Cant live on 50k? (article)

[BlancheBlue]

I know these sort of things are designed to annoy and are probably twisted but families with £50k + income complaining about "no foreign holidays" and "oh my god I buy clothes in supermarkets" need to realise they are pretty lucky

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3759081/Why-families-earning-50-000-broke-end-month-figures-say-couldn-t-pay-unexpected-bill-500-four-explain-money-goes.html

It always amazes me when I hear people talk about how they can buy clothes from Boden etc - particularly if they have more than one child. I buy all my clothes from supermarkets or places like ebay/primark and I don't feel particularly deprived. DS (5) has clothes from ebay and rarely anything new. I think our household income is around £50,000 and we do OK but the people in the article do seem to mostly have much higher mortgage/rent costs and one of them has a HUGE utilities bill! Childcare also seems to be an issue for some. I probably wouldn't be wasting money on a Gym if I felt I had no money (I don't actually go to a Gym).

I do empathise with the fact that if they got a £500 bill they would struggle to pay for it. Car bills, boilers going wrong etc are my greatest fear.

Ultimately though I do waste a lot of money on stuff I buy for pleasure and could tighten my belt and save more.

What I don't understand is the term "unexpected bill".

However after pondering it for ten minutes, I guess it means something different to everyone. Might be a broken down car or fridge or school uniforms. Or as I've noticed on Money Saving Expert forums, the surprise that debt has to be paid back.

After being in a relationship with a very profligate man who took out credit and loans behind my back in my name to the tune of £50,000 I have a huge phobia of debt.

Titchy But that's the thing, isn't it? They (and you, come to it) don't NEED an iPhone. They (and you) WANT one. Plenty of really good smartphones do pretty much the same things at a fraction of the price. And if you use wifi as much as possible, 500MB data is an awful lot, but even if you increased that to 1GB or even 2GB, you still can do four phones of that for £60 - so immediately saving £40.

I've just checked my last landline and broadband bill. It was actually £31.42. Used to be o2 until Sky bought it out.

sigh £500 for a mortgage instead of £1,600 in rent and £975 instead of £1,300 for child care costs...how blissful.

Not having a car wouldn't save us a penny, DH worked it all out: running the car costs him exactly the same amount as his particlar route to work would via public transport per year.

The only benefit of public transport is it's the same cost each week so easier if you're not good at budgeting, whereas the car expenses come in irregular lumps at various parts of the year. Over a year it's no different though.

"My utility bills are on a pre-payment smart meter and are between £40-70 a month for a 3 bed semi in the North East. How on earth are their utility bills so much?"

Are you talking about just gas and electricity?

what about water, council tax etc?

my gas and electricity is £118 but has been as much as £135

marmalade congratulations for stealth boast post of the day there

£10 a week on both in the summer, as the gas central heating is off, and £20 a week for gas in winter, as I get the £140 warm homes discount, so that covers electric for 14 or 15 weeks. I usually have the heating on 5 or 6 hours a day between November and March and up to 3 hours a day until mid-May. I love watching TV in the evenings in the dark, with just fairy lights and sometimes a lava lamp. Lights on in a room where nobody is just doesn't happen in my house.

I'm on a very low income (£770 a month, after rent) so I have to budget well, but I can still afford a gardener once a month, Pilates once a week and gel nails monthly and hair and waxing every 2 or 3 months.

What I don't understand is the term "unexpected bill"
plumber
boiler
electrician
Dentist (other than check up)
private physio/osteopath if the NHS have discharged you and you still struggle to work
Car repairs
Roof repairs

list goes on…

No of course we don't need iPhones, but we can (just) afford them. i was just pointing out that bills of £1100 a month are about what we pay, also in Surrey. Except we also pay £2200 a month mortgage. Now THAT hurts!

I don't have to pay any council tax at the moment, and my water rates are included with my rent.

It always amazes me when I hear people talk about how they can buy clothes from Boden etc - particularly if they have more than one child.

Like a lot of things, if you can afford the initial outlay, it saves money long run

I have knitwear from Boden that I bought before my first child and it still serves me every winter. Knits I buy from the supermarkets etc get half way though winter before they're on the too bobbly side of professional and renegaded to sofa cardis and no longer any good for work.

A lot of things are like that, if you can pay bills up front like car insurance for a year they're much cheaper. If you have the savings/means to pay more now you usually save long term.

But if you don't have it all now, you don't have it, and you take the cheaper option even if you know that the cheap winter boots you're buying will fall apart after a few wet weeks and more expensive winter boots could last a life time

Childcare is taking a huge chunk for a few of them. Everyone knows if you have more than one child and have to pay full time nursery you end up working for free for a while.

On 50k we'd be living like kings, DH earns half that and we're relatively comfortable. I guess if the money was there i'd find ways to spend it though.

Yes, you would, and that's part of the problem. I'd guess that a lot of these couples are still living like they did before children (gym, Sky, £100 haircuts) even though they now can't afford it. On the one hand that's obviously daft - on the other hand it's actually quite hard to adjust your spending patterns when they're set.

I changed jobs a year ago, and took an effective £9k pay cut to do so (lost my London weighting but we didn't actually move). We talked about this endlessly before I did it, calculated whether or not we'd be ok and concluded it'd be fine. We've been finding it really hard. When you're just used to not thinking before buying a coffee or having a couple of pints after work it takes a while to adjust to doing so. I know, I know cry me a river: I know that we're still very, very lucky. But I do know that cutting the 'fripperies' out isn't as easy to do as it looks on paper.

it takes money to make money

when you don't have much to fall back on and you're always putting bandaids on things then you're always kept on the back foot.

If the couples in the article had the money to renovate their houses and put in more efficient underfloor heating etc they'ld end up better off monthly.. but they can't. is sort of the point of the article. They're stuck in a situation where they're getting by, but can't find a way to improve things

Property costs are a fortune but we get so much stuff about "switching utility provider" but do people remember to check their mortgage regularly? I'm with Santander and am currently paying £387 per month. As an existing customer, I can get a new mortgage, with no fees, and on a fixed rate for 5 years which will be £72 cheaper per month (so best part of £4500 over the five years). I can get a fixed rate for 7 or 10 years that would still leave me £40 better off per month. That's a big difference in the scheme of things

what I don't understand is the term "unexpected bill"
^plumber
boiler
electrician
Dentist (other than check up)
private physio/osteopath if the NHS have discharged you and you still struggle to work
Car repairs
Roof repairs

list goes on^

But most of those aren't 'unexpected' only irregular.

If you have a house, car, pet, teeth etc, they will need money spending on them sooner or later to repair or replace as necessary. Hence why it is a good idea to put money by to pay for it when it does happen. Same for Christmas, holidays, insurance, weddings, funerals, etc.

Just because the money isn't taken out of your bank account by direct debit, doesn't mean you won't have to pay it out sooner or later.

Nearly all the people in the article would have money spare for this sort of thing if they hadn't already spent it on smartphones and haircuts.

On 50k we'd be living like kings, DH earns half that and we're relatively comfortable. I guess if the money was there i'd find ways to spend it though

Yeah but not necessarily on fun yuppy things
If our household income went up to 50k we'ld seriously look into moving to a house that actually fit our family… but then it's not just a bigger mortgage it's also all the extra maintenance and utility bills of a slightly bigger (I'm not talking extravagant, just a terrace/semi) house and we'ld probably end up worse off by the end of the month than we are now

Even though there is loads of information about switching utility providers, 70% of people have never done it, instead paying about 30% more for their gas and electric than they need to.

It takes no time at all and is a really easy way to save, but no, it's too dull for most people to be bothered with.

The daily fail strikes again. "£50k" as an income sounds like such a big number, doesn't it? Enough to make most people envious. But the article acknowledges that the average salary is around £26k. So, erm, £52k for a couple or family where both adults work? These people aren't unusually well off, they're entirely average.

Life gave us a surprise when my second pregnancy was twins. We'd waited until my son was soon to start school so we wouldn't be paying for two in full time childcare at once, now we face a childcare bill which is slightly higher than my husband's (entirely average) £26k salary. But the alternative is for him to stop work, lose his lease car (our only car) and then struggle to find a job in a few year's time.

(I'm not looking for pity here, just giving an example of how childcare can be the thing that eats into your money)

What gets me hoiks judgey pants is the family that allow PER MONTH £250 on Christmas/birthday - that's £3000 per year!!!!, plus another £100 per month holiday spending money - that's £1200 per year, and £65 going out/takeaways = £780 p.a. and then there's the £60 per month £720p.a and £51 per month, £612 p.a on gym.

I'm not saying that any of this is ridiculous extravagance, but they haven't got £44 per month left over, they actually have £526 per month or £6312 a year that they could choose not to spend and I haven't included the rabbit or the after school clubs in that.

Perhaps if they changed their lifestyle thay wouldn't be in a "constant state of nerves"

goes off to wipe away froth from mouth

£10 a week on both in the summer, as the gas central heating is off, and £20 a week for gas in winter, as I get the £140 warm homes discount, so that covers electric for 14 or 15 weeks. I usually have the heating on 5 or 6 hours a day between November and March and up to 3 hours a day until mid-May. I love watching TV in the evenings in the dark, with just fairy lights and sometimes a lava lamp. Lights on in a room where nobody is just doesn't happen in my house.

I'm on a very low income (£770 a month, after rent) so I have to budget well, but I can still afford a gardener once a month, Pilates once a week and gel nails monthly and hair and waxing every 2 or 3 months

That is seriously impressive. I thought I was good at being tight frugal but wow.

Y

Just because the money isn't taken out of your bank account by direct debit, doesn't mean you won't have to pay it out sooner or later.

It is when these things come sooner rather than later or all together that problems arise.

We moved house for my work, i had very expensive work related fees (budgeted for) dp lost her job. (Budgeted for) Boiler exploded (Budgeted for) and I wrote a car off (ran out of money) all within 3 weeks. Fortunately I was not majorly injured but my very solid car that would have lasted another 3 or 4 years needing only minor repairs needed replacing. So we got a loan. And a slightly less expensive boiler.

Life happens. Even those of us who save can be knocked sideways when life happens unexpectedly.

If it hasn't happened yet to you. Then I am glad. Life would be shit if the unexpected was happening to everyone all the time. It has taken me 3 years of only minor calamities (front door breaking at same time as garage door. New front door needed. Garage door could be fixed. Roof leaking. Guttering falling off house) along the way before my savings are at a comfortable level where we could deal with most of life's accidents again. And car loan is nearly paid off

Ah pants formatting fail. I mean to italicised my first paragraph

I see. I have all those covered with a couple of instant savers attached to my current account. As I said, I have a phobia of debt so save as much as I can on my income (which is far far less than 50k).

But to be honest, I don't think anyone who owns their own home should have unexpected bills arising from boilers, plumbing and electrical problems and this should be factored into applying for a mortgage. If you cannot afford or cannot be arsed to put a tenner a month aside for property maintenance, then you should stick to renting.