To not be sure how we never have any bloody money?!

[ThePinkGuitar]

I know lots of friends that earn the same or bit less that get to have holidays aboard, lots of days out beautiful home.
We are nearly at the end of renovating our house but no money to finish it off. Dh earns 40k plus does lots of side jobs so probably on average another £150 pm. I earn 28k (22.5 hours pro rota).
We have 2 children never have been able to take them on fancy trips. We don’t wear expensive clothes, no cosmetic costs (dye my own hair and use Rimmel make up lol).
We have an average car, pay 1k a month mortgage. We spend a lot of groceries.
But seriously where is all the money going I genuinely do not understand?!

That is A LOT to be spending at ASDA unless you’re buying ready meals/alcohol/treats etc. to put it in perspective, we spent less than that at Ocado/Waitrose and spend at least £50/month on nice ice cream and another 50 on nice cheese, only buy organic meat etc etc. but also don’t really buy any processed food or ready meals, apart from the cheese and ice cream.

Also, that’s A LOT on a TV package on your income, we have Netflix and prime video, maybe £20? I cannot fathom spending 5x that on TV on a quarter of our income...

@peepercountry

I don’t think people realise how much you actually get net pay even on a decent wage

I do think there is an element of this.
110k is £5870 a month before pension so over 3k going on tax. No child benefit, no 30 hours, no tax free childcare. It's obvs a lot of money but not as much as I thought.

@peepercountry and anyone else affected.

Please be aware of that nasty band between £100,000 and £125.000, where your personal allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 of income over £100,000. ( Over £125,000 you get nil personal allowance).

As an example on £100,000 your annual take home is £66,644 pa/ £5,554 pm. On your figure of £110,000 gross your take home is £70,444pa / £5,870 pm.

You are effectively paying total tax and NI of 62% on that top slice of £10,000 and only taking home £3,800 of it.

If you can put that £10,000 into a pension instead, it will be there for you when you need it in later life. It should grow over the intervening years, and it will only have "cost you" "£3,800 of take home pay.

Something I wish I had understood better much earlier on in life! 😊

@VestaTilley

If you give us a rough breakdown of all your outgoings and income we may be able to help more.

Your friends may earn more than you, have lower debts, have family providing childcare or may cover their expenses with loans and credit cards - don’t worry about what others are doing.

We go out loads but it’s mostly to National Trust gardens and houses - we pay an annual membership then we can go as much as we like- take a picnic and it’s a fab free day out for children. Keep theme parks or panto/theatre etc to an annual treat. Look for vouchers and deals for cinema trips and swimming sessions.

Try not to worry about what others get up to - you don’t know how they’re financing it.

@VestaTilley if you join the Scottish National Trust it's cheaper and you still get the same access.

I am aware that people on £100k+ pay a lot of tax, but they still have more money than nearly everyone and people on lower incomes also pay a lot of tax, plus have to pay bills, childcare etc out of a smaller income.

But if you don't feel financially comfortable on more money than 90%+ of the population then you need to have a long hard think about your financial choices and expectations about essentials and luxuries.

Like the OP who has said she will do this after starting out saying she 'never has any bloody money' before realising that they're spending far more than is necessary on food, TV package and her DHs coffee spending.

Exactly.

People bleating about being skint on that kind of money have obviously never had money worries and its so annoying to have to bloody explain it to them.

@ThePinkGuitar

Should add we are paying off 15k debt and I have 3k owed on credit cards. We are chipping away at but it seems never ending

That's where the money is going then. Pretty obvious I would have thought?

Our joint income is less than half of yours , we have some debt, we pay it off. I feel lucky to have what we do (especially to have bought a house, mortgaged). It's all about perspective I think.

@ThePinkGuitaryou said your dh does lots of side jobs, is that cash in hand or declared income?

When you find the money black holes cut back, use the cutbacks to clear debt.
A £3 daily coffee 5 days a week costs £60 monthly £720 a year when you multiple these little spends over a year it is shocking.
Set yourself a goal to be debt free in 18/24 months.
I don't have lots of money, i dont have debt if something expensive broke it would be hard to replace thankfully I started saving 25 a week it surprised me how quick it grows.

Hi OP sorry, probably already been mentioned, but I keep a spreadsheet to get my head round my finances, a bit like the example here

Ermm it might be the 20k of debt....

@Hopeisnotastrategy thank you!

And what does "never have any bloody money" actually mean in real terms to you? "Only" hundreds in the bank plus some savings? Or is there actually no money at the end of your month?

I have a friend who is constantly worrying about money and saying they need to "pull their belts in" . She mentions it regularly while (pre covid) they go out to eat most weeks, have a private tutor for their DS, go on foreign holidays, have a new car and had their whole house renovated.

You need to get a spreadsheet! Maybe get monzo cards and work out how much you each need for frivolous spending and transfer it each month and once its gone its gone. Your food shop is massive. You need to meal plan and only buy those ingredients. Our shop for this week was £43 for everything. Obviously its more when we need washing powder etc but you really need to look at that. Also like a lot of posters your TV packages are insane. You need to get these basics sorted before you can really get your head around skimming money off other essentials.

@Fizbosshoes

And what does "never have any bloody money" actually mean in real terms to you? "Only" hundreds in the bank plus some savings? Or is there actually no money at the end of your month?

I have a friend who is constantly worrying about money and saying they need to "pull their belts in" . She mentions it regularly while (pre covid) they go out to eat most weeks, have a private tutor for their DS, go on foreign holidays, have a new car and had their whole house renovated.

I think people say it so they can go on to brag about what they actually have, it's like they can't go into brag mode straight away so they say oh I'm so skint we have blah blah blah, just like the op has to mention her husband additionally earns extra from homes and she has a good wage for her pt hours.

It's all bragging and I guess mn is the perfect place for it.

We occasionally splash out on sports channels for particular competitions but you can get them on Now for a very limited time

Remember if you're watching live sport, you still need to pay for the TV licence.

Homers not homes

We pay £28 a month for our Sky which includes sport and box sets (my husband beat them down a lot by threatening to cancel), then we have Netflix and Prime so what’s that - £40 a month for all 3?! Might be worth seeing if you can knock the tv package down.

Definitely you should meal plan to try to cut down the grocery bill. Can you do a couple of cheap meals a week like jacket pots with cheese/beans and fajitas?! Might just make a difference.

Husbands coffee habit should be curbed also -£10 a day on lunch/coffee when you have debt is not sensible. We have no debt other than mortgage and I very rarely buy coffee from a shop as it is shockingly expensive over a year. My husband does buy from a van which visits his workplace but that comes out of “his” cash (it’s all family money but we both have a vague monthly personal budget) so if that’s what he wants to spend his money on then fine. I’d rather buy other things.

You can definitely save here abd there by making small changes.

@ssd

Yawn. Another family on over 60k money about money. Mn at its finest.

Yawn another quick to judge troll.

OP, you are paying off debts. For all you know these other families are accruing debts. Or may have inheritances, help from family, etc.

Keep paying down the debt, run your own race. You will get there.

@ThePinkGuitar

Should add we are paying off 15k debt and I have 3k owed on credit cards. We are chipping away at but it seems never ending

Answered your own question

You need to put your income and expenditure in an excel spreadsheet and be completely honest about what you spend.

Include school dinner money, socialising, clothes: EVERY LAST PENNY must be accounted for.

Having a quick glance you have a high mortgage, are paying off nearly 20k in debt and "spend lots of money on food" so that's where most of it's going.

Time to start being more sensible with your food bill for a start. For a family of 4 there is no reason why your food bill is more than £75 a week max and take a look at home much you spend on SKY, Amazon etc because those are luxuries.

There is only one way to work it out: you need to write everything down that comes in and everything that goes out. Exactly the same as if you are trying to maintain your weight if that's more familiar, you need to make sure to stick to a calorie "budget" where in = out. Just budgeting money is much simpler as you know exactly what things cost rather than having to estimate calorie intake and output.

When I was a student I was a master budgeter, I knew exactly what I could spend in every month and never went over it. Once I started working I stuck to my student budget and my bf and I saved up for the deposit to buy a tiny flat. Since then I've been made and don't need to worry too much about budgeting, but I will never forget how I used to budget back then to get to where I am now.

If I were to guess, once you've paid off the debt (which should be your priority) and have got into a habit of budgeting carefully your food and other outgoings, I think you'll find you're going to be just fine.

Maybe try to keep a log of day to day spending? Seems tiresome ,but it really all does add up! £3.00 coffee here,a magazine /paper ,Childrens treats and so on .Can you get a better deal Gas/Electric? Change to a cheaper supermarket ,go down to just the one car? Lots of bargains on Ebay .I find it impossible to compare to others though ,they may have childcare with family ,parents paying for treats /outings together and so on.