family friends I knew growing up.

I'm mid 40s for reference

@Minikievs I bet no one is judging your lunch! You won't be the only one in your position judging by this thread

I agree, we treated our woodworm ourselves when we moved into our current house. It’s easy to buy the stuff over the counter, but you do need to make sure you use protective equipment (mask / goggles / over suit etc, you can buy these also). And make sure it is well-ventilated while you do it (and follow all instructions!), wood worm chemicals are fairly nasty!

I@Minikievs I’d be in admiration of a yellow snickered lunch!

If you live rurally, you need to jump in a car to get anywhere. There are no handy local buses or trains for your DC to use, so you drive them everywhere too. It might be at least 10 miles to the nearest supermarket & then you can't shop around for an Aldi or Lidl. You might be forced to pay over the odds for oil as you don't have a mains supply. It's never as cheap as city dwellers believe.

I agree. Our washing machine broke and it’s costing us £600 to replace! So there goes my attempt at saving this month.

So because some can’t have them, no should?

I can just see me, washing 6 peoples washing and getting it all in the line everyday while I am working everyday.

Yup, same boat OP ( similar wage, proper job, was also a single parent for years)
On paper I SHOULD now be able to save £300 per month…. Except washing machine dies, feet keep growing, car failed MOT, council tax went up, needed root canal ( HOW much?!?!?)
Its endless. Am planning a full on assault on my career, need to earn another 15k within the next 2 years and really trying to make it happen. In the meantime I’m going to do some shifts in a pub…

I feel something that is overlooked for this age group is what happened to house price as we "came of age". When i graduated in 2000 they had been fairly low and steady for a long long time. they really really took off in the early 2000s and yes, although they have continued to rise exponentially that initial rocketing was as we were settling into adult life and totally unaware that houses were going to very quickly become unattainable on a modest wage. at least following generations have had their eyes wide open to that concept forever - not that it makes it any better, but that initial upward trajectory happened very quickly in a couple of years between us graduating and settling into careers

my sister, who is 3 years older than me bought her first house for £68k, by the time i had a few pay packets in my first proper job that had gone up to £150k

Yes agreed.
DH and I graduated in 2006 and felt like we were really missing out when we watched our friends all travel extensively through our 20s while we were saving our house deposit. But it meant we could buy our first flat in 2010 in a gentrifying area of a trendy city, and that set us up for life. We flipped that and a terraced house before moving to our 4 bed detached.
We can now do the travelling we missed out on in our early 40s and beyond, with our home taken care of and savings in the bank.

@TemporaryAccount definitely is a factor that this is our third property, second together. Not much equity from our respective first sales so that went mostly into our individual savings but quite a lot of equity in our last house so we put that into our current home, between renovations and deposit. Neither of us has ever had any other debts. I had an ok standard of living pre children but definitely nothing extravagant. Stemming from anxiety I've always saved and skipped things I can't comfortably afford.

Solidarity @PontiacFirebird 🤛

I think that property price thing is really important @TheBunyip . My DSis is a couple of years younger than me, similar household incomes and kids ages BUT she and BIL were gifted 50k by his family and so got on the property ladder in the early 2000s with a v small mortgage, have traded up regularly and now have a lovely house and are nearly mortgage free. We first managed to buy in 2011 with what we had saved and prices even by then were very different. So DS and family don't have an extravagant lifestyle, but do afford a holiday, a newer car etc.

We had a lot of challenges.
Both graduates but real struggle to get jobs early 2000s as so many graduates.
Then obviously the banking.crash
Ivf for both dc.
Dc1 sen so wouldnt settle at nursery.
In our 20y weve had 3 cars. But also 2 dishwashers and washing machines.
Had to renovate house, kitchen and build garage

We are definitely not living the life either of our parents did.
Second hand phones and i dont have.contract even.

No DB pensions here..