How do people afford to buy so much?

[Ilovexmastime35]

Aibu to be confused about where I'm going wrong?! Of course everyone's financial situation is different and for those earning well it is no problem paying out for clothes/shoes etc.
But for low - mid earners, how do you afford things? I see people on social media going out regularly, days out, holidays, clothes, city breaks, seaside trips, buying new technology etc. I know what jobs they do and they are not high earners. How are they doing this?

I want to treat my kids to a day out over half term. I've just looked at booking tickets to a local safari park for 2 adults 2 children. It comes to £145!!
I was looking at a local meet Santa on a train event, £80! We can't do it because if I bought those tickets I wouldn't have any money left for anything else for a month.
I think these prices are extortionate and for low-mid earners most people cannot afford these prices.

I need new clothes, boots and a coat desperately. I'm plus size so cannot shop at Primark. The cheapest I can find is a cardigan is priced £34.99. A coat over £59. I just cannot afford these things! My clothes have holes in and my shoes leak!

Im unable to work at the moment ,but my husband earns just over 50k. After all bills, food, fuel, we have about £200 disposal income to last a month. We don't drink, smoke, we don't eat out or socialise. Our money goes on the children and the house. There is never a penny left over for us.

I think in comparison to wages, most things are priced too high. I'm grateful we have a roof over our heads and can afford food but everthing else seems out of reach!. My husband is senior management, he can't earn any more than he does now. We are not frivolous at all. Any advice on how to afford these things apart from getting into debt?

Could you look for some work?

How can people afford to buy so much? It can be anyone's guess, but most people work. If you try to run a family on a single income, it's bound to be difficult. I have seen single income families, and they run a very very tight ship.

I need new clothes, boots and a coat desperately. I'm plus size so cannot shop at Primark. The cheapest I can find is a cardigan is priced £34.99. A coat over £59. I just cannot afford these things! My clothes have holes in and my shoes leak!

Oh come off it! Primark does plus sizes, as do Tesco, and a million other places. Your DH earns over 50k a year, playing the cant' afford shoes card is insulting to people who manage much better on a fraction of that.

Do you have any outlet stores near you...M&S outlet near me has loads of clothes, many of which are plus sizes, for about a quarter of their original price, if not lower...sometimes only one tenth of original price.

I would probably not do the day trips you are thinking of as they sound overpriced. Buying an annual subscription to one local attraction and going back lots of times could be more cost effective.
I think you must be paying out a lot in mortgage payments and maybe need to move to a cheaper area or smaller house.
Are you paying out for a newish top of the range car? Could you manage with a 3 yr old modest car you could hang on to?
On the other hand I can understand that you will not have as much disposable income as say two people each earning £25K as they will pay less tax and be entitled to more benefits. Most things are weighted against families with one larger income and one stay at home parent. On the other hand you will not have childcare costs to pay out.
Another reason some people with your income will have more disposable income might be that they bought their property when it was cheaper and so mortgage payments are lower.
If you are not in a position to work at present could you try selling stuff on Ebay to raise some money to buy yourself some clothes. If you don't have a sparks card already maybe worth getting one to get discounts on M& S clothes..some of their basic items like jeans are ok.
Our main extravagance is the weekly shop. If I needed to save money I would start there and do careful meal planning, buy stuff on sell by date to freeze etc.

OP say she's unable to work at the moment, not that she doesn't want to work.

My point is tho that even if we could afford it I think things are far too expensive!! 35 pounds for a cardigan

This doesn't really make much sense, sorry. What does it actually mean to say things are "too expensive".? Things can be "too expensive for me to afford" or specific things can be "too expensive because X is much better value for money". Or prices that are heavily regulated like rail fares can be "too expensive" because there are good environmental reasons why the government should regulate for low rail fares (and expensive petrol). But to just suggest that in general "stuff is too expensive" without comparison to something else makes no sense. Firms will set prices for their goods and services at a level at which they can make money given the costs and enough people will want to buy it.

Oh, and as someone else said, clothes particularly and consumer goods generally are cheaper than they have ever been in history relative to wages. Houses not so much.

By the way EBay is great for clothes, got new winter boots for me and my daughter on EBay. Decent brand, her's new without tags and mine practically new but for about an 8th of the price

EBay and Amazon also sell generic things like leggings, cardigans and basic tops very cheaply

I buy my clothes usually from asda or sainsburys. And kids clothes from primark
direct.asda.com/george/women/jumpers-cardigans/cream-hooded-open-front-cardigan/GEM794959,default,pd.html?cgid=D1M1G20C5

We did the Sun days out thing. Then DH's family came along and we ended up paying for them so that was a total waste of time collecting the tokens.

But it's a good idea.

Asda have cardi for £12 in size 22

I can only assume you live some where expensive. I earn £55k and have £1300 left over to do as we wish each month.

I am another who is surprised that £50k isn't enough. I think track your spending for a while to see where the money is going. Shop around a bit more for clothes - you don't need to spend £35 on a cardigan if you don't want to or cant afford it. I just bought a coat from Asda for £22 and a cardigan for £10. they go up to a size 26.

direct.asda.com/george/women/coats-jackets/blue-boucle-throw-on-jacket/GEM752977,default,pd.html?cgid=D1M1G20C6

I can afford these things as both me and DH work and we are careful with savings. We drive a very old car and we have a small house.

You say you can’t work at the moment but can you really not do anything? I don’t know your circumstances but if you are well enough for safari parks is there really nothing you can do to get a bit of extra money? If only ad hoc?

Me and my husband live in a middle income area and drive an oldish car but we actually have a pretty good income. He is a professional at the top of his career and makes a really good wage. I am self employed and my income varies but at times I can bring in more in a month than my husband. I also has quite a large inheritance a few years ago.

We live well below our means and save a lot but if we actually need or want something then we can usually afford it easily. We don't discuss our finances with anyone outside our marriage so people would have no idea how much money we have.

Most of my clothes are from charity shops with some items from supermarkets.
The people you're comparing yourself to are probably in a lot of debt.

I haven't read the full thread so apologies if I'm repeating questions.

Do you pay a crazy amount on mortgage/rent or travelling to work?

If not, how do you only have £200 left over?!? We earn a bit more than you and have 1.5k disposable, and this includes nursery fees. We have a used car, chose a relatively cheap property and save most of our disposable income to pay mortgage off quicker or go on holiday. Hardly spend anything on clothes or days out because they're all a rip off.

2 people with identical incomes and same size families could both have very different outgoings and ‘leftover money’ once everything is paid for. One family could have a mortgage that costs 250 per month more, a car on finance that costs more in tax/fuel/insurance for example. So it ends up the other family have £500 a month more to spend on days out and new clothes and treats. There’s a lot that will effect how much money people have to play with.

You also find some amazing bargains in the sales but I accept you need time to be able to hunt them out. I got a Next coat down from £70 to £20 in the summer in my size and in petite range. Even then I tried it on a few times a few different days to make sure I really liked it, otherwise would have returned it.

Now the cold weather is coming I'm looking forward to wearing it.

I'm plus size too and yea clothes can be expensive, Yours clothing, new look curve and Sainsbury's (upto size 24) often have good discounts.

For days out we look for 2 for 1 vouchers on food boxes or use Tesco Clubcard vouchers. Or as is the case more often we pick cheap outings. Days out at the park or nature reserve, thermos of hot chocolate, picnic and if you have the time/energy you can do a hot picnic like soup or pasties or sausages that keep warm in a food flask.

I buy most of my clothes on eBay. Got a £90 Zara coat for £20 last week.

Recently I've got a pair of hardly worn Timberland boots for £18.

You just filter by your size, max price and what you're looking for.

We earn around the same, live in a v expensive part of the SE near Cambridge, and have about £700 left over a month.

Food shopping at Tesco about £300 a month. Lots of batch cooking from scratch. I'd recommend investing in a big freezer and buying lots of meat/bread/reduced items when they're yellow ticketed then freeze them.

It sounds like you need to do some shopping online to change your insurances/bills/utilities.

You're mortgage, bills and food must be very high if you have £3k a month coming in and only £200 of it left as disposable.

Between me and DH we bring in about £2700 a month and we have money left over for treats, clothes and days out. We have a mortgage, sky package, run two cars and have a loan for one of the cars (it was cheaper to get a bank loan than finance). We shop at aldi and bulk buy meat when it's cheap and freeze it. We have probably one "proper" day out (zoo or equivalent) every 2 or 3 months but we rarely pay full price, usually find a discount voucher, and we always bring a packed lunch. We haven't been abroad on holiday for about 3 years, we spend about £600 on one UK holiday a year plus couple of hundred spending money. If one of us needs a coat or boots then it gets bought. We don't spend big money on clothes (don't do designer or anything) but I would expect a decent winter coat for an adult to cost between £50-£80.

One thing is that we hate debt, we really begrudge paying interest on anything so we save to have a rainy day fund for if the boiler breaks or the microwave packs in etc. And if we can't afford something then we don't get it, that's it. Our phones were bought outright, my car was bought outright. It took A LOT of deliberation on whether to get a loan for dh's car but even then it was only about £5k. If we want something then we save up for it.

It's definitely worth having a look on MSE to see if you can shave some money off your outgoings.

op you’ve said you don’t work- is that something that could change? That is the thing that would make the biggest difference to you?

Also look on places like Depop for good second hand clothes.

Also, are all these people single income households like yourself? Trying to run a household on one income is going to be tight, so cut yourself some slack. £50k single income is less cash than 2 x £25 earners. Once you are able to work it will be much easier.

P.s. H&M also do cardigans in their plus range - £9.99 for thin and £17.99 for thicker ones. they often have 15% off etc too.

Lower bills/ housing and car costs?

We're on two incomes (one high) and don't do all that stuff all the time though. We had a cheap UK holiday this year and last year. We're lucky that my Dad pays for several days out for us every year (theme park etc). We might do something special for a birthday but most of our other trips are very cheap or free e.g. beach, walk or country park.

I'm not sure what plus size size you are but Mountain Warehouse has decent coats at around £30-40 up to size 28 and often offers 10% off your first order.