To wonder how ppl do it...afford it all?

[wishywashyy]

How do ppl (I mean the average joe!) afford everything? I know, I know situations are different BUT in general
Mortgage
Car payments (usually 2!)
Childcare
Savings
And general living

It doesn't add up
Mortgage/council tax on average would be what? 700-800?
Car payments x2 600?
Childcare (let's just say one lot) approx 1000
That's 1400 alone at least!
Saving? I suppose that's depending
General living? Another 800-1k
So That's 2k
Then there's other bills which would be 500ish
That's 2.5k in total

That's a take home of about 40k! Gone! And no savings!

I'm baffled and freaked out at the thoughts!!!

Single mum here on just less than national average. I have a car which is cheap on fuel and insurance and I own it outright. I am also lucky enough to rent my home from the local authority in a very sought after area on a lifetime tenancy. The rent is very cheap. I don't drink and socialising is a meal out a couple of times a month. My dcs are both teenagers so I don't pay childcare any more. I honestly think peoples housing situation makes or breaks them sometimes.

I pay £12/m for my phone and my car is now free because I paid it off and it’s still a great car. We don’t have sky because we don’t really have time to watch any TV at the minute with work, study and kids. We do have Netflix so I think that’s about £10(?).

I pay £22 for my iphone & £15 for a sky package. I don't know why people think these things are extortionate.

[quote PattyPan]@TwoAndAnOnion prescriptions are free if you’re on a low income. Nor is it necessary usually to take time off - I’ve never taken time off work for a GP appointment. Especially nowadays as they are doing phone appointments.[/quote]
Hee husband works full time. That's not the definition of "low income" for free prescription purposes. Around whatever job seekers allowance is (£80pw?) is the definition of low income for this sort of thing. Many jobs have absolutely zero flexibility and don't allow you to take 5min out of your working day to have a phone apt for GP, so for many people having a GP apt would mean calling in sick if it was an urgent same day apt and often no sick pay, or taking a half day off annual leave to attend apt, if they've any annual leave left otherwise its unpaid leave.

I didn’t have DS until my mid 40’s and prior to that I was in a decent job.
I’m a SAHP and we’ve no mortgage as we paid it off when DS was about 2yrs. I’ve never bought a car on credit, always saved up but then I buy a second hand car a few years old, no childcare costs, no debt. My savings have diminished a fair bit but I don’t waste money on pointless things and I’m not impressed by flashy stuff. I did have a contract for a phone but that ended and I’m still using the phone, an iPhone 7s. I might upgrade it later this year but I’ll pay cash. I didn’t think the contract was worth the money.

We moved when DS was about 5 and live in a 5 bed detached house with about 2 acres, a couple of miles inland from the sea in a lovely part of Ireland. I have a lot of craft related hobbies and enjoy gardening, but they’re not particularly expensive to pursue.

Neither of us has inherited pots of money from families and I bought my first 2 bed house in the Midlands for 40k with a 100% mortgage in 1991 and no deposit.

I think it would be impossible for us to buy a house nowadays if we were just starting out and I know I’m lucky to be in this position but we both have health issues, so that’s a different worry.

Don't forget the big old credit card that nobody says how much debt is on it,& they still borrow more

I am 50. I worked full time in low paid retail work for 20 years from leaving school.
DH and I paid off our mortgage as a priority. DH earnings still only £24000.
I have been a SAHM for 14 years.
One car, always paid for in full. No debt.
No other income.

@AmberIsACertainty when I have phone appointments I tell them what times I can’t come to the phone and they call me at a different time so that I don’t have to be on the phone at work.

We are fortunate that our house is paid for (through a lot of hardwork and sacrifice initially!).

We were both working when DS was a baby so childcare was shared (and no mortgage helped massively). DH left full time work when DS was 3 so no more childcare costs. We only have one DS so no second child to pay for.

Cars are saved for and bought outright so no loans there.

We shop around for gas/electricity/insurance to ensure we pay the cheapest possible price.

Phones paid for with cheap contracts (£9 a month currently).

We have a nice, comfortable life but to be honest, we are not materialistic people. We have holidays in the UK (usually 2 a year in cottages), eat out occasionally although we rarely have a takeaway. We take DS on days out but not always expensive ones - we love the outdoors so often go on walks etc. I take my lunch to work so no spending on takeout lunch. We don't buy on credit at all.

Obviously, everyone is different so it depends what is important to the individual. We are happy as we are and I like having savings just in case.

Those who say they have a mortgage of £300-400, where do you live and how much was your house?

Live in West Yorkshire, bought our house for £35,000 but 20 years ago.

And now worth £225,000.

I have a decent standard of living. No financial concerns. Holidays abroad/savings etc. We both work full time in decent paid jobs but not overly so.

3 bed council house (low outgoings)
2 very humble cars (low outgoings)
Food Shop at Aldi
Don’t have absolutely nothing on credit

Basically that’s it. We also save quite a bit per month and don’t live super flashy lives. Never have any financial concerns.

@MrsJBaptiste

Those who say they have a mortgage of £300-400, where do you live and how much was your house?

Live in West Yorkshire, bought our house for £35,000 but 20 years ago.

Your house cost what I paid as my deposit two years ago on a 2 up 2 down mid terrace 😫 I love being a millennial

My husband works extremely hard and that affords is a good income, we could spend a lot more than we do but we save a lot. We haven't always been in this position and we may not always be in it either so we make hay whilst the sun shines.

Households in England in 2018, spent around £27 a week on average purchasing cars and vans (both new and secondhand, either outright or by loan/hire purchase), accounting for about 5 percent of total household expenditure (Department for Transport, 2019)

So if you're really thinking "average" people then you can drop your £600 car purchase costs down to around £200.

I recommend you look up "false consensus effect". We all tend to assume that other people have the same experiences as us but it's often far from true. I think that's why you're struggling to match your numbers.

I pay £22 for my iphone & £15 for a sky package. I don't know why people think these things are extortionate

When I had an iPhone for the price a month it was 2-3 models old. I suspect many people are referring to people who upgrade and have the latest iPhone and a range of media packages.

If they're like me, they're trying to highlight that some people make choices to spend their money on nice to have items, whilst seeming surprised that anyone else manages and/or complaining that they're skint.

One of my former colleagues said I'm so lucky not to have car payments. The difference between the colleague and I is that I own a family car outright and will use it until it's no longer viable, but the colleague chooses to drive a brand new or close to new Audi/Mercedes/BMW type car on PCP and upgrade every 2 years. Luck doesn't come into it.

The point remains that just because someone has an iphone & sky doesn't = the brand new all singing & dancing model & the full package.

I don't really understand your post. What are you basing these figures and assumptions on??

Everyone's mortgage / rent is different
People earn different amounts, have different numbers of children, may or may not have two cars

Some save more, some spend more on holidays or food

I don't understand your point tbh

dorangme
No it doesn't, but then maybe I'm reading the replies charitably and guessing that that people are discussing others claiming to be skint whilst having iPhone are highly unlikely to be talking about someone who's using an iPhone 5c in 2021.

Equally, Sky and other media packages are nice to have items. If someone has sky then it's still a question of priorities. They've chosen to make having a media package a priority, which usually means something else is not a priority.

I also have an iPhone without it being extortionate - I bought an SE outright in 2017 (after my 4 year old 5c which had been working perfectly suffered fatal water damage) so I’ve just worked out the handset has cost me £6.80 a month and it’s still working just fine. I have never had a phone contract, I’m with giffgaff instead. Pre pandemic when I actually left the house I usually paid £8 a month but since wfh I haven’t been paying anything because I can use my home WiFi and my broadband (£23) comes with free calls included. Replacing a phone after 2 years seems like such a huge waste of money which is obviously why the phone companies encourage it!

Some people are better with money than others ?

@LolaSmiles my iphone is a new SE one &!is 1 yr old. Its just not the ultra latest model & I always sell on my old models.

Equally, Sky and other media packages are nice to have items. If someone has sky then it's still a question of priorities. They've chosen to make having a media package a priority, which usually means something else is not a priority.

Not disagreeing with that but 10/15 a month is not going to make a huge difference to affording a house for example.

"We are very lucky that our mortgage is a little under £400 a month on our house we bought £135,000 but now worth £200,000 and increasing. We bought an ex military house when they were sold off. If we were renting in our area we'd be paying at least double that in rent! People are private renting in our street - same house and style for £800! Crazy! We would have even less spare money if we were renting."

Same here- mortgage is £403 but the people in the flat above me (identical!) Pay £850 rent. Insanity!

Everyone’s different and earns varying amounts.

My DH and I earn well between us, DS is in nursery 4 days a week, but we only have 1 car (second hand for £50 from my DF) and our rent has been relatively very low for years (for what it is).

Totally agree with you. They certainly don’t have to be extortionate @dorangme the £12/m I pay is sim only, my 5 year old iPhone 7 gave up the ghost 2 months ago so I bought a second hand base model iPhone 12 with savings, it’ll probably do me another 5 years.

Some of the tech that people buy ‘because it’s the latest/best’ is wasted on them anyway to be honest. What does the average joe need a super fast processing chip than can edit 4K video whilst playing a game whilst doing a multitude of other background tasks oh and it’s also got 256GB storage.. for what? 🤭

I seem to have come to that conclusion too @LolaSmiles Sky/virgin packages seem to be a utility now, almost like gas and electric. Baffling though that zoning out infront of the TV is given such huge priority.

Isn’t the monthly mortgage payment a bit of a red herring though; a friend treats it like rent and chose the longest possible term the broker could get. It’s a tiny payment, he’s lying so much interest over the term of the loan my jaw him the floor.

Others want it paid off sooner so throw more money at it, paying less interest and thus saving money.

‘Saving money’ is a long game, YeH we could probably get our monthly payments less than £400 but we’d be paying it off for eternity.