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!!!

@InFiveMins interesting isn't it, most people I know buy cars on finance but not new cars, cars that are 3-5 years old. We've done this the last 10 years or so and it's suited us well, we have 2 cars, usually one on an affordable payment with one fully owned, by the time one payment has finished the other car is on its last legs so we can replace that one. We try to avoid having two payments at once, opt for a reasonably priced car and interest rate that we can easily afford. It got us out of the trap of constantly paying car repair bills on cheap cars we could afford up front but struggled to maintain and trust. There's a lot of snobbery around car finance on here, not everyone who has car finance is paying out 10s of thousands on a vehicle and there are some very competitive car finance deals out there. I swear I spent more on maintenance 10 years ago than I pay in interest now, but the main thing is it's now predictable.

Debt. You have know idea how much the U.k population is in debt.

Sadly, I think that's true for a lot of families.

The "average" salary tends to be massively increased by all those people earning over 100k a year. It doesn't take many of those to skew the stats.

@InFiveMins

These posts always bring out those who have always bought their second hand cars outright and can't understand those who get brand new cars on finance etc etc - not everyone can afford a second hand car! The majority of people don't have £2,000 to drop on a car so are forced to take them out on finance.

You can get second-hand cars on finance too - for much less than brand new ones.

Or, you spend £200 on a dirt-cheap old banger, run it into the ground, and buy another one.

Single parent household here and I feel I don't do too bad but that's due to maintanace which could be stopped whenever he feels like and the sytemsnisnt very good at forcing people to pay.

Roughly £36k a year before tax, pension

Mortgage is £750 a month ( ex decided grass was greener 3 months after buying a £250k house and I was on maternity leave)

Bills Inc council tax come to £450

Childcare is £880 a month for nursery plus more in school holiday as club is £22 a day for my 9yr old. Ex does not helpnout at all in school holidays.

I have a little amount of savings but the house needs work and some stuff needs doing very soon, roof and windows etc. Can't move as rent is a really dearer than mortgage in the are I'm in.

If we where still together than we'd earn over £80k and be very comfortable

[quote supermoonrising]@name7852
Me too, I know it's not fair that people are priced out of their home towns and shouldn't have to choose between family and affordable living, but for us we did choose the latter. Not so much for cheaper housing as it wasn't expensive where we were, but for more opportunities to earn more to the

Nothing is fair though, not really. The super expensive towns/cities are expensive usually because they are great places to live. They are desirable. You could argue that getting to live in a great place your whole life just because you lucked into being born there would be even more unfair.[/quote]
I live in Reading which is expensive but I would dispute that it is a nice or desirable place to live (relative to the U.K. obviously- it’s better than living in Sana’a) . The only reason it is expensive is proximity to London, same as other places like Slough, Woking etc.

They have a much higher household income than 40k, that's how

Although I note that you are looking at NET income of 40k. Not gross

It works well if there’s 2 of you. Doesn’t if one parent buggers off to live the high life and swindles the lowest maintenance payments fir the kids possible. That’s the reality.

With the damn divorce and my remortgaging I will have quite a large mortgage.
Its going to be a bit of a struggle.
Still doable with childcare for my child with additional.needs we splitting that in half his doing nothing more than that I've had to pay him off to a degree.
Doesn't pay to be a saver.Ive found out
Its never advisable to buy a car on finance .

We have a low mortgage due to equity in a previous house. No car payments as we have older cars - new cars is a luxury we aren't willing to pay out for and would rather make do.

No childcare costs as I worked as a childminder when children were young to bring income in and stay with them at home.

These threads do make me laugh. Everyone has different circumstances so can't really answer your question - people have different salaries, different savings, varying mortgages etc, it's that simple. Even if you assume your "average Joe" has an average salary, one who's living down south might have a much bigger mortgage than Joe up north, and one might've inherited a chunk of money. One Joe might have to pay nursery costs, whereas another has a family member doing free child care 🤷🏼‍♀️

A few things:

1. tax free childcare means you only pay £800
2. my childcare bill isn’t £800 (it depends where you live)
3. buy a cheap car outright for a few grand and you won’t have to pay £600 a month on car payments. Get a small car and not have a massive commute and your insurance and fuel will be less than a hundred a month (mine were but then I got a bigger family car because I wanted one and could afford it from savings and even now it costs nowhere near £300 a month).
4. save up before having kids if you can
5. my mortgage isn’t £700 per month and if it was it would be ridiculous to spend almost the same amount on cars.

Everyones circumstances are different.

Some people get free childcare from family we never did. I only work part time so earn less. Also some are happy with cheap meals most nights and an Aldi or Lidl food shop, cheap clothes or don’t have many clothes, don’t drink etc etc. Don’t believe or be jealous about what people put on Facebook.

Also a couple of work colleagues over the years bragged about their fantastic holidays. I wanted to visit the area where one of them stayed regularly at ‘a big flash beautiful hotel’ and she gave the name of it. It was on the outskirts of Edinburgh which she said. We wanted to out and have a few drinks and the hotel turned out to be miles out of town and yes it was a big hotel and it maybe was nice 20-30 years ago but it was an absolute hovel with threadbare carpets.

Similarly another friend went to Florida every year and stayed at a gorgeous massive house it sounded ideal for us and we were thinking of visiting. I asked her for details and even on the photos it looked rough, dated and well worn so we didn’t bother.

We have only ever bought cheap second hand cars for a few grand, I was a SAHM so no child care costs, we overpaid on the mortgage every year so it was paid off by the time we were 40.

@Lokdok

Where the hell are people living that mortgage and council tax is that cheap? 2500 here! For the other bits, buy cars outright. Other bills don't need to be 500 a month, switch energy providers etc. When things get a bit tight, I get a better paid job.

Yorkshire, 5 bed detached, mortgage plus council tax is £1k.

We are always in the low bracket on mn posts! Husband earns about 30k, 4 kids rent is 1000 council tax 160
No childcare
One car
Minimal savings (100 a month),

Just live within means.

@FedNlanders do you get any help towards the rent though and/or universal credit/tax credits?

It his difficult, my Oh works full time and I work part time.
My son is 14 so no childcare, we don't have a car, so even without these expenses, we don't have much savings, we both have debt we are paying back, but we haven't had a holiday in years, sadly we haven't taken our son abroad in his whole 14 years.
It is hard, I lost my job, but luckily my partner could cover my part of the bills, but this drained what little savings we had.

[quote name7852]@FedNlanders do you get any help towards the rent though and/or universal credit/tax credits?[/quote]
No housing benefit.

I think alot of it is credit cards.

I was a SAHM when my children were babies and before they started school. I went back to work when my youngest started reception and I am lucky my job ables me to drop off and pick up.
In the holidays I can work evenings and weekends when I need to be around in the school holidays. We haven't any family around us as we moved away for my husbands work so we work it around each other.
We drive second hand cars and manage to pay upfront.

Live to your means!!

Why do you need finance for 2 cars? Can you get one cheap run around and another good family car? If one car is not an option.

Managing a mortgage means you have got onto the ladder. There are people struggling every month to make rent ends meet!!!

Not sure the purpose of this post. Live with less, stop keeping up with The Jones!!! Hope you find ✌

No mortgage but about to take one for 50k on a interest only basis-I'll inherit before this has to be repaid
Car lease-£290
In recent years started putting away £50 into a pension
Have an income of £26k pa thanks to WTC topping me up
I make my money go as far as possible by buying secondhand clothes and searching for holiday deals to go away in a normal year ,once
Take my daughter camping every summer
I try to give my children a "normal" life but I have to cut my cloth accordingly

Where I am the average rent for a 2 bedroom house is £1000 (just a bog standard). Average price of a 2 bed is £325,000. It's ridiculous. Even on a good wage.