to think you cannot possibly support a family on 29K?

[AliceBlackwell]

Please please please tell me I AM being unreasonable! My DH has been offered a wonderful job which he would love to take, but the pay is only 29K. Taking the job would mean leaving London, and while I do appreciate that salaries do drop outside London, I really fear that this is just not enough money to support a family.

Back story: we do not have children yet, plan on TTC in a few months. I am self-employed; when we have a baby I will have to stop work (at least for a few months) and will have no income. We have no savings, having recently finished paying off debt (credit cards, old student loans etc.) and do not own a house. This will mean moving to a new city, renting, trying to save for a mortgage, hopefully starting a family - all on 29K!

I have namechanged to prepare for inevitable flaming. I don't mind being told I am being unreasonable/ridiculous - I hope I am! It just seems such a huge drop from what we are earning now, and believe me, it doesn't feel like we are living the high life.
Please tell me money goes much further outside London, and that it would be possible to have a comfortable life on this money. I didn't grow up in the UK, and have only been living here a couple of years, so don't really have any point of reference apart from London. I know that we haemorrhage money just opening the front door here.

Looking forward to being told IABU.

Antipodes also have a good way with research and planning.

I'm a big British slacker .

Xenia would kill me .

One, one thing to budget for as it is now becoming a significant cost: if you have not achieved ILE/IRL, this visa is becoming increasingly costly. And nationality - get it as soon as you are eligible! Every year, the criterion is changing and the fees going up up up.

It was about £200 when I got it.

It's not up around £800.

Some people have experienced problems obtaining a mortgage when they don't have ILR, for obvious reasons, even when they are married to a British national, or they are offered not so attractive interest rates.

So it's probably wise you look to rent first until this has come to pass.

Yes I know! I have just paid out more than a grand for ILTR, and will soon be applying for a passport. It is tempting to stay on the visa I have, but I guess it will feel more secure to be officially 'British'.

Where are you planning to move to - most importantly how much are property prices there?

Where I live you can buy a nice 3-bed terrace for around the 100k mark.

So work out how big a mortgage you would need, how much the repayments would be, what the extra bills would be. Then work out how much 29k would equate to in monthly take home pay and do the sums.

I have a 40k mortgage and with all household bills, insurance, car insurance, council tax, mobile phone bills, contact lens direct debit, internet, cable TV it costs £800 a month. Then on top of that is food and petrol, clothes, haircuts, shoes.

Obviously if you have a bigger mortgage then your monthly outgoings will be more - can't remember how much our actual mortgage is, somewhere between £200 and £250 I think. So yours may be a bit more than double of that.

Remember if you have a child you would get child benefit which is about £80 a month. That goes a long way towards buying nappies and baby clothes. You wouldn't have to stop work for ever.

I'd not stay on IRL. For one, they're now charging £150 to put it on a new passport if you have to renew or lose it.

Grrr.

Plus, there are always motions to try to make it harder to stay on ILR.

It's miles easier, too, just to tick off 'British' on forms.

On ILR, you have recourse to all public funds, you just can't vote or hold certain jobs.

ILR was free when I got it.

I can already vote as a member of the Commonwealth, which is nice. Yes, the passport will be the next 'big' expense for us. My poor DH is so sick of waiting for an hour while I trail along the 'aliens' line at passport control after he has breezed through the British line!

DH had to renew his last year. It was friggin' 81 quid after the photo.

The childrens' were a little over 50 quid each with photos, and then there's a leaflet with them that says they're actually only good for 4.5 years as they now need a 6-month cushion before expiry to travel. WTF?!

YABU - we manage on alot less than this and we are not poor! we live a comfortable lifestyle.

Expat I had to renew my three dc's american and british passports (6 in total) this month.

The UK requires that they fly into the UK on their UK passports and the USA requires that they fly into the USA on their American passports. So we all have to bring two passports each when we travel.

US embassy requires that we go down to London (from North Yorkshire) to apply in person. Had to be there at 0900 so we had to get a hotel.

All in all the grand total for passports, travel, hotel, passport pics x6, etc etc came to well over £1000.

Don't think we will be going to Orlando after all.

Why oh why did I go for dual citizenship for them.

Can't you go to Edinburgh from N Yorkshire? I was able to do my childrens' US passports at the Consulate in Edinburgh.

I did all those in May of last year and then their UK ones earlier this year to spread the cost as it was just too dear for 6 passports for 3. Plus, I had to renew my US one last year, too. At least mine's for 10 years.

Now, with renewals, you have to show age progression via photos, too. I didn't have to do this last May for DD1, but apparently you have to now.

DD1's photo for her British passport was rejected and the HO chap was a real arse on the phone, too.

@ Kwini

"we go abroad once or twice a year but otherwise live very simply (might go out to dinner a couple of times a month, or to the theatre a few times a year)"

I think this illustrates the difference of expectations, really - we used to live in London and pre-children would have considered the above to be a modest existence.

However, post children, working part time, etc means that we have been out to dinner once in the evenings on our own in the last year, we have not been abroad since 2006 when we got married, and have not been to a concert/theatre for over a year.

You'll find when you have kids that there just aren't the same opportunities to go out etc, nor, with part-time working or being on mat leave, is there the money! You'll look back at your current lifestyle and it will seem like the height of sociability and sophistication!

Alice: I moved away from London in order to buy a house and start a family. We both took paycuts in order to do so.

We were forced to eliminate most of our no-vital spending when the first baby arrived (and how I wish I'd spent a bit less beforehand, so I had some savings to fall back upon), but I actually find it refreshing to accumulate less crap in my life. Yes, I wish I could magic some money up from somewhere (god, I need some more shoes), but I'm not prepared to go back to the way of life that engendered it. Material possessions are like biscuits: the more I have, the more I want. So I do better in a less competitive environment, in which I can appreciate other qualities like the freedom to work less and spend time with my children.

Also, I suppose I lived quite 'hard' in my 20s: lots of holidays, socialising and a great deal of stuff. If I ever feel deprived, I have a nicely colourful memory bank

The other thing I learnt is that budgeting can ENABLE I always saw it as a restrictive exercise (fearful that adding up my spending would force me to stop), but I do wish I'd spent less on intangible fripperies and had put it towards enabling me to have a bit more time on maternity leave.

You'll be fine. There are all kinds of ways you can spend less for a short length of time. When you go back to work, you can ease up a bit on the hair shirt

Good luck

Also think that it is well worth the drop in income if your DH will be happier in his new job.

And don't worry about denying your child vital life choices because you don't live in London .

And don't worry about denying your child vital life choices because you don't live in London .

In the UK, average household income after tax was around 29k a couple of years ago (from ons statistics).

I wish my dh earned anywhere near 29K!!!

We have possibly around half that, 2 dc's, a dog, are renting and neither of us drive.

But....we are very ver comfortable and happy.
Seriously! It's a pretty good life! We would like a bit more, as obv life would be easier if we had a bit of leeway, but we will get there. We started on a lot less, but it just means we have more to look forward to. We feel so grateful for what we have now, as we started out with nothing and it's a continuing nicety of life that as we progress we get more.

29K is plenty to be getting on with
You are very lucky.

Druzhok: I think your point about budgeting is spot on: I am scared to confront my money habits. I love the things I do without thinking about it: eating out several nights a week, meeting a friend at posh coffee shops between meetings, picking a few items of clothing in a sale I just happen to wander past, ordering seven books from amazon because it suggested them - you get the picture. I know this will have to change, and I don't want it to. So you describing budgeting as enabling is very very interesting. Thank you. I will go off and ponder this.

Unless you're pretty well off, though, Alice, that sort of spending is usually curtailed anyway once you have children, especially once they are school-aged and really start to cost £££.

This term (Scottish schools return to school in mid-August), I've got: two lots of Highland dancing lessons, two lots of Beavers fees, two lots of football, two lots of swimming lesson. Plus all the kit that goes with this and diesel/wear and tear on our car to get to and from these activities.

Uniforms, pocket money for chores/savings, snacks, cinema trips occassionally (they start asking to go see certain films), gifts (they start asking for specific things), etc.

Babies are dirt cheap, IMO. It's children who cost big time!

Can someone who says they survive on half that please give me a breakdown of how they survive on 12k income a year (which is more or less what half of 29k pre tax is)?

Either you pay very low accommodation costs, receive help from the state (nowt wrong with this but it is income as well) or something I'm missing??

I'm with Tyler on this!
I actually also don't think the op is being unreasonable.... I must need to relocate!

I think a £12k income would need support from the state tbh. If you're going on rent of about £400 per month (which would be an HA property) and base outgoings of again about £400 per month that's £9600 a year. On that, you're left £2400 a year (£200 pcm). If you're forced to, for whatever reason, its doable, I've never survived on benefits alone, but I guess that's about the amount you would get with that? With an earned income of £12k, you would get tax credits and child benefit and possibly help from HB and CTB as well.

I still think the OP is being dramatic, but I understand fully the fear of the drop in income.