I live on £1100 a month in London - is that 'hand to mouth'?

[kingsolomon]

After housing costs (£700), my take home salary is £1100 - single parent, two young children. I just read a case study from some research about a mother with two teens who gets £277 a week in benefits and subsidised housing, so pays £88 a month. So she gets about a £100 a month less than me in hand (but is not in London so maybe that balances out the same - also probably pays less council tax). They are described as living 'hand to mouth', and the woman says she is 'totally skint' and they frequently have to use candles when they run out of electricity. The case study also mentions debt issues (which I don't have - but I'm not judging anyone for getting in debt when I don't know their situation), and maybe she is not very good at managing money for whatever reason. I'm not trying to make a direct comparison with this particular person, to boast about myself or to put blame on anyone else. I was just shocked to realise that what I earn could be considered 'hand to mouth' when I don't feel that we are doing too badly! Am I way more hard up than I think? Would you consider yourself poor on what I earn?

BTW, this is absolutely not an anti-benefits thread. I believe in the welfare state and even universal basic income, depending on how it is run. And the fact that most people eligible for benefits are in work, so basically subsidising corporations to pay wages so low they can't support a family, is a scandal.

If you're clothing small children from charity shops then you are in for a big shock when they get older and that shock will come before they're teenagers.
I have 4 teenagers God help me, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
From about age 10 they started giving a shit about what they wore. You're going to have to buy them expensive trainers etc, there is NO way around this. Fair enough if child is not into that but the majority of them will care. Going out with their friends and all that jazz is ahead of you too.
You're not living hand to mouth now but when they're older you're going to really feel the pinch.
I wish I could go back to younger self and give myself a slap. I wish I had put more money into a pension etc.

Our council tax is £130 a month in London

My council tax on a tiny 2 up 2 down is 1850pa. How does that compare to London?

I also live in a two up two down type of cottage (probably slightly bigger as we have a third tiny box/bed room which is my office) and we pay similar in our bit of London. It's about £180 per month.

I have a friend who up until a few years ago was on £1400 per month and that was before paying rent and having 2 children.
One being a teenage boy who was constantly hungry.
Now that is living hand to mouth.

I think it is very doable if you haven’t got yourself into debt beforehand and are paying off debts from when you were on very little money.

Your OP is so misleading. You make 1800 and have 1100 after housing, and very low outgoings otherwise. No you're not hand to mouth. If you made 1100, and paid 700 on housing then had to pay utilities, council tax, and food out of the 400 left with kids in the mix, then yes you'd be extremely poor. But you don't, so you aren't.

And sorry it's not actually misleading, you spell it out right there in the first sentence 😬

The £300 to last until the end of the month is fairly meaningless. If that's the only spare money the OP has and her insurance is due next month, her DC need clothes or shoes or her washing machine breaks, she's not far from running out of money.

Plus the definition of poverty is actually quite a bit above 'sitting in a dark house eating cold beans' that people imagine. A couple of years ago it was reported as £1600 pm after housing costs for a family of 4, so the OP is probably in a similar position.

I agree about teenagers wanting designer clothes. Ds is 16 and ever since the age of 13 he is very fussy about what clothes he must wear. The good thing is he has never expected too many and only needs a few so that helps the money somewhat. As we live on just my income.

@arcof

Your OP is so misleading. You make 1800 and have 1100 after housing, and very low outgoings otherwise. No you're not hand to mouth. If you made 1100, and paid 700 on housing then had to pay utilities, council tax, and food out of the 400 left with kids in the mix, then yes you'd be extremely poor. But you don't, so you aren't.

Hand to mouth doesn’t mean poor. Or even extremely poor. It means having enough to live on but nothing more. The op has not clarified if she has savings. She’s said she has 300 for five days, she’s not said if that’s all she has in thr world.

So if she’d phrased it, I’ve no savings and literally three hundred pounds in rhe world and if I met an unexpected cost or went of sick I would struggle fhen yes this is hand to mouth,