If you live in the south east and have a family of 4-6 (or thereabouts)

[PoodlesOfFun]

What would you say you need to live on as a family? And not be fucked financially?

Our mortgage is a bit higher than your rent (£1250) on a four bed detached in Oxfordshire. We earn about £85k between us, and have one DS, with one set of nursery des. We don't live frugally but we don't feel like we're especially well off. We're trying to decide whether we can afford another child at the moment - we certainly couldn't afford two more and for me to be a SAHM.

mummytime it's not online anywhere, I've called twice and been told this over the phone. I was told it was going to be part of a change that the gov was rolling out and would be standard by Sept and that was why nothing online refllects that. www.gov.uk/contact-student-finance-england these are the ones who advised me. I hope they've made an error! I have got two passports so I am technically Eu but it wasn't the Eu country we were in for residency. Dh is British but I don't think it makes any difference for us when applying. If for some reason they keep it to three years I will be 2 months shy of residency in Sept and can start the year after.

People have to cut their cloth but tbh sounds tight for you and your family.

Asking how people get deposits, no help from relatives for us and this is how we did it.

I started saving money when I was 13 when I got my first job after school. I also started investing and fiddling about with money when still quite young, all very risky obviously. The hilarious thing is I had a teacher take us for general studies who was a hardened Marxist and explained the evils of the shock exchange. I hadn't even heard of it but thought hello that sounds like money for old rope.

DH had done the same sort of thing. In the best year which was a few years ago we made around 22k. We paid off our mortgage in just under 10 years. Having no housing costs from age 38 is very helpful.

I look at all banks, financial advisors etc as people that want money out of me just for scrolling through some data sets and reeling off whatever that data brings up.

Top tip never discuss your finances with anyone apart from your partner and if you do use a financial advisor type person though we never have. My family have no idea I have paid off my mortgage as its none of their business. We also left the hotbed that is the SE.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/349054/bis-14-1301-consultation-on-eu-nationals-access-to-higher-education-student-living-cost-support.pdf

Ah here is the proposal from 2014.
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/349054/bis-14-1301-consultation-on-eu-nationals-access-to-higher-education-student-living-cost-support.pdf

Well great typo that should be stock not shock exchange though possibly apt.

I hadn't even heard of it but thought hello that sounds like money for old rope.

£1500 covers mortgage, bills, insurances, food and clothes.

Two adults and three children of 15, 12 and 10.

Large three bedroom house in a nice area.

Live comfortably spending within our budget.

Did you buy your house quite a while ago bec?

We bought our first house in 1999 (that looks strange written down used to 2000s now!!)
Saved up to get enough for a deposit, bought first house for £57k sold in 2004 for £114k, bought next house for £163k sold for £250k last year and bought current house for £275k.
No plans to move now until mortgage is paid off. Got on the property ladder at the right time as no way we could afford to buy for the first time now.

He was very lucky - but I knew he wouldn't sign and play ball unless he got something from it for himself. And being in another country meant he could have really made my life difficult.
Selfish feckin' wanker!

We live in Surrey. just DH and I but pregnant with first.

We have a combined package of £72,000. I say package as that includes DH company car and also we both have student loans which come out which takes our take home down by about £300/month on what it would be otherwise.

We live in a rented 3 bed (one bed very small though) which costs £1650/month, could now save about £700/month towards a deposit and have a pretty nice lifestyle as well. Recently moved from more expensive accommodation in London and would struggle to save to buy then. Now as I'm pregnant we will struggle to save again due to childcaRe costs.

My commute costs are expensive (more than £300 a month), DH marginal due to mostly working from home. Until now we have had a big holiday every two years and maybe a few weekend breaks in between. Shopping is mostly Sainsburys or Lidl with a bit of Waitrose thrown in. We do eat out probably once a fortnight, sometimes once a week.

I stress about buying clothes but realistically we can afford a couple of items each a month.

I would say to be comfortable with one or two children and basically have the same standard of living we have now, we would need a combined income of £80-90,000. I appreciate I am lucky to be able to eat out, go on holiday and things like that. It hasn't always been like that and there was a brief period a few years ago where we had significantly less and could barely afford to live!

We are in the SE, in sussex. DP earns 24k, I am a SAHP with one child, very soon to be 2. We struggle as most money is taken up by rent (2 bed house) and bills. Only one car. No holidays since DD. We have to live frugally, £40 a week on food shop, no luxuries. But ends meet, just!

Whilst we had pre school kids we initially lived on DH salary of approx £27,000 but gradually I started to work a bit. My husband negotiated a 'condensed week' where he did FT hours over 4 days. This left me a Friday and the weekend in which I could work. I did long days when available. We had no childcare costs like this.
We got a Tesco credit card and put everything on it but paid it off in full each month so no costs but built up Tesco points. These are quadrupled for days out/meals so £10 was worth £40 in many restaurants and resorts. It really helped.

That is about living costs not fees!
Living cost loans are being hit heavily for everyone.

However I would still check on the phone with the people I quoted, as they know all the up to date information.

Poodles ring National Debtline and have a chat to them about your debts. They will help come up with a solution to deal with them and offer free, impartial advise.

Also go on the Old Style Moneysaving board on MSE and take part in the Grocery Challenge to help with the food bills

All the best with it all and let us know what NDL have to suggest.

We're midlands and our income is around £45k and we're OK but not wealthy by any means.

Thanks to everyone who is sharing their info, it's pretty eye opening. Dh said it was depressing (as he can't see us ever making significantly more than we have now).. I actually feel better having read it though. I felt like we were just not trying hard enough and if we just scrimped a bit better we'd be saving loads somehow.

VDB good idea about Tesco points, we have a nectar card but don't really make proper use of the points. Not sure about a cc as need to look in to debts and stuff though.

mummytime I will ring your number on monday and make sure I am getting all the info straight, thank you. poodles I will also ring the National Debtline right now as the are open till 8 and I had no idea that it was a thing.

Wow so many people with high combined salaries on this thread. I still tend to think a family salary of 35-40 is pretty good (we're in this bracket) and am surprised we're not living better than we are at times.

I am v well educated but expect I'll end up in a minimum wage type job as not too sure what else I could go for. Im amazed when people assume it's easy to walk into high paying roles!

"I still tend to think a family salary of 35-40 is pretty good (we're in this bracket) and am surprised we're not living better than we are at times. "

I think this is a real thing at the moment, esp. in the SE - not sure why - while it has always been the case that it's not the absolute number that counts, but what you get for it, right now there seems to be a real sense that everything costs much more than it "should" relative to "decent salaries".

I guess mainly it's housing, and in the SE, it's to do with property prices being inflated by investment by very rich people.

I know what you mean OP - it's horrible in a way to think "actually this is just not enough money" but also nice in a way to think "I'm not just a spendthrift twat."

DP has no idea about money. he earns around £35k and thinks that I could give up work. No fucking way, mate. Yes my commute is more expensive than his, and yes we do pay for after school and holiday childcare which we wouldn't with a SAHP, but he has no actual idea how few luxuries we'd have on 35k - in fact we'd struggle for basics really. (And then he starts on his "why not buy a yacht" stuff - not literally - but he comes up with so many bright ideas I have no idea how to pay for I feel like the bad guy all the time)
(I earn £55k. We've a combined income of of £90k in Herts with one commute to London; a 4 bed house on a council estate, but we own it, I mean we have a mortgage; our savings and pension plans are in severe disarray and we definitely need to do more there; our children will never go to private school, in fact ha ha ha ha ha ha; we have 2 school age children and not paying preschool childcare is still a massive relief, but we aren't rich; we only ever go on holiday in the UK in a tent; we eat and drink fine, at home, rarely out, and don't fret about utilities bills any more but everything else has to be really thought about)

If you live in an affluent area, have you thought about pet sitting? We have lovely lady who comes to feed our cat twice a day and we basically schedule our holidays around her open slots. She's swamped and gets booked up months in advance for all school holidays.

Yes, definitely think it's property prices that have gone up astronomically compared to wages and I think that's the difference for most people from struggling and being actually fine (the clever ones that bought early).

Definitely show your partner this thread howbad!

upsi It's crossed my mind but I never looked in to it tbh. DO you mind me asking how much you pay and does she play with the cat or pet it? And for how long?

I've shared this link before but I think it puts a lot in perspective:

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how-salary-compare

The median household with two adults and two children earns about £50k.

To be in the richest 10% (with two adults and two children) you need to earn over £150k.

The poorest decile earn an average of £19k.

Your income of £33k puts you at the top of the poorest third. And you live in the most expensive part of the country.

Wow I honestly thought most families earn less than that as a family. 2 x degree educated family here and we earn less. Don't think we're that unusual!

The answer to this will be very dependent on whether people own their own homes and when they bought. DH and I have a joint income of around 60K and 2 DC and a 3 bed semi in zone 3. However we bought our first home (a 2 bed house) in Wandsworth over 10 years ago, did it up and extended it so benefitted massively from house price rises. We could not possibly afford to live in the house we do if we had not bought in the area we did at the time that we did. I see people a bit younger than us with much larger salaries who can't afford to buy anything similar to our first house now.