Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

A post for 'low earners'

106 replies

Maybeimweird · 27/04/2020 19:43

Right so I've just seen the thread asking what people earn and these threads always surprise me at how rich people are and I suppose I do feel abit meh afterwards, I cannot believe how low my household income is comparing to others, feel like I've been living blindly as I thought dh wage was ok. I also read on a thread that the average salary was 35k! Me and dh bring in around 2k a month if that, we were also paying £665 in rent a month. I earn £700 a month it doesn't actually pay me to work, if I stopped working then I could stop having to out my children in a childminders and I would get higher universal credits, doesn't sound great but that's the truth!

So my question is are there any families living on a similar wage and still happy and coping and going on some holidays or should I be feeling deflated? Am I the normal average and sniliar to others? I want to hear positive stories

OP posts:
Original poster
Maybeimweird · 27/04/2020 22:10

dranktoomuchpepsi wow that's amazing! Well done by the way!

OP posts:
Original poster
Maybeimweird · 27/04/2020 22:12

mollibu good for you!

Well I'm happy this is not uncommon to be on less than 100k haha nothing better than being able to relate to people

OP posts:
raspberryk · 27/04/2020 22:18

If you are happy as you are that's cool OP, if not, you could go to uni. You'd qualify for a decent student maintenance loan, plus the childcare grant and you would be no worse off than you are now, maybe slightly better off for the 3 years. Then when you are qualified at the moment the role I am looking at (band 5 NHS) the salary is just under 25k. The kids will be 3 years older, childcare gets less, you can apply for part time work and the money isn't too bad on 3 days or school hours.

Original poster
Maybeimweird · 27/04/2020 22:36

rasberryk ooh really! I do know to better myself I would need to study further etc, so it's something to think about thankyou!

I used to be cabin crew but stopped doing it for the children

OP posts:
cantory · 27/04/2020 23:05

I come home with £1100 a month, DP varies but about £2,000 a month. Both of us just pay statutory minimum into pensions. When I entered our family details into a compare your salary app, I was told that with our family composition with kids, we come out as better off than 56% of the population.
We also live outside London and in our area will be quite a bit better than 56%.
Also people live on MN. I don't know why they do, but I have seen at times posters boasting about big salaries and homes caught out on MN in those lies.

raspberryk · 27/04/2020 23:06

I don't know how old your kids are but I am glad I have had 80% of the childcare bill paid for during the highest cost period while the youngest has been in nursery. I get school holidays off and I am only in uni 2 or 3 days between October and May. Win win.

edenhills · 27/04/2020 23:14

Dh earns £26k, I dont work through choice. 2 kids. Live in the south east in a very expensive area. We are really happy! Cant afford holidays other than camping. Dont buy things or eat out but it works for us. Have no debts other than a fairly low mortgage as we were lucky to buy a flat before house prices got too crazy.

WaterOffADucksCrack · 27/04/2020 23:45

Its when dh suggests I work full time I think why should I never see the children. Well then that's your choice. It's not like you can't earn more, you don't want to (which is fine). Although it's interesting that you think it's ok for your husband to never see the children but it isn't ok for you. What if he refused on the same grounds?

Unworthie · 28/04/2020 00:03

I earn about 18 a year.
Low rent now due to social housing, lone parent with teen DC, so that's household income I guess.
I've never really been out of that bracket, some earned, some in work benefits in different proportions over the years.
As DC have got older the % of earned has increased and benefits decreased now to nothing except child benefit and a small amount of child tax credit because I'm a single parent.
Childcare costs reduced over the years, a wage increase because I stuck at it and I'm not rolling in it by any stretch, but I've just lived on my savings for the last 6 weeks after the place I work closed - would never have had that cushion a few years ago because I had nothing to save and I will manage on 80% of my income, very frugally, but I will. Again that would have been impossible a couples of years ago.
It gets better as DC get older and as you increase income but are that used to living frugally you really notice even a small increase!

ssd · 28/04/2020 00:23

I've been here years and noticed that the threads asking about what you do and what you earn get filled up pretty quickly as people like to boast. They like everyone thinking oohhh didn't know ssd is a dentist and earns 120k a year, I think I'll notice her more now"

Rather than "Oh. So ssd works in a shop and earns £9an hour, well I'm not surprised".

Anyone earning well loves to put it out there and they usually get feted a bit.

Daftodil · 28/04/2020 01:17

I know lots of people on good salaries that moan that they are underpaid or that they never get to see their DC/DP because the work such long hours. Spending £40 on a lipstick or £80 on a bottle of wine and wondering why they had no money left at the end of each month. My salary was lower than theirs and I still managed to reduce my hours when I had DC (now work 3 days). It's not always about what's coming in, but what's going out. If you are able to work PT and see the value in that, I'd say you earn enough.

0hbloodyhell · 28/04/2020 01:33

Think my take home as a full time student with 3 part time jobs is around 18k (including the student finance maintenance loan) earnings from work are under the personal allowance threshold though I do pay NI, at least they were pre-lockdown, one is a bar job that I am furloughed from, the others are industry dependent and pro sports related so waiting game to see what happens there, not eligible for any help because I’m a student. Hoping to double that once I finish my degree and start working full time.

ukgift2016 · 28/04/2020 06:18

OP mumnet have made me feel shit about my family income too. With my partner we bring in £3600 a month which I thought was good! Yet on mumnet standard it's not a very good income.

Considering 100k accounts for only 2-5% of the population, it's shocking how many posters on here are 'rich'

Dranktoomuchpepsi · 28/04/2020 07:40

raspberry What are to studying at uni, if you don't mind me asking?

Original poster
Maybeimweird · 28/04/2020 08:48

ukgift2016 yeah that's a good wage in my eyes! I'd have loads spare with that.

There was a comment above about 'it's ok for my dh to not see kids while working but I don't want that for myself' of course both parents are equal but usually the man does work full time and plus he works 7am-3:30am so he does see them, my work closes at 6pm so if I did that full time I'd have no time to see them really afterwards for homework and dinner etc as we aim for bedtime at 7pm and that is the reason I am part time and on a lower wage because I want to be there for all this stuff. I fully understand if I want a higher wage I need to work for it, just wondering I suppose that I'm not the only normal waged person as I was surprised how high people's were on mumsnet

OP posts:
Original poster
Maybeimweird · 28/04/2020 08:49

*3:30pm that was supposed to say

OP posts:
BusterGonad · 28/04/2020 08:55

Op my husband is on a pretty good wage, but I read those threads and feel shit. To be fair even Facebook makes me feel shit. I constantly compare my life to others when in reality I expect others get jealous of my life! It's just the way it is, it's human nature to compare. Looking back on my life I think I was happiest just after we had our son and were skint, we had a fairly new mortgage and went down to one wage but I was happy. I think their are a lot of MNetters telling porkies tbh. I think this whole lock down business has changed my view on many things and one of them is to appreciate everything I have.

BusterGonad · 28/04/2020 08:56

*there are

Original poster
Maybeimweird · 28/04/2020 09:06

@BusterGonad I agree, I always think I bet people think I've always had it all but 2 years ago dh lost his job and we were the poorest we had ever been, searching for coppers around the house but people don't know this and yes show only the best bits on Facebook. I find it so weird that people would lie on mumsnet it's not as if we know who they are so can feel envious on a personal level so I don't know what they gain from it, I like to be honest and actually make people feel normal and better rather than making people feel worse

OP posts:
Original poster
Maybeimweird · 28/04/2020 09:08

... And yes lockdown has definately brought things back to basics and appreciate the little things in life because no-one can be flashy or materialistic really as most of us are stuck at home or working

OP posts:
SpiritEssence · 28/04/2020 09:15

I'm a low earner and only work 14 hours a week due to having a disabled adult dd. Always a struggle

Kim82 · 28/04/2020 09:18

Dh and I are on a similar wage to you OP, maybe an extra £200-300 a month more so £2,300 a month between us. We have 4 dc, live in the northwest and our mortgage is only £512 a month. We have virtually no childcare costs as we work around each other - we pay £6 a week for our youngest to go to breakfast club on the one day we are both at work early but that’s it. The older 3 are teens so don’t need childcare. We manage well and had a holiday abroad (April so was cancelled) and a camping trip in August booked for this year - first holiday abroad for a few years but better than nothing! I think we manage well with the wages we have.

Neither of us work full time (dh works 32 hours, I work 28) so there is room to increase our hours and/or change jobs when our youngest is older and doesn’t need us to work around her childcare needs so much (she’s only 5 at the moment) but it works well for us at the moment.

BusterGonad · 28/04/2020 09:27

I'm not sure what they gain either, but I read a lot of threads and think it sounds like bull shit.

Allthebestusernameshavegone · 28/04/2020 09:29

My DH earns about £1450 a month and I earn around £1050 part time. We have a nice detached home, 2 children. The children do extra activities, we have 2 cars and manage to afford the odd holiday. We paid £140,000 for our 3 bed detached home about 5 years ago and our mortgage is £500 a month. We’re happy and don’t struggle.

StormBaby · 28/04/2020 09:32

Our household costs £3k a month to run, I only take home half of that. You can imagine the stress of trying to find the other half. We get no housing or council tax benefits either. My DH has just had his Pip renewal rejected for his disability this week as well.

Swipe left for the next trending thread