To ask if anyone else lives a normal, 9-5 existence with some debt

[Mangetoutrodney]

Sometimes when I come on here I feel like my normal 9-5 slightly skint lifestyle isn’t very normal so wondering if it is!?

DP & I have 2 kids, work 9-5, drive slightly banger cars, rarely have any spare cash, find it hard to save at the end of the month, can’t afford 4 holidays a year, we rent our house. I do a professional job, DP a manual job. We get by but while we raise our kids, it’s unlikely we will have much spare cash. We do manage a camping holiday to France most years but on the very cheap & we save all year for it.

I find that my normal existence seems unusual sometimes when I come in here & read about other people’s incomes & lifestyles! I find the same on social media actually - I know it’s not real but it feels sometimes like we are unusual in our normal, slightly broke, slightly hand to mouth existence.

Aibu?

And we are in our 40s too.

I've been skint most of my life. For a few years (1990's), I was earning a reasonable amount but then had to change jobs because my health was no longer good enough to continue in that role. I then had a massive drop in income and a very costly divorce, when I had to give my ex half the equity I'd built up, despite having owned a house 16 years before I even met him!

The job I do now was decently paid when I started in 2007, but since then we've only had 2 pay rises, both of 1%, so it's shit money now. And I've reduced my hours from FT to 17, so less than half what I was on, money wise. DP earns about the same as I would if I was full-time.

Luckily, I had a small inheritance and got a small pension (less than £3k a year) at 60. The lump sums made it possible to clear the balance of the mortgage and I still have some savings. DP hates spending money, so he has some savings too.

We live like paupers though. Old cars, and even older motorhome that we use for all our holidays, no luxuries apart from an occasional bottle of wine or meal out. We rarely buy clothes and desperately need some new furniture.

I think I must have got used to it, as I no longer have a longing for expensive things or trips abroad, and we're pretty happy. Plus no dependents - that makes a big difference!

I recall once a poster mentioning her wage was 16K, another poster suggested she go full time instead.

That WAS her full time wage.
Some MN posters really live in another world.

I have a very bog standard 9-5 job. There isn’t loads left after mortgage, bills, transport and food but I do manage to go on holiday most years although have to make sacrifices to afford it. Then I usually overspend and have to budget like bad to pay off my credit card debt when I return (love travelling though so it’s worth it.)

Now I have a house there’s always money to spend on it and being single it takes ages to get the cash together to make the improvements I want. Overpaying the mortgage is out of the question. My car is a slightly scruffy 2003 model.

Despite this I know I’m well off compared to many and I have a fairly safe government job and my health plus both of parents are still alive

Budget like mad not like and

Third time lucky, budget like mad not like bad [blush

We do, no debt luckily other than student loans. We also veer in and out of the overdraft every month. It was getting bigger and bigger till PILs kindly agreed to pay half of DSs nursery fees till September (when the free hours kick in.
We did have savings but they've all gone :( - car got written off plus I retrained.
We do go abroad once or twice a year but its to visit relatives so off peak easyjet tickets and free accommodation.

Still renting, the plan/hope is to buy by 35.
Recently I've realised that careers and houses aren't just going to fall into my lap and started applying to ft 'career' jobs.

Agree with Hotsauce. When ds was growing up, things were tight, we lived in our overdraft etc. Now he is through university, dh's salary is the biggest it has ever been, we are debt free, (bar the last remaining bits on the mortgage, and that will be gone by November); we have everything we need and most of the things we want, so the stress on our income has eased. It has taken us decades to get to this point.

As for a glamorous lifestyle - who wants it? Too much like hard work. I'd rather have enough to buy food, pay the bills, afford some sewing stash and a book on the Kindle, so I can curl up and read.

I hear you OP, I have been skint all my life. Both me and OH are well educated to post graduate level but we work in public sector and neither of us is on more than an average salary. Also I work part time. 2 DC now teenagers mean that they constantly need money for this or that. I have had an ongoing loan all my adult life. No holiday for us this year, still paying off credit card debt from last year's 😁 The thing that scuppered our finances was paying nursery fees for 2 kids before childcare vouchers etc came in. We worked out we had spent around £65 k in cash over the years, round here could have bought a house outright for that

You have described my life when I was in my 30s.
It was hand to mouth, never any spare cash to just splurge or treat anyone.
We both had jobs, I was in the civil service, my exh was a factory worker, we paid the mortgage, paid the childminder, filled the cars with petrol and did a food shop, skint again two days after payday. Every month at least one bill was overdue and would have to wait until next month.

I’m now in my 50s and have remarried, but now the children are all adults, and it’s just the two of us, we have savings, more money than we can spend and a bloody good lifestyle.

I think your situation is perfectly normal for a young family.

This comes up frequently, we're both in professional roles and have st joint income of just over £75000 this will increase by the end of the year as DH is completing a professional post grad which leads to automatic promotion and I've just been promoted while on mat leave. We have one child and are unlikely to have anymore which will mean we maintain a comfortable lifestyle (southeast fairly large mortgage, childcare is expensive) , we have five year old cars a Citroen and a vw and can't afford a foreign holiday this year due to mat leave with me being the higher earner and not on great mat pay/taking the full year off. We save well and live comfortably but we do budget. Pre baby we took about three or four holidays a year which sounds a lot but we live close to an airport and a couple of those would be cheap last minute city breaks, and we've only ever gone five star once for our honeymoon, our last holiday was a lovely air BnB apartment on the coast near Lisbon. I think our life is pretty middle of the road.

I hear you op. I'm on a professional salary and DH is in a manual job. Once we've paid the mortgage and nursery, we're scrimping the rest of the month. DS isn't old enough for the free hours yet and fortunately PILs do a day for us or it would be even tighter.
House deposit was saved for pre-child and some of it pre-DH!
If only childcare was more affordable...!

I find MN can be pretty defensive of it's demographics, but I've visited quite a few forums, and there's definitely a strong vein of well off middle class on here.

It's a mess of contradictions - the same posters who can't bear the term chav sneer endlessly at Netmums etc. Then of course there's all the posters with alarmingly little common sense who appear to be earning huge wages.

I am actually one of the high earners - though ridiculously I have to qualify that as not a MUMSNET high earners. Just 52k a year, darling . Which any good mumsnetter would tell you is "nothing after school fees".

I know plenty in similar positions OP.

2 kids and 2 working parents here, we do own but have a hefty mortgage, can save a bit each month, one abroad holiday per year and one or 2 weekend UK breaks if we can manage it. Can treat ourselves to eating out and family days out.

However when DC1 was born it was much more of a struggle, had a very tight food budget, never ate out, only did free or very cheap days out and used lots of offer codes, vouchers etc.

That was ten years ago, I have been fortunate to have jumped up the career ladder a couple of rungs in that time, and more than doubled my salary. My parents were urging me to go part time when DC1 was born, I am glad I never now or to be honest there is no way I'd be where I am now and we wouldn't have been able to afford our house.

I do hope things improve for you OP x

I live alone. I have a decent, but not huge salary, and i get where you are coming from. I certainly do not struggle by any means but I do drive a fairly old car in comparison to my age group in general (its 10 yo, 130k miles and still running-but no finance) I manage to pay all my bills, feed myself and enjoy the odd meal or two with friends but there are many things I would like but somply cannot justify/afford.

I sometimes get the disillusion over social media when I see people the same age as me, who work pt or whatever, buying £600 shoes and huge new cars. But we only see the best of peoples lives there, different circumstances etc mean people have different levels of disposable income and also bare in mind that some of these people may be in debt to afford what they have!

@Birdsgottafly I'm from Liverpool and I absolutely know a lot of people who kept their mental family members away from their kids. Though I'm from the south end so maybe it's just because one or two of my mate's families are wools 😁

But yes, 95% of us here are just 'getting by' and don't have much spare until the kids all move out and even then they'll probably come ti home & bargain with bank of Mum and Dad every now and then when they're a bit skint.

Hand to mouth - no savings (we are on 1 income, no tax credits, benefits etc, still paying back tax credits unjustly paid out 2 yrs ago, owe my mum and sister about 2 grand), but very small mortgage (30% of house purchase) and all our money went into our house. We save up for camping holiday once a year and spend rest of summer holidays with in-laws in Cornwall. We drive a 12-yr old car, have second hand bikes and don't really go out. It's dull, it's frustrating, but it's life.