@L3andlosingit. Have you sought advice about your debts? If you're in a position where you don't have enough for food and other essentials and your debts, you need to seek help, talk to your lenders and look at your options. No-one is expected to do without food and other essentials to pay unsecured debts, so you need to rearrange your priorities and only pay what you have left after paying for essentials, not the other way round. Have a look on the Moneysavingexpert debt help section for advice on this.
@Supergirl1958 It more than adds up. Our mortgage is only £600, car payments are £400, one lot of childcare £400. I save £400 a month, when you add up bills and general living it’s approx £800. I bring in 2.3k a month and my partner £2.1k so we aren’t living beyond our means and we still manage to save! If you cut the cloth accordingly it can be done
So you have two above average salaries and fairly low mortgage and childcare costs? Of course you can save and you're doing an awful lot less 'cloth cutting' than most people have to do.
But I also agree with the PP who says that most people have to pick and choose what they buy and do. Very few people have enough money to do and buy everything. Of course some people don't have enough for the basics. But most of us are somewhere in the middle where we can cover the basics and have some money for extras, but not everything.
So you have to prioritise according to what's important to you, whether it's nice holidays, day to day luxuries like food and drink out of the home instead of home cooking and packed lunches, more clothes, expensive hair cuts etc etc, gadgets, a more expensive home than is strictly necessary, a newer car, etc etc.