Gone from ‘Well Off’ to ‘Completely Skint’? Please tell me about it!

[BenignKipper]

I have had it verrrrrry easy and I knew it. Good professional monthly salary, able to throw stuff in my trolley at M&S Simply Food and not worry about what it would come to, nice wardrobe from Toast and Zadig etc. Are you running a marathon for a good cause? Great, of course I will sponsor you £30 etc etc.

But my circumstances have seriously changed. Salary the same but divorce means I am looking at £10-15 a day disposable income after bills and travel. I’ve pared everything back in my budget and I can survive (obviously).

But I know it will be a shock to my system, emotionally/socially - it seems scary. Has anyone done this? Do you have any tips to navigate it?

Op start saving in small increments now for the larger expenses eg hopefully birthdays are next year now ,put a fiver away each month .

Was it 10 a week or month disposable income ?

Anyway this is what we did when we had no money except for us it was £2 a week into those tin money jars you can't open. We had one boring lean year whilst we built up our pots !
Having even 20 or 30 to use towards events was a great help.
Then it rolls on .

I would genuinely love to know - did you really feel like things would never end or change?

Did you feel like you didn’t need savings?

Did it not factor?

I know no one thinks it is going to get worse -
but you were clever enough to get the gig and you knew the money was ridiculous’….

Honestly, you adapt and you get used to it so fast. Nice meal out at a fancy restaurant used to be a treat? You just don’t eat out at restaurants anymore. Takeaway becomes a treat.

You get used to bringing tea or coffee to work in a travel mug rather than buying it out. You buy things for the kids from Vinted and in sales rather than the full price nice brands you used to buy them. You get a couple of side projects on the go: I made £100 last week doing 90 minutes of zoom market research.

Shop at Aldi. Life goes on!

Ok re read so you can do things with 10 day.

Get monzo/starling ...something u can use pots with and start saving now.
20 a week to Christmas , 15 to bdays and X to holidays .
Split it all up make every penny go somewhere accumulating including for fun stuff.

@Bananaandmangosmoothie where did you get your market research gig

O, and buy little bits for Christmas and birthdays when you see them so they build up over the year.

Angelfish 🙂

Did you get half of the equity ?? Something isn't adding up

What is your salary ?

Having son aged 16 years of age, that's almost paid off home. You should have at least 100k from the equity

Buy a flat, don't rent. Apparently the landlord will do your repairs etc ...

It's not adding up lady

Echo the pps who say see if your 16 yr old can get a job - mine both worked from 16 (aged 18 now - one as a lifeguard and one as a waitress) and it’s been a godsend as they can pay for their own buses, clothes etc when I can’t afford it. Good luck and I hope better times come soon.

I always assumed the kind of people who were living the kind of lifestyle @BenignKipper describes were also shoving huge amounts away in savings and investments. So I don't understand the renting a flat with a tiny freezer?

Is this just an interim thing?

Because DH and I split when we had two young children in nursery and lived on a "food from Aldi and essential clothes only and even then from Tesco's" budget and we both had enough equity to buy again (and no help from parents)

Is it just that you are renting till the divorce is finalised? I guess I am assuming it has completed but you may mean you have just separated?

I agree with this. DSD has saved up enough to buy a car and she's only just finished college. All from her own work.

You've hit a rainy day. Pity you didn't save for it.

WTF? Do you even realise this comment says everything about you and absolutely nothing about op?

Hi yes of course it’s hard, you’ve transitioned from solvent and spontaneous to skint and no spontaneity
Use the apps like Olio and TooGoodToGo Go, batch cook etc. But I’m sure you know all that

wishing you and your son well

Primary, Mountain warehouse.
Two pair of jeans , few tops , a jacket and trainers...

Still curious what the op does for work

Why, op came on reciting brand names like they are religions. It's actually baffling op has no savings to fall back on /no equity to buy a house with

Also 100s of 1000s missing equity. It's not adding up

I doubt they were married. It was just a partner

No I don't. Please explain.

It is little if it is for all those things.

Give up M&S definitely. You can make better healthier food. Buy seasonable vegetables in a market if you can, and Lidl for other things.

Don’t go out for coffee. Make your own cafe

where you are!

Give ‘vintage’ gifts (charity shops these days can be better than shops for interesting books and toys for example). Buy ‘Vinted’ clothes. You can get excellent, high quality clothes for much less than any shop.

Go to your library to read newspapers or magazines.

Yeah I’m curious too…good question - I shall read on to see if OP answered it lol

To the posters questioning my circumstances - actually going from well off to broke is not that unusual as others on this thread have demonstrated.

It isn’t a moral failing, and in my case it is an active choice. I am sure it is comforting to imagine that only the feckless can have this kind of downfall but that isn’t the truth.

If you have enough for hundreds of pounds for two panels of cloths stitched together (buying Toast without thinking) but then didn’t have the foresight to realise that a couple hundred pounds does people for a budget of a month. it says something about the original poster.

And if you don’t buy three dresses you suddenly have £1000 which is the start of an emergency fund. That is ‘getting your ducks in a row’ means on MN.

And ‘giving your head a wobble’. If you have means to be well off - no one actually goes completely skint. They become a little less well off. Unless we’re not been given the full picture.

Using the last of my inheritance to pay for DD at private - was going to be enough for A Levels too but now she will have to come out after GCSEs, and I will be flat broke rather than have any buffer left over.

I don't have any fancy things though, so no cutting back here - we shop at Aldi and have an old car, can't afford house repairs, don't have private healthcare and I am a single mum. I'd suggest taking a look at your local Aldi and just cracking on with the rollercoaster that is "will my roof cave in if it keeps increasingly leaking for another year" fun that your life now is. It'll keep you on your toes!

What?! £10-15 disposable income a month not skint? What can you do for fun for a £2,50 a week?