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!

But surely you do realise that what you consider a "necessity" just is not possible for some people? We certainly don't have the money to pay for driving lessons/car and insurance for my DC and it just isn't possible for me to give them lifts everywhere as I can't drive.

Presumably you made the choice to live where you do and can afford the associated additional costs of cars and lessons and insurance. So, a choice not a necessity based based on your circumstances, and a choice you can afford to make.

Not everyone has the luxury of making these choices and declaring them a necessity. You are very privileged but don't seem to realise it.

Which I have done.

I didn’t exactly choose to live here. When we moved this was the only place available that sort of ticked a couple of boxes.

We didn’t even view it.

First time I walked inside was when we had bought the place

When we got our house access to public transport was a key thing for me. There were some nicer houses nowhere near public transport, but we can only afford to run one car because my DP needs it for work. So we could not have managed without public transport. Some of which is inconvenient and takes forever, but it exists.

And please don't advising me to learn to drive, so I can give my DC lifts, as I can't (epilepsy). I also lost my career so don't earn enough to pay for cars for my DC. You see, things like that take away your choices and you just can't facilitate what you deem as necessary. You don't realise how privileged you are to be able to say that (and yes, I probably do sound bitter, that's because I am and comments like yours just seem so blinkered)

karencantobe

We bought this place when there was no choice of housing.

I was calling estate agents (we had a wide area of where would be ok) and a lot of agents didn’t have a single house for sale.

We had sold ours in another area within 10 minutes of us telling the estate agent to sell it.

The guy bid the full asking price before he viewed it.
We were then in holiday cottage accommodation with a dog for several months
It came down to having a roof, 4 walls and up for sale as the only criteria you could work to.

We could have moved years ago but Dp likes the area.

Tinkly, wanting to do things and seeing them as really important still doesn't make them necessities.

Necessitates are things you HAVE to have to survive, not things which are nice-to-haves or which will be great at giving you a better life in future.

It would be lovely for all parents to be able to fully fund their kids through uni, pay for driving lessons and fund their early rent whilst at work and a deposit for a house. Those are lovely things which really help the recipients but can't be considered necessities even if lovely. And the reality is most people can't provide them. Those children go onto have good lives and be fine without them - it isn't the presence of them or not that determines if they can have a good life, hence not necessities. And going back to the original Op, those things aren't worth spending money on if the expense is beyond your means and means you can't pay the mortgage and bring your children up in an atmosphere of stress about money.

You can only have what you can afford.

Some people are sadly poor because their income is just insuffiencient to read genuine necessities.
Other people could cover genuine necessitates if they budgeted more carefully and chose less luxuries with their money.
Other people can have necessitate plus plenty of luxuries because their income is high enough.

Sometimes those with very high incomes and lots of luxuries who mix with similar people lose sight of what necessitates are. They think that some of their luxuries are necessities. They forget that even if something is normal in their social group, it isn't naturally a necessity. They forget that most people can never have those things and manage perfectly well. It can be hard for them to imagine life without items they so take for granted.

When people can't accurately distinguish between essentials and luxuries and start saying things like providing teenage children with full uni fees or their 20s child with a deposit for a house is essential, they have lost sight of how most people live and what is actually essential.......and that lack of social awareness is a bit offensive and possibly stupid.

What some people mean is that they consider X,Y and Z necessary for a affluent middle class lifestyle. They forget there are many other lifestyles too and most don't have the affluent middle class one and can be perfectly happy if they have enough for essentials and possibly a little bit more.

Flirty having £40k of debt (which mine had: it has risen now) or £60k of debt (from the full loan) is really neither here or there. The way the repayments are structured, your payment each month depends on what you earn, not how much you borrowed. Hardly anyone pays it all back anyway.

And I’m not talking about paying their full uni fees: I’m talking about paying a full level of maintenance, equivalent to the full maintenance loan.

And of course this is essential, when student accommodation alone is often more than the minimum loan my kids were given. If I didn’t top them up, they couldn’t go to uni: their courses are too demanding to have the time to earn the top up to pay the basics. And yes, they did do part time jobs to pay for extras.

Please take time to educate yourself about the uni loans system and how it disadvantages young adults from higher income families and essentially makes them reliant on their parents.

But the point is that if you were consequently unable to pay your mortgage or buy food at the end of the month, choosing to spend on uni maintenance wouldn't be the most essential use of the money.

You can afford to live and buy luxuries which include paying uni maintenance.

There are children whose parents won't give them top-ups and who work to fully fund themselves, or who simply don't go to uni until much later when they can fund or access the cash themselves.

Going to uni isn't an essential. That might be surprising to you....and I say it as someone who is wholly committed to education and would make considerable sacrifices for it. It seems essential to you because it is normal in your circle. It would seem a mistake for a family to impoverish themselves and perhaps lose their accommodation through choosing to fund something for their child like uni maintenance - not choosing the true essential.

Fortunately you will probably never have to make that choice - your kids can have a roof over their head and uni too.....becaue your income and wealth lets you have both. But many can't have both.

I've heard people say it has been essential, to buy their child a car because they have a job in a difficult to reach place. It wasn't essential. It was nice to be able to do it to allow the children O choose a job in a far flung place, and without the car the child would have had less choices.....but having huge choices are not a necessity .....they are a luxury and one most people don't have.

Money gives people more choices and allows them to set their children up with more choices. The choices are a luxury not a necessity. We would like all to have them, but the fact they don't, by definition shows they aren't necessitiies.

Nd again going back to the original issue of the thread, it is daft to prioritise luxuries and non necessities if it means you can't pay for food and shelter and fear your boiler breaking. Great if you can afford both but doesn't make the luxuries necessitiies.

Wombat, i think you are undermining your point by pushing it too far. Uni maintenance is effectively like child maintenance - if you earn over a particular threshold and your child chooses to go to uni you are held legally responsible for part of their upkeep. If you were unable to pay this and pay your mortgage, you would not be held responsible- they would have to be financially independent from you.

Also, your concept of necessity is not as rigid as you say - in the end it's all relative really- is a boiler a necessity or a luxury?

Your other points are well made though. I happen to think though that the op's problem is that she's overstretched herself on her mortgage. To keep up the payments she has to incur childcare bills she can't really comfortably afford. It's not really the case that she is now recategorising luxuries as essentials. But i suppose we reap what we sow when it comes to how much we choose to spend on our mortgage, car etc. That's not to say i am wholly unsympathetic to the op. I have made similar choices, and am fortunate that i haven't had to incur the extra debt she has.

Apply for a monzo card. I have found my spending has been much better. You can put as much as you like on there each week from your main account. We find we actually have more money left in joint account since doing this. It's worth a try surely?

Parents are expected to top up maintenance loans but they aren't legally required to do so. Many students have to get a job as their parents either can't or win't top up their loans.

They aren't legally required but the"expectation" means they are not entitled to the alternative form of funding otherwise deemed necessary for students. You could get a job, but that's not how the system is supposed to work. There's a process for declaring yourself financially independent if you are estranged but it'd be fraud to abuse this. So it's not really legally enforceable but it is not truly optional either.