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!

If you live in the southeast, £85 000 won’t go far. we have significantly more and have to be careful (we do have a child with SENds though, which costs a fortune, but what is the choice?)

Running cars can also be hugely expensive. We pay far, far more than £120 a month for ours. In fact, this has just reminded me I need to get petrol.

Get the book Your Money or Your Life OP. It will change the way you think about money.

Someone upthread mentioned Dave Ramsey, if the book above doesn’t sound appealing, then look up Dave Ramsey. If you follow his plan you could be debt free in a year or two, depending on your level of debt.

As others have mentioned, you need to start tracking your spending, either with an app or a good old fashioned notepad and paper.

Getting better deals on your energy and insurance is another good one. I spent a couple of evenings doing this recently and saved us £100. I’ve help the PIL to swap their energy supplier and that alone saved them £60 a month.

I’d also sell everything you can from your home. Get on FB or eBay and have a good think about what’s around that you don’t actually use or need.

Do either of you have the potential to earn more, if not in your fulltime job then as a sideline.?

Do you mealplan and shop in Lidl/Aldi?

Have you cancelled Virgin/Sky, Netflix. Audible and any other non-essential monthly outgoings?

OP, were in the same boat. I always hear "oh well don't eat out so much" or "take your own lunch to work" "don't buy takeaway coffees" "stop buying takeaways" etc, but we don't do any of that. We live on lidl coffee, gave up milk to save some pennies, make my lunch using Lidls cheapest bread and sliced ham and loads of other shitty things like that. But for us it's debt and childcare costs.

How much are you paying out on your morgage childcare and food and transport

Where do your debts come from ?

You have to list your outgoings OP if you want help with sorting it out!

It’s very much possible to reduce your outgoings to the bare minimum/important bills
Mortgage- need
Electricity-need (can it be reduced though)
Sky/Netflix - not necessary
Gym -not necessary

Etc etc

I wasn’t necessarily looking for advice, which is why I didn’t put figures in, I’m not totally comfortable discussing finances on an open forum. I wondered if anyone else was in the same boat.

lard, loans and credit cards.

Can I suggest moving all of your finances into something like Monzo so you can track exactly what you're spending and budget accordingly for the month.

I

Yeah be more specific you don't have to be exact if you don't want to but it does sound like you've overstretched yourselves. I imagine your a family most people are envious of nice big house , nice cars etc but your finance to the hilt . The mortgage probably not a lot you can do unless you downsize same with cars if you pay a lot can you get something cheaper ?
Other debts can you consolidate?
Day to day living food eating out , clothes hobbies this is probably where you need to look at . How often do you eat out buy takeaway, coffee , lunches?
If you go through and write down everything you spend in a month you'll be suprised how much you waste .

Same here! Our problem is living beyond our means for quite a while (DH main culprit).
I meticulously record it all and we have a budget but we never catch up as an expensive thing happens before we have a chance to save anything or clear the credit.

Combined income of £83k, house mortgage of 50% LTV of £160k. Scrapping around for change. I’ve got the direct debits down to minimums but its still not giving us enough to get on top of it. Frustrating!

Yes but did you spend the loan n credit car money on

Have you thought about putting the credit card debt into one loan? I just finished paying off £10,000 and the relief was amazing.
Also I've cut down how much I pay for food. Childcare is a killer

What did you

You have over stretched yourself so it will feel stressful. When the debt are paid off and childcare reduces you will start to feel better. Can you get cheaper phone and tv deals

I’m sure there’s plenty of ppl in the same boat OP but to be honest I don’t see the point of your post if you don’t want advice on how to help yourself. Do you just want to make yourself feel better knowing that others are in the same position...how will that do anything!!??

why did you take out the loans? For what purpose? It might help indicate if it was essential need or not.

You need the MSE moneymakeover.

Lots of good advice on this thread, but I'd say the most important thing is to get the credit cards paid off, but look at how much interest is being charged and minimise this as much as possible.

Don't fall into the trap of just paying the minimum as most of this goes on interest and you can throw thousands at them for years and get nowhere towards paying off your debt although the rules are changing on this to help people in persistent debt.

Your totally normal. There's loads of people in the same boat - living beyond their means, running up debts, making daft choices then wondering why they are skint.

You said you didn't want advice. But if you do, the best two bits of advice have already been given above.

1. YNAB - this really lets you budget and see where your money is going
2. Dave Ramsey for motivation and guidance - the book mentioned above or there is great clips on you Tube.

So you are happy to struggle with debt, possibly for the rest of your lives, as long as you can moan along with others in the same boat. OK then.

With respect lard that’s personal.

YNAB costs money!

Yeah ok, barbara, sure

You are absolutely not alone OP!

Those suggesting budget, money makeover etc. How will it help, genuinely?

I suspect what it would say to us is:-
Move to a smaller house (no, would cost £1000s to move and good schools are here)
Cancel kids’ hobbies and activities (no, I didn’t get to do much stuff like that as a child and I don’t want that for my kids)
Shop at Aldi (I already do)
Don’t buy takeaway coffee (never do, get cheap lunch once a week at cafe which I could stop but it works really well for us)
Downgrade cars (no, need good car for work, icy roads etc)
Change phone contracts (tied in until end of contract and phones seem designed to break after 2 years forcing you into a new phone and new contract)
Go to cheapest energy supplier (already on)

That’s fair enough about the figures, would imagine there are a fair few people in your position.

Agree with Lipper. Trying to make yourself feel better by consoling yourself that other people are like you is a short term relief.

Yes, there will be thousands of people out there in debt.

If you want to feel better about being one of them, you need a plan to help yourself.