to be so fed up with working so hard and still having no money

[slipperandpjsmum]

I work full time 50 hours plus. I was paid on Tuesday. I have just checked my balance and I am £12.00 overdrawn, which means as I have a month to go I will be up to the max on my overdraft by the time I am paid again. I feel like all I do is work and then still can't say, well at least we can afford to have nice holidays etc. I am so fed up with being broke!!!!

no you are not,,can't you look for another job?or are you spending a lot?

It's a horrid feeling and I don't think YABU
I always wonder why I ever came back to this country because all your money just gets swallowed up so quickly.

Yeah, when DH and I came back here after 4 years away we were horrified at how much gets taken. Our refrain for the first year was 'everyone has their hand in your pocket'.

I earn bang on the national mean and we are struggling dreadfully.

Only recommendations are the usual ones I am afraid.. make a list of outgoings. We did this, and realised that fully 3K was being taken away every year thru booze. Now we just drink on Sat nights and Wednesdays and it has made one hell of a difference to our diosposable income.

I'm never out of my overdraft. We are up to our overdraft limit by about the 10th of each month. Am also pissed off with it. Can't remember the last time I was in the black, even by a pound.

Totally understandable feeling. Have no other advice other than what has been said, if you don't do so already do a budget and spend a month writing down absolutely everything (inlcuding silly things that cost pence down) to see if there are any savings you can make and/ or look for another better paid job.

Am with you on this one. Waiting for Monday (Child Ben, at least for the next two years!) but we get paid, put the balance at the top of the outgoings list, do the sum and !

Thanks for the replies - its reassuring to know we are not alone.

TooBlessed - our out goings are as low as they can be really. Haven't been able to afford to go on holiday for 3 years now. Had to stop any extra curricular activities eg swimming, guitar, dancing. Everyone takes sandwiches for lunches. We never go out for an evening, never have take aways, write a weekly menu and stick to it when shopping. But its getting me down. I work so hard and feel like its all for nothing.

Don't want to sound like I am moaning - but I suppose I am really!!

Your right to moan, the fuckers running this country and it's businesses are screwing normal people into the ground. Constant rises in prices for electricity, gas and petrol, wage freezes eyc.

In a couple of years time the student protests wont be the half of it, there will be plumes of smoke over London and running battles with the Police when we stop being the apathetic bunch of doormats a lot of people are and we do a "Greece/French", bring it on.

Four words: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. I'm reading this at the mo and can't believe I hadn't even heard about this book until last week. It was written over a century ago but it has shocked me to realise how similar the position of the working class is today. It describes exactly the feeling you have - working hard and scraping by- and it explains why this is. I recommend it as one of the most enlightening books I have ever read (in terms of the proverbial penny dropping.)

is it the cost of your overdraft that is keeping you overdrawn IYSWIM?

Have you got anything that you can ebay/sell to help get you out of the red?

You've been on MSE or similar and checked you've got the cheapest providers/insurance etc etc?

yep you are not alone. wages just haven't gone up at all in years

I am now panicking, why are we "okay"???? Presumably because our mortgage is lowish (just ignore the fact we will still be paying it off in our 60s) and we live frugally and have done for a decade?

Are your fixed outgoings very high?

Are you claiming all the tax credits etc you are entitled to?

Are you making large debt repayments?

If you are working you should have something left at the end of the month to show for it.

I don't work outside the home but DH does and we never have any money, always into overdraft/credit cards. We used teco clubcard vouchers to go on 'holiday' this year.

Same as Rockbird.

Now we'll be paying 8% more for power and VAT's going up. Fuel duty, too, which means food will cost more.

We are never in the black and have never been able to clear our debt.

"If you are working you should have something left at the end of the month to show for it."

Not likely when wages are kept as low as possible by a pool of unemployment (no capitalist system in its right mind would allow full employment-the greater the number of unemployed the lower the wage bill and so as long as they convince everyone the unemployed are scroungers who don't deserve a decent level of "hand outs" they are quids in.) Tax us as far as we will stand (make sure your own class can "opt out" though via loop holes) and then squeeze every last penny possible back from us for the basics like a roof and food and fuel (which they can do because they claimed ownership of these resources long ago.)

And there you have it, people working as hard as they can making a profit for the boss and just managing to meet the essentials.

I know that's a bit of a rant but I feel really strongly that that's about the size of it.

Its true that middle income types are screwed over every which way possible.
Unless youre on a huuuge income - the harder you work the less you have

'If you are working you should have something left at the end of the month to show for it.'

Not if you are working poor a lot of times, particularly if you are a private renter.

cargirl you say - I am now panicking, why are we "okay"???? Presumably because our mortgage is lowish (just ignore the fact we will still be paying it off in our 60s) and we live frugally and have done for a decade?

Well, you're just the sort of person Lord Young was refering to in his gaffe this week. Mortgage on low rate so lots more disposable income.

I bet most of those who are struggling, if they take a look at their budgets, will find that housing is the bulk of the costs.

Yes, when we were privately renting, the rent, and utilities and council tax and commuting cost £500 a month more than I took home after tax. We were bleeding money. It was horrendous.

or you have a mortage and had to maintain your house expat

I feel the same.

Have been on the CTC site and we MIGHT be eligible for £28.50. Hardly seems worth claiming it.

If the interest rate hadn't gone down, we'd be repossessed.

By the time we pay childcare, mortgage, council tax and necessary bills we have around £400 a month left to spend on everything else eg food, diesel, necessities, emergencies, anything else (family of five).

We now earn 48k between us. We should be comfortable . At least it will change when all the DC's are in school and we don't pay a childcare bill higher than some family total incomes.

We are on 50k gross between us. Although not great earnings we should be comfortable too but we both live on our overdrafts. I believed we must be doing something really wrong budget wise even though I know we don't buy expensive things and our last holiday was 2 years ago. I kept a diary of spending for a month in October and found just £33.24 we could have avoided through forward planning/avoiding unnecessary purchases. We are worse off than we were 5 years ago by a clear mile and we have increased our earning by £10k since then. For us the difference seems to be food and fuel prices.

Agree with newwave and enabledebra, we live in a world designed to take from the poor and give to the rich. Viva la revolution!

If you think about it, what exactly entitles the Monarchy and landed gentry to own the land that they do. Fuck all apart from the fact they happened to have a lot of power in the past due to exploiting people. Divide and conquer is in full force, middle class against working class etc. People tend not to look at the big picture.