to wish I could live in the dreamworld of, 'we don't rely on my income'?

[ash1971]

Completely realise I'm probably BU, but, how do so many people live in this dreamy world? We have 3 dds, DP earns 'national average' - and that's just about enough for bills, food, boring/insurance etc. How do people do it? We don't even have Sky or a tumble dryer FGS and I work ft as a teacher. Not that I'm at all bitter - grr, grrr, . . . .And before anyone starts ranting about teachers' holidays - I'm armed with a bottle of wine!

We manage on one wage, by choice and have a 3rd child on the way. DH earns less than I did monthly (it was about 55:45) but gets a bonus that we can't or don't rely on in our annual budget - at best it is equivalent to 3mo wages net. We use that for savings or paying extra off the mortgage.

We were married 3 yrs before we bought the house (just before ds1 arrived and I gave up work) and saved a lot then - around half my salary - so we could put a decent deposit on a house, and we chose to buy based on 1 income and cautiously even then, making compromises so I could stay home with our baby. Neither of us brought any debt into the marriage and are both naturally stingy cautious when it comes to any sort of credit.

Since I've given up work, it's tight, but possible. I'm struggling to keep to my £50 per month food/household budget with price rises but we have some wriggle room and if need be I can cut back at the expense of un-necessaries. I'm frugal but fit in chocolate and ale - something more, like a decent single malt is a birthday present and we are fortunate enough to have large extended families who mostly earn more than us! We consider ourselves well off but our income isn't big bucks at all. But we don't spend on much really - don't drink a lot, go out anywhere that costs, no cable/tv, run one car and carefully, holiday budget is small, don't spend much on Christmas or birthdays. Our treat is most likely to be a takeaway and something on iPlayer.

I'm expecting it to get harder as the kids get bigger appetite, feet and ideas so I practise making the money stretch now, pray and plan to earn a little around family life doing small things to pay for maybe shoes or something. We wanted to live like this, married planning it and work at managing. It is possible if you start from a good point and if you think strategically - and if no major spanners get thrown into the works.

It'm amazed at the different perceptions people have of how much money you need to live. gentleness how on earth do you manage on £50/ month food/household budget? What comes under 'household' and how many children do you have? I think I'd spend more than that on food for one person.

I've lived abroad for 10 years in a country where wages and the cost of living are both much higher than in the U.K, but 10 years ago i earned more than today's average salary and i never felt particularly well off. I bought a 2 bed terrace with help from my parents for the deposit, and after paying the mortgage, bills, insurances, food, huge amounts of tax on my company car and fuel etc, I didn't have a lot left. I can't imagine our family of 4 living on that in the same place now. It was a relatively expensive area though.

gentleness was £50 a typo? What does that cover if not.

Ha - I'm surprised you are surprised!

I did manage, so it can be managed. There are so many strategies - try the MSE forums for example. What I do is meal plan so virtually nothing gets wasted, bulk buy, only buy eg cereals when on a half price offer, eat meat or fish fewer times in the week and bulk out curries and casseroles with more pulses and veg, choose only treats that are on offer (from chocolate to raspberries!), buy stuff date-reduced and bung it in the freezer, make my own eg pizza bases - all stuff that is easier when you are feeding more than one and have the space to stash an extra 24 toilet rolls or 10kg rice. We don't eat puddings in the week either (though the kids have yoghurts and mainline fruit). Household stuff means clingfilm etc, kitchen roll etc, washing up liquid etc.

At the moment I've been hitting nearer £60 a week groceries because of rising costs and being a bit lazy with the budgeting AND we've been getting takeaway weekly rather than fortnightly. We've got enough buffer to absorb it for now but I need to get over this first trimester exhaustion and get in control of my household again.

No No No - £50 week. A WEEK! Yes - a brain-mush typo - sorry! No wonder I was surprised you were surprised. In my defence there are 3 burglar alarms wailing outside and I'm in bed sick.

Sorry - ignore unnecessary explanations in previous post.

Sigh.

Still don't know how you do it. Well I did it once, as a challenge and I managed it but it was grim and I had a good store cupboard.

You just have to choose to - it can be done. It's not grim if you decide not be grim about it. What's grim about spinach and chickpea curry, smoked mackarel pasta, red pepper & spinach pizza, roast chicken & jersey royals & stuffing & 4 veg, mushroom risotto? That was last week's dinner menu. Lunch was the leftover chicken or mackarel pate in sandwiches or on toast or toasties, with salad, crisps, fruit. We enjoy what we eat and we'd enjoy it if we spent more too but there is something very satisfying about sticking to a budget to help with a long-term family target of paying off the mortgage fast.

That all sounds defensive - it isn't meant to. I just don't want anyone thinking it's a horrible life when really, it's all a matter of attitude.

£50 a week doesn't seem that ridiculous - I spend between £25-£50 a week (for 2 adults and one toddler) depending on how much meat/wine/toiletries I buy and that's without particularly budgetting or being frugal. £50 if you are careful seems very doable.

I think referring to a food budget of £50 as 'grim' is patronising and disrespectful to those that have no other option

No, you don't Hexagonal, you just want to be personal because from anonymous postings on a forum you have drawn a misconceived view of what I am about and take everything out of context. You clearly like bullying someone you have taken a dislike to. Would you like me to pm you my phone number so you can do it in person or don't you have the guts. Do let me know becuase I would be delighted to defend myself in real life.

Whoa marriedinwhite, that's a bit strong! And yes, of course I would tackle you in person if I disagreed with what you're saying.

FWIW I do think it was rude to poo-poo the amount that some families spend on food per week. You might think it's grim, and it isn't particularly easy, but to some families that is how it is. Like Gentleness said, there is nothing grim about their weekly menu.

And I don't intend to bully you or appear to bully you at all marriedinwhite, I'm sorry that you feel that way.

£40 - £50 a week is what we spend on groceries for 2 adults and 2 primary age children. It is certainly very do-able ime. DH and I both work and both earn more than the national average so could, if we wanted to, spend more than that but we don't need to.

Wow - I was just thinking we could be cutting back further then! Then I realised there is a fair amount of catering included in that. But yep, I reckon we live pretty well! Oh -for it to be possible on £50 a MONTH !

Grim: admitting of no appeasement or compromise.

When I did it I found feeding an adult and two teenagers for five days and two adults and two teenagers for two day "grim". I found it hard work, inconvienient and difficult. I had to go to the supermarket daily and buy reduced items and the lack of choice and time involved was grim.

I find nothing grim about the Gentleness's menu plan - it sounds lovely as indeed was mine when I did it and it is notable that she spends that in spite of having more available and it is a life choice. It would be truly grim if anyone was doing that on, say £40pw and had no choice. I was not rude to gentleness personally and she did not post in response to what I wrote. I take my hat off to her. I would, however, with a fulltime job, a full on home life and two teenage children, not like to manage on £50 pw.

You, however, have pulled me up for about three days now whenever I have said anything that you have personally chosen and interpreted as out of order in your opinion. Further up this thread indeed you referred to your own admirable circumstances as you are quite entitled to do and I doubt you expected to be flamed for the post.

You are very welcome to say something personal and nasty in future in response to an innocent post of mine which is not intended personally, somewhat unlike your recent responses to me, but rather as in real life I shall pick you up on it, especially when you appear to have been doing it systematically for a number of days in the manner of a vindictive and rather nasty bully.

Those that say they can't comprehend spending 30k a year, in this country it completely depends on location.

We live in central London ( have to with work 12-16hr days, 30 min commute really is our max to cope), and our 1 bed flat is almost 20k in rent a year! (faints)

I know it's extortionate, but like I say it's our lifestyle and we had to make the choice. Any further out and we might as well sleep at work and would pay huge travel fees each.

I wonder what income people in a 3 bed house around here must earn as its double to triple min more per year

We simply couldn't afford for us both not to work and both on over national average

Alot of you are assuming that everyone has to pay childcare - I do have 3 DC but am really fortunate that my work fits entirely around my DCs school hours and therefore pay none - if I was doing another job it would be a different matter , toss up between working more hours to cover subsequently more childcare costs. I know a lot of pepole who work and have family do the childcare which again makes it possible on low incomes with larger families.
Also there is an assumption that families are planned with military precision and cost planning and spreadsheets etc. We 'planned' 2 (as in thought that would be nice) but we had 3 , life sometimes does that to you - but without that crystal ball you can only deal with what it throws at you .
however there's no harm in dreaming about a rosy life - big inheritance , lottery win, better paid job - who knows it may happen

yes - grocery budgets is where we made many changes - now I have the dizzy luxury (as it still seems to me) of buying one bottle of fizzy a month, cheese strings on half price offers and multipack branded crisps.

when we had less money (liefstyle choice ie I was sahm) we never bought squash, crisps, yoghurts, cakes, lunchbox prepacked stuff, loads of things in fact. Lots of fairly tasteless value and own branded food.

We lived like this for years and years - but it was still a choice. I can easily imagine (now we dont have to do that, even though our standards will be frugal in many people's eyes) that for someone to contemplate giving all this glitzy supermarket stuff up and shopping on a shoestring might seem ghastly - but its all about choices.

You can and do get used to it - you could give something else up instead and increase your food budget by £20 a month.

Most or almost all people with kids and without many debts can manage on one salary if that is what they want to do

I live in the 'dreamworld' where my DH doesn't get to see our DC during the week (but we have sky).

Our dreamworld was assisted by the facts:

I saved all through my twenties and worked two jobs and saved for a deposit for a house.
Hubby's estranged father died and he came into a small inheritance.
I was involved in a car crash and recieved some compensation which we ploughed into our mortgage.
I was made redundant and recieved a payout which we ploughed into our mortgage.
We will be mortgage free in aprox four years. We could reduce payments now to make life easier but we instead have decided to keep ploughing money into it.

We have two children, I pay for childcare and after that, whatever is left is my spending money.

Yeah, I live in that dreamworld too.

If you are comfy on one salary it's usually because one of you is working like stink.

We've lived one one salary for the past twelve years. I've worked part time on and off during that time, but have three children now and childcare costs are so high we've decided I'll be a sahm again.
We had to take risks and make certain choices for me to a sahm. When I first became a sahm in 2000, we moved 250 miles to find better paid work. My husband then took the risk of contracting, which pays very well, but obviously then there's the forever present risk of contract coming to an end.
Do you live in an expensive area? If you're a teacher and your other half is on national average salary, you must be taking home about 50k between you, which is more than a lot of people have to survive on. Is it all swallowed up in childcare? Our friends have a 2k a month childcare bill, so I can see how that works. We chose to have three children, and were always of the opinion that I'd probably be a sahm if we had more than 1 or 2 children, because daycare is not cheap. And juggling 3 children of different ages around various daycare settings is a logistical headache. Oh, how I wish I had lovely grandparents nearby who could assist!

This is really interesting. I would love not to work too. My husband brings home £1200 a month. Is this the national average or less? Our mortgage is £400 a month. I feel like we rely on my monthly wage of £800, but maybe it would be do-able. It's interesting to see the mechanics of how people actually do it. I can't get my weekly shopping bill to be under £80 and even then I feel like I'm scrimping!

I thought we relied on my wage til I got made redundant - we cut back and lived off DH's salary only for 2 months and, because we were very careful, we found we still had cash left at the end of the month - I honestly don't know what we were spending my wage on, we were both really

I think a lot of it depends on how much you're willing to compromise your lifestyle?

cumbrianmam - go onto the tax credits website, put in yr details and children and see what your top up would be. Add this and your child benefit to your husbands net income, I suspect you would be tight/okay but doable to live on one salary with £400 mortgage