To wonder if it’s normal to have nothing left after twelve days into the month

[Daisy9010]

This is the position I find myself in every month.

It drives me mad.

Is anyone the same?

Who do you share with? If you bought with a friend you should have an agreement in place so that you can sell if one of you needs to. If you bought with a partner, then they should be helping financially if they are not prepared to move. Totally unfair for one of you to suffer.

Would commuting cost more than renting during the week in London? Do you have an option to work at home at all?

Could you get a Mon to Fri lodger in your house while you are not there? Sort of hot desk the room.

If you're so poor you can't keep money past 11 days into the month, and saving up the money to pay electricty and gas checks on you flat means you could rent it out and fix this two-homed nonsense, then YES SLEEP IN YOUR CAR.

Why would you NOT? It's an easy fix to a temporary problem.

Do you have your own room in your weekend flat, or is it a partner you share with?

If it’s not a partner but a friend or family member, then they have to accept that this isn’t working for you. Remember a lodger is not the same as a tenant so you could, as people have mentioned, explore Monday to Friday letting your room.

I do sympathise - London rents, even for four nights a week, are very high.

Sorry, cross posted

Normal for me, I have £10 left until the 27th

It's not sustainable to run two homes for the vast majority of people. You have lots of options but if the only one you see see feasible is to get another job then you need to focus on that. Because things aren't going to change until you get back to the normal one set of living expenses.

I get paid on 24th and I have £20 to last me until then. Every month I promise myself I will manage my finances better but it just vanishes, although this month I think being dragged into Nexts half price sale by my colleague at lunch time didn't help!

Surely if you stopped renting Mon-Fri and just paid travel costs, you'd be better off automatically

This was what I was thinking, unless the OP is too far to commute.

I’d never dream of trying t run tw homes on one salary.

Start looking to either get a flat closer to the flat you live in at weekends or you move permanently to be nearer work.

You are trying to manage an impossible situation!

Seriously there must be work for you closer to your ‘proper’ home. Ok, it might not be doing exactly what it is you currently do, but your current situation s a nightmare.

OP until we know the true situation nobody can come up with proper advice - stop drip feeding. Who do you own your flat with, why cant it be sold, why are you working so far away and whyvdo you need to go back at weekends?

I get paid on 24th and I have £20 to last me until then. Every month I promise myself I will manage my finances better but it just vanishes, although this month I think being dragged into Nexts half price sale by my colleague at lunch time didn't help!

Did you buy clothes even though you knew that would leave you in this position with less than £2 per day to spend for the rest of the month?

I’m not judging, I’m just baffled, unless I’ve read that wrong.

Will you be able to only spend £20 for the next twelve days?

there's a lot more to rental costs than gas check and electric check (which isn't mandatory anyway). If £200 odd makes rental unworkable than the real costs certainly mean it won't work. Surprising for a London flat where you can charge what you like, but there you go.

no alternative than to force a sale and get out of London.

no alternative than to force a sale and get out of London.

She works in London, her flat is elsewhere.

Does someone else live in the flat whilst you are working away?

You have to live within your means
If you can’t do that on your current income then you have to make changes - either increase your income or reduce your outgoings
Move to a cheaper area of the country would be the best option here I think if you’ve exhausted all other ways of reducing your outgoings

I would have no money either if I was running 2 houses, one for weekends only. You really need to sort that out.

Good luck.

As PPs have said, you rent somewhere Mon-Fri, so why not get a lodger for your place Mon-Fri?

It needs lots doing but just adjust the rent you charge accordingly.

I'm sure it is normal to have nothing left 12 days into a month if you're paying rent and a mortgage!

I'd also agree that often full time lets in London aren't much more than Mon-Fri ones so you'd save money by just renting full-time in London and not having to pay to get back to your flat every week. If it's too far to commute daily then the train/petrol back must be costing a fair amount every month.

This part of the forum might help you come up with some ideas.

Duh, forgot link! Sorry www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch

This is a really misleading AIBU! Of course it’s not normal to be running two households and to make ends meet. You get helpful well meaning advice about cutting back and then reveal you have two properties. Whatever the situation with them and your inability to see the on each you’re not in, I can’t see what you asked your initial question. Just comes across as a stealth brag, really.

Sorry, your inability to sell the one you’re not in.

Gosh what a weird situation. I appreciate that you might not want to say exactly what your job is, but is it something that can only be done in London? If you can find a similar job in a cheaper city like Liverpool or Newcastle (depending on where your flat is) then you would save a fortune on rent, even in your bizarre two home situation.

If you earn 30k then I assume you're decently qualified in whatever it is you do, so unless it's something like extremely specialist manual labour then you must have transferrable skills that would enable you to get a job closer to home, even if it's not the exact same role. In any case you must surely have had a job nearer the flat to enable you to get your mortgage in the first place, so what happened there?

What drove you to start living in this situation in the first place? I can only assume you must have been in a pretty desperate situation to think this was an acceptable solution - the only reasons I would do this would be if I needed money urgently (to a point where I was about to become homeless or similar), hadn't found any other jobs despite looking for a year or more, or if living like this temporarily would mean a huge promotion in the near future. It's really not normal.

So we are a family of 3, me, DP and our little DD. We have a lower income to you, it does get very tough some months. To get our bills down my partner regularly phones company’s. We got the breakdown cover right down for the car. We only run one car. No sky, cancelled Netflix. Phone bills are as low as we can get and mostly use what’s app to talk to friends and family.
We shop twice a month making sure no food is wasted. We don’t eat out ever. I shop around for dds clothes. Someone else said H&M are amazing. Clark’s have half price sale for shoes.?
U just have to be more aware, really look at your income and think do I really need that.

I was in the same position many years ago——I'm embarrassed to say it took a visit from my Mum to sort me out. Got rid of cellphone contract, cancelled cable TV, looked for cheaper electricity company, stopped throwing away perfectly good food just because it was past its sell-by date, stopped buying takeaway meals, started making my own lunch and bringing it to work, stopped buying Starbucks coffees...
Just the lunches/Starbucks habit was easily costing me over £150 per month. 15 years later and on a lower income, I actually have savings in an ISA!