IABU - working Vs disposable income

[puglife15]

DH works really hard, long hours, is excellent and talented at what he does.

I've also worked pretty hard at my career, extremely stressful at times but I'm fairly good at what I do. At the moment with two young children I am part time which has meant a drop in income but we compress hours etc to get childcare hours as low as they can be.

We end up working most evenings after kids in bed, having hardly any spare time to pursue own interests (DH out of house 60 hours a week).

But our disposable income isn't good either. We shop in Aldi, don't go on nice holidays, and just spent most of our savings on a new boiler and car.

I know IABU because on a global scale we are actually very wealthy and have a really good quality of life, but it sucks to feel like we are working as hard if not harder than people we know earning a lot more, with a lot less spare time, for less.

Where are we going wrong?!

Yes childcare is crazy expensive, we did look at a childminder but couldn't find one that did year round care and we can't cover the holidays ourselves.

I don't think it's going to go down that much tbh even when kids are at school - doing breakfast and after school club x 2 three times a week plus holiday care for two will still come to several hundred a month and by then the older one will certainly want to do some clubs, clothing & food will be more expensive...

I feel you. Our income is higher than yours, mortgage lower (we live in what may proverbially described as a shit hole), and bigger gap between DC so we will only ever be paying for 1 at a time (did this on purpose). We have an old car, holiday in the UK (cheaply), and reduced our working hours/work flexibly so that we can spend time at home with DC and save on childcare (although my day rate far exceeds the cost of a day at nursery, it's a choice). Our previous car and boiler both packed up on my last mat leave and 4 years later we've nearly cleared the credit card debt (0% interest) we had to use.

My point is, hopefully things will get better. I think it's just that time of life tbh.

Holidays: couldn’t you juggle holidays between you once they are both at school? Then you might only need to use clubs for a few weeks?
And juggle compressed hours so they don’t need breakfast/ after school as much? If you are both on those salaries it probably makes sense to try and find ways to slice childcare costs if you can? Depends on your job, I realise that, but most of the parents I know find ways to juggle things between so they don’t use much childcare once the children are at school.

I understand were you’re coming from op.
I’m only working p/t atm, dh is full time and we have no disposable income. Dh feels like he’s working his arse off just to please the bank managers, and I work p/t to cut childcare costs down, but as it’s winter I’m getting so fed up with working hard, then spending my days off doing fuck all due to no money!

I retrain in Sept, which means full time work, my youngest also starts school so we will be much better off then hopefully.

It does sound like low earnings given you're educated and would have had 20 years' experience by now + seem to work crazy hours. Perhaps it's a case of getting jobs with a better work-life balance?

A family with one person working and earning £65k will have a much lower income than a family with two people working and earning a combined £61k due to the tax brackets etc.

You don’t know how much your friends spend from disposable income versus borrowing. It sounds like you’re being sensible and living within your means.

It will be better 5/10 years from now.

I agree OP
You feel that, having studied and worked hard and made sensible choices, life shouldn't be this hard.

You've identified the two main factors though, the cost of housing and the cost of childcare. Your friends with more disposable income in your examples don't have these costs.

Whilst it's limited what you can do about housing and childcare costs, please do evaluate how much you and dh work in the evenings. I don't know anybody who works anywhere near that many hours outside work. If you divided your salary by the number of hours you actually work, what is your hourly rate??

I think that’s unlikely louise given the two parent family has to pay £1300 a month in childcare! Plus the one parent earning family (assuming they are a couple) has the option for the other parent to also go out to work . They’ve been able to make a choice that two lower earners don’t have

Gu I do work nearly every evening for around 2-3 hours but that is through choice (means I only have to do 25 hours/ week in the office but get full time salary). Agree though that If these are “extra” hours then OP and her husband need to reconsider whether they ought to be gifting their employer that time

Don’t forget the hidden benefits of you both working too op - things like employers pension contributions

Hmmm ... the level of out of hours work you’re doing is disproportionate to the salaries you’re earning.
Unless there’s going to be a massive pay off down the line (huge leap in salary or up the ladder that could lead to great things) then I’d say you’re doing too much.
Cut the evening working down. He should cut his hours down too. If they’re going to extract every last minute of the week out of you there needs to be a payoff. Currently you’re doing the hours of someone earning twice your salary. Stop.

I think the early years child wise are just treading water financially for many. Childcare is so damn expensive. In a couple of years you can be saving that 1300 a month and be putting away 15k a year - that’s quite a difference in security level.

I think that’s unlikely louise given the two parent family has to pay £1300 a month in childcare!

Exactly - and tbh most earn more like £70k+, one of my mates just walked into an £80k job lucky thing!

Most pals are lawyers, doctors, academics, in finance, sales or IT.

Yeah they didn't just 'walk in' to that job though did they. They'll have likely flogged themselves stupid at some point to jump through all the necessary professional hoops required to actually be a medic or a lawyer etc.

It’s expensive having children in childcare. We have two in nursery and not currently eligible for the 30 hours funding and the fees are crippling.

I do think you’re catastrophising in the cost of childcare once they’re both at school though. Before/after school club is usually around £5ph and holiday clubs usually £28 per day (not including sibling discount or early booking discount) so even if you had child care booked for every single week day of the year it would come to £937 per month for both children. I’m basing that on the costs local to me in an area very similar to yours.

Are you currently claiming childcare vouchers or signed up to the tax free childcare scheme? That will help too.

I do think you're degrading someone's effort there, it's rare to just walk into an 80k job unless there is nepotism involved.

It's ok to be pissed off at your earnings or costs, but you chose to have kids, you knew the costs associated when you made the decision, you were late thirties it seems, so you deliberately chose this path. But don't bring down friends who may be more successful,because of your own dissatisfaction.

You could just get pals who earn less money & then you might feel minted.

I'm calculating your take-home is 4.5k.
Mortgage = 1k
childcare = 1.3k.

So where is the other 2.2k going? You tell us. £2.2k is More than gross income in many households.

Not degrading my friend, obviously they have a lot of experience in their field but were extremely lucky by their own admission to land that salary, they don't have qualifications. You'd probably have to be CEO in my field to earn that.

We did choose to have kids but costs of childcare have rocketed since we made that first decision, the first nursery we used was something like £5.60 an hour now almost £8 excluding meals. We also expected to be able to use a childminder which I think would save about £60 a week.

In terms of where our money goes, I don't think our take home is that much as DH pays into a pension, but a fair chunk goes on household bills, car bills and travel costs for work which are v high.

We could probably knock the working in evening on the head a bit. It's because I have to leave to pick DC up which means finishing off what I was working on, and similar for DH who has a long commute and wants to say goodnight to the kids.

It just feels like we chose the wrong careers/jobs tbh, or haven't been pushy enough, although I'm not cut out to work in finance etc anyway so...

DH would love to reduce his hours but that's his contracted hours...

I do wonder what it is you do... Thinking of jobs that require degrees + given 20 years of experience, I can't think of anything that would pay 30k a year... Even given working in low paying fields, I'm pretty sure sure that very experienced nurses, social workers or teachers get paid more than that.

But re commuting costs, they can be very high - hundreds per person per month. If that's the case, I'd probably look at moving either work or home + running a simple, older car so that you can afford a better lifestyle: more time with children, not working in the evenings (hopefully possible with a shorter commute) and being able to afford holidays.

Travel costs - yeah that can be a real drain. Any chance of being able to wfh one or two days a week? That can make a huge difference. Spin it to your employer as increasing your efficiency and reducing dead time for commuting? I now wfh and we actually couldn’t manage to do all the drop offs and pick ups around work if I didn’t. This way (just) works for us.

I too am curious about what you do but that’s just me being nosy so you’re under no compulsion to say ;)

I’ve taken a massive career hit by being part time. I still work almost full time hours and my work are pretty unpleasant about it all but that just makes me more determined to fit work into the time I have and not do more as a routine habit. I try to be flexible (work often involves talking to the USA so odd times) and not too dogmatic about it but I have to leave at time x to get ds in some days, and that’s a hard stop for me. I’ve had to put my foot down and learn to say no a lot more and it’s been a positive experience for me - I do my job and no, I will not be back online at 10pm because you’ve no idea how time zones work Mr. USA counterpart. If you need to talk to me you schedule in your morning when we overlap.

It really is about just getting through ge childcare years I think - once they’re in school you’ll see a big uptick in your disposable and if you can avoid ‘living into’ that increase and use it wisely you can make a big difference to your long term savings and security.

@JoJo we both earn more than £30K pro rata but as I'm part time it brings our total earnings down. DH earns approx £40K. I have earned the same for a while as was made redundant from a higher paying role and had to take a lower paying job, so salary just meeting what it was 4 years ago.

We did consider moving but housing near DH's work is just as expensive if not more and I would struggle to get work near there so might end up taking on an equally long commute and as the cost of moving would be in the tens of thousands, it would take quite a few years to make up that cost in travel savings plus we would still need to run the car and I really wouldn't want to live there anyway

My job doesn't require a specific degree as such, just they almost exclusively employ people "educated to degree level".

I guess we just need to suck it up for another 1.5 years and then we will be a little bit better off once DC2 gets free hours.

It's difficult. You're suffering from a combination of being at an expensive stage, and still with over a year until it gets easier, and our ridiculously high housing costs. Your home will no doubt be much more expensive in real terms than it was 20 years ago, and if your mortgage was say £600 a month instead of 1k I expect you'd feel way more comfortable. I bet you have some expensive commutes too.

Also, do make sure you're doing the little things that save £5 here and there because it adds up, and don't go on the holiday thread because it's totally unreflective of reality.

Somebody on another thread claimed they couldn't spare £4 to get a taxi to hospital even though their leg was freshly broken & hadn't been assessed.

I just think... be grateful for the problems you don't have.