To be permanently skint, despite being on a good salary?

[cherriesandapplesandberries]

On paper, we have a good combined income of around £85,000, although it varies slightly and can even go up to around 90 on a good year.

But we seem to be permanently skint, and I don’t mean not much money, I mean absolutely nothing in the bank accounts, scrabbling round for loose change, stressing about how we will get to work, skint. This isn’t a begging thread by the way, I know sometimes people post on MN wanting others to offer them money and I don’t, I’m just trying to explain how it is.

We do have debts, loans and credit cards plus obviously the mortgage, childcare fees, cars which cost then obviously the needs of a growing family.

I know back when I was a young ‘un I’d have fallen about laughing at the idea my current salary isn’t enough to live on, but I just seem to be struggling all of the time!

With our bank sorry not with our bank

Ridiculous. You are living way above your means.

To be honest this is why I didn’t want to get into figures, the thread is going to turn into an argument now

It's getting into an argument, because what you are saying doesn't add up - eg what you say your salaries and take home pay is. What does your DHs income cover? How much is your mortgage?

Could you earn extra money in the school holidays? Eg working for a childcare provider/holiday club. There must be demand from working parents and you're off work so could spend some of the time earning extra money.

Can your DH work extra hours/second job.

OP does not want to talk about realities, she just wants poor you posts.

So just stop paying them, is that right, karen?

My CCs are maxed out, I’m paying the minimum.

If having two kids is living behind our means then we are uk, but Durex has refused to return them, they are out of warranty.

I am not going to say what our mortgage is, I’ve been pushed into saying more than I’m comfortable with as it is.

I'm not sure you can come on mumsnet to moan about something and not expect people to offer advice!

karen you’re just goading now, this is the fourth time I have said that I don’t think we are poor and I’m grateful for what we have.

I get it OP, and it’s embarrassing to realise that you are feeling the pinch when you really shouldn’t be. DH and I were discussing this the other day. He brings in a healthy 6 figure salary and we don’t even have things like childcare costs (I’m a SAHM), credit card debt, leased cars or phone contracts (the latter two owned outright), but we have let our lifestyle creep up in terms of things like the type of food we buy, the holidays we take (this is the biggest problem I think ), activities for the children (music, sports, etc), nicer clothes, etc. We hadn’t even noticed the creep until this last year when our savings account was drained from our recent house build.

I just did a financial review and set myself a new budget for this year. I reverse-engineered our unavoidable expenses and other financial commitments that we really feel are important and need to be maintained (like the children’a activities and our charity contributions), and then I also set aside 20% for savings. What’s left over is what gets budgeted. It was far less that I expected it to be! This month I am going to try to ‘cash out’ budget line items that I find harder to stick to (like clothes/coffees/supermarket) in order to be able to keep a closer eye on what I’m spending relative to what’s left. I’m also going to be more intentional about the fun/travel/excursions budget! We tend to just spend what we want when we want instead of budgeting and planning, which is a great way to blow an enormous amount of cash quickly.

That’s up to them vulpine

What sort of holiday/s did you manage to get last year, op?

Don’t I!

People are trying to understand (whether you want them to or not) and you are being very confusing. Near the top of the thread you say take home is 55K, which is 4600 a month, now you're being sarcastic when someone questions your 2500 figure.

So I guess the actual figure is 2500+1700 which is 50K a year, and there are other expenses you haven't listed that come out of the 1700. Not asking for clarification, just painting a picture for those who are trying to get their head around it.

I’d LOVE to earn more, but HOW! I work full time

If you can’t earn more you need to spend less then

If you're only paying minimum are your CCs at least 0% interest? If not stop paying into your pension and get them paid off. Your pension will catch up later, you need the cash now to secure your future.

What holidays kate? What are you talking about?

Ok bear so I’ll stop paying nursery fees, then, I’m sure the kids won’t mind.

Combined, petty

We are always skint too. Shouldn’t be as in we wouldn’t be well off but we would t be this bad

Family circumstances are such that it’s unavoidable. Adult dc with multiple issues and PIP doesn’t cover everything

OP, what did you hope to get from this thread because you’re just rude and snipey to everyone

If you are paying £650 a month on loans and credit cards then you are going to be skint until they are repaid. But that kind of repayment level means you e borrowed a shit load in the past

Whatever the reason for that, you’re spending more than you earn

There are ways of cutting back but you don’t want to listen to any of them

I’ve had a nice chat with some posters thanks bear

And you? What are you getting from posting here?

I dont think OP is looking for sympathy as such ,She just wants to know if there are other people in the same boat as her, so she doesnt feel alone .Once you get used to a certain standard of living, its difficult to drop down and get used to a different way of life . The figure is relative to OP s situation .Obviously there will be people on a lower income with fewer debts but that is irrevelant to her ! As far as debts go they are hard to pay off easily as you need to live in the meantime! As I said in my earlier post, possibly renting out a room even for the short term ,may help or Tutoring perhaps .

Hi OP. I've only read half the thread but wanted to say that I think you've been given a hard time here. There are some posters who really are more interested in criticising than conversing. Not sure if they are trying to play devil's advocate or whether they are just arses.

You have a good income on paper, but if you took out your childcare costs you don't have such a good income. £1500 take home is about 25 grand salary - more once your tax free is used up. You aren't complaining, just conversing. You have lived beyond your means but it sounds like that was due to ill health rather than being profligate and unfortunately I guess you didn't have critical illness cover hence you are still paying the financial price for that. We have a good income too and I can't figure out why we have little left by the end of the month. I was just calculating how much we spent at the supermarket over the last 4 weeks to see if that was part of the problem - £388 for 4 of us including some socializing over Xmas (we hosted so paid for food/ nibbles we wouldn't normally buy). I don't think that's excessive. We now have £200 to get through to pay day (24th). I will need to buy petrol and food. We'll be fine and it's good practice to spend nothing extra as that might help us to focus on where we are wasting money. It feels odd though to know you have so much on paper and not have any left by the end of the month.

April is not so far off. It sounds like things will start to ease then. If you can't wait that long I wonder whether you can amend debt repayments to be less punitive to you? I'm planning to keep records of everything I spend over the next couple of months. Maybe that would be helpful for you too?

OP i think understand how you feel the way you do.

I've noticed lately that social media etc tends to mean you notice only the very apparent good bits about everyone else's financial position.

E.g. you have a few friends on similar incomes to you, and see that
John & Anna have a lovely house
Tilly & George go on fab looking holidays
Matt & Sarah have a whizzy looking car
Tim & Caroline's kids do 6 expensive hobbies each

But your brain misses out that
John &Anna live incredibly cheaply at home - veggie, kids all in 2nd hand stuff, no car.
Tilly & George are drowning in debt
Matt & Sarah were given that car by a well off parent, & otherwise live in a modest home with 1 child.
Tim & Caroline rent and choose to spend money they could have used for a deposit on lifestyle.

Your brain just consolidates it all and tells you you ought to have all those things, and you scramble to keep up. In fact you make poor financial decisions to do so, only making it even harder to stay afloat.

It happens to us all. If you live anywhere a bit pricier in the south, eg Bristol, your income is actually not that high for a family of four, especially if your social circle is full of reasonably comfortable middle class families. You lose perspective and overspend to maintain an image you think is the norm.

I would urge everyone to teach your kids how to manage money. It is such an important undervalued skill and can make a massive difference to your happiness.

And you? What are you getting from posting here?

You proving my point that you’re just being snipey

OP I hear you.

Most of the families I know have an income of 5-6k including us. People assume you must be rolling in but it's really not the case & when I read threads on here about huge holiday budgets i'm very envious. We all drive second hand cars, don't buy coffee & holiday cheap. When you're paying out 4k on mortgages/rent, travel, childcare it doesn't live much once you account for bills & food.

Op - an easy thing to check - did you pay the correct amount of tax last year? I’ve been doing a tax return for 15 years and it has always been £100 or less that I owe them or they owe me. (My finances are not very exciting - one employer, one lot of professional subscriptions, a little bit of share dividends, a little bit of interest on saving. I used to do some freelance work which is why I have to do the return but not for over a decade.) Anyway this year it turns out they owe me £893! £893! I have no idea what went wrong - it really really shouldn’t have. But it did and I’d have never noticed if I hadn’t had to do a tax return.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland I agree with your post. But a household salary of £85k with 2 kids puts them in the top 10% of earners in the UK. So it is well above the average. I get that it is not rich though. So you do still need to budget.