To think bringing kids up on no money would be misersble

[Strawberryblues]

I earn 35000 or thereabouts. Its not terrible. It means I only get cb.

After bills not much left.

How do people do it?

Wish i only paid £20 water...we pay £57

I paid £63 a month for 18 months until July last year when I had a water metre fitted.. it dropped down to £19.50 instantly. this months was £22 tbf but it's warm so more showers.

I will prob get slated for this, but we never had much money when we were younger, my dad had his own business, but didn’t do to well in the early days. We never had expensive holidays or days out, but we had a great childhood, we made our own games. My mum stayed at home with us. They could have put us in a nursery 5 days a week 9-6. For mum to work, To me that would have made me miserable.

Yes formerbabe even worse it’s one of the few debts you can be imprisoned for and basically there is no acceptable defence. Incredible isn’t it

Being able to spend a lot of money taking children on days out and fancy holidays doesn't necessarily make happy children. Many children love going to the park, walking in the woods, visiting museums, cooking with parents, doing arts and craft etc. Camping holidays are great fun for children.

I agree, most of the things we do are free, but it is nice to go to paid events too sometimes. We love arts and crafts and going to museums and one of our best holidays was spent camping. Some or our least fun days out have been the most expensive - theme parks and days out in London are expensive, stressful and overrated.

Perhaps when I can afford to get the shower replaced (which broke nearly a year ago) I will get a water meter fitted. No point until we stop having baths ...

My metered water is about £1000 a year (half is not for the metered water itself).

Op, it’s not clear whether you are contemplating having children/ have them and are struggling? Have them and are contemplating leaving your partner?
If you post on Money Matters you will get practical advice

With childcare costs so high the key is to try and find creative ways to cut them down- this depends on your job and your DPs , but most people I know have got a bit creative- working around each other to ensure the children aren’t at nursery every day, for instance.
One working days, and one nights/ weekends
Both working compressed hours to take a day off each
Staggering children so don’t have the second until 30 free hours kick in
Once school age - taking it in turns to cover the holidays so you don’t have to pay childcare for that

Also are you maximising the tax free childcare options (childcare vouchers or the new system)?

Yes it’s probably not easy on a very low salary, but you have a reasonable salary and the crippling thing is the childcare costs to the key is to like at ways to get those down.

*look (not like!)

Bastards won't give us a water meter, some numpty put 2 stop cocks on the property so they can't meter correctly. I'd be minted if i had a meter, we barely use the water during the day!!

I don't have a water meter. I think people pay more when they do.

I assume the £20 monthly water bill is someone who is metered, not at home much and doesn't live in the south west.

Whether people pay more with a water meter or not completely depends on how much they use. If your household has a lot of people in it who are at home a lot and water a large garden, you're going to pay more. If it's two adults and one kid who are all out at work, school and wraparound all day, no garden to water and the adults take a lot of their showers at the gym, less so.

That's is very offensive

Jesus Christ, do people really believe that we all steal and have payday loans

Nope. Read my post again and you’ll see I said ‘often’ not ‘always’. You’d have to be extremely naive not to realise that people in poverty do sometimes do the things I mentioned to get by. Look at the rise in food bank use, in payday loan use.

Try volunteering with or working with people in poverty, it’s a complex issue and not everyone is able to make it work just by budgeting more tightly. Sometimes the figures just don’t work and desperate people do desperate things. None of the things I mentioned are rare, but they are often well hidden. Your own experience is not necessarily the same experience other people have.

As per the post above debt is absolutely fundamental to poverty and is exactly why people can’t understand how someone can’t live off £20k a year, or £30k a year or whatever. Debt. Your water bill being £22 or £42 is going to be dwarfed by a £200 a month credit card repayment.

My water bill is £15 a month. I just don't use that much. There is just me and DS in a flat, neither of us like baths so we just have daily showers, washing the dishes and 3 loads of washing a week. We don't have a garden so no plants to water or use of a hose etc. I'm not on a meter, I just pay the same amount every month and I'm actually in credit with it!

No gas at my flat, all electric and I use between £60-£70 per month.

Council tax just under £80, single person discount in band A.

The debt spiral is brutal. Absolutely brutal.

If you can manage on a low income without accruing debt, great. Pat on the back, it’s not easy.

But not everyone can. An unexpected emergency expense, a few weeks of illness off your zero hour contract job, any of those things can completely fuck up your finely balanced just about managing budget sheet and leave you with a choice between shoplifting or taking a payday loan out or your kids going hungry night after night after night.

I’m not sure why that’s an offensive thing to highlight. Maybe because it’s so frightening to admit that if it can happen to others, it can happen to you too.

Well theres skint and theres skint isnt there i gave up worlk as ds2 has autism and learning disabillities, so we are ?currently living off a mix of dh wages £16,500/year and various benefits ds2 gets DLA and i get Carers allowance , we live in the north west of England in social housing so much cheaper than other parts of the country , we try and have a holiday every year, but in the uk this year its a week at haven , we have days out but to the park or maybe an afternoon in blackpool [as its about 40 miles away] but its just to the beach and a picnic we dont do the attractions, we have enough for a coupler of after school clubs , i imagine this would be far harder in the south east on the same money

If you can't afford food or the bare necessities it would be very miserable.

But for everyone else, who is just managing to pay their bills and have a tiny bit left over for the fun stuff, then it's mostly a question of how you see your situation. Some people earning a lot more than me would be miserable because they expect a whole lot more. I'm happy with what we have, even though I earn half the national average because I appreciate we are the lucky ones and that most of the world has a much worse standard of living.

I’m not sure why that’s an offensive thing to highlight. Maybe because it’s so frightening to admit that if it can happen to others, it can happen to you too.

It's an offensive thing for someone on nearly twice my income to insinuate that my kids existence is miserable.

I have been under the poverty line for the whole of my parenting life, my eldest child is 13. I am well aware of how easy it is to go under, thanks.

I probably make 20k....dh 35. Total is 3200
Nurdery is 1000. Mortgage 1000. Other utilities and council tax 300. Food...300 fuel...200. Leaves 400 for anything else...clothes etc. It can be right right.

Having debts is definitely what makes life hard on low incomes. Having to budget to the penny for everything, walk around the supermarket with a calculator so you don't overspend, freaking out if the car needed work/your kids need shoes/other unexpected bills. It's heartbreaking.

As a parent tho you do your upmost to make sure it doesn't impact on the kids. Okay they don't get designer gear or the latest gadgets, but they don't have to suffer. Plenty of free things to occupy them

It's all relative isn't it? YANBU, to think it's uncopable based on what you're used to but maybe a little bit BU to assume it equates to being miserable.
We are low income but are quite happy and consider ourselves very lucky. Cycling distance to work for me and DH, mortgage on a small apartment and opposite shifts so no childcare. Purposely chose an area with lots of free museums, parks, galleries. My higher earning friends have a bigger house, cars etc but I wouldn't say they seem any 'happier' as such.
Those childcare costs sound awful though, must be a better solution for you than that? I think being financially insecure or materialistic must be more miserable - it's the uncertainty that would worry me more than being lower paid but stable. Or wanting 'stuff' to make me happy, By that I don't mean necessities like food etc but labelled clothes or certain brands

It's an offensive thing for someone on nearly twice my income to insinuate that my kids existence is miserable.

Ah I see sorry. I thought you were aiming it at me. I never said your kids must be miserable so I must have got it wrong :)

Good grief! I only earned £37,000 a after 30 years' teaching, ending up on UPS 3 (upper scale with no additional responsibilities). I brought up a child as a single parent with no support and paid a mortgage. I did not think I was badly off (although I was had much less than this as a mature student when my DD was a baby)

Yes, but I'm assuming you are in your 50s/60s? So probably had to pay out significantly less for housing. It would have seemed much more money. And depending when you were earning it would have actually been much more money than now.

I don't think the OP was saying the children would have a miserable life, but that it would be miserable for the parents.

And of course it is a million times harder if you haven't got money. Also IME of having taken a significant portion of our family income from beenfits and then slowly weaning off in to higher paid work we're not actually any better off, the money basically came straight off our benefits. We seem to have the same sort of money coming in monthly. However NOW if Dh gets a pay raise we will feel it so I am eagerly awaiting that