I’m well and truly naffed off and started my day feeling down in the dumps. I knew DM would be at home so I gave her a call in the hope I’d come off the phone feeling brighter, she can be good at cheering others up.
Myself and my OH are tenants at the moment but hoping to buy as soon as we can. We signed the lease on a beautiful new build semi in a nice location at the beginning of this year, all was great. We were some of the first to move in and although we have a couple of lovely neighbours, progressively the estate has got worse and worse. The build itself has suffered quite a few major leaks and there have been other snags along the way. Our next door neighbours smoke cannabis every day, at various times throughout the day, and it travels through the vents in the house. If I open my back door even just for a minute the smell comes into my house. Police are on the estate most days, usually the same couple of houses down the road from us which I find unsettling. I am not happy and working hard to better this situation, OH is doing all the overtime under the sun, though it couldn’t have come at a worse time considering the impending recession and rocketing of interest rates and bills.
We have a joint income of about 54k before tax with room for promotion but likely not any time soon as we are both junior and still very young.
Anyway, I was explaining to my DM that I was feeling rubbish not expecting sympathy but just hoping for a sounding board. She was incredulous when I told her our savings depleted when we moved here and demanded to know where all my ‘disposable’ income had gone, as they had kindly bought us a fridge freezer so we didn’t have that to pay for. OH has recently done a course costing over £1000 and we have paid for our first holiday ever together, which wasn’t cheap. I know holidays are a luxury but we have worked extremely hard to go away for 5 days and even that has stretched the budget. Direct debits, food and fuel take 50% of our combined monthly income. In her view we should have tons more saved, enough to put a deposit down somewhere on a bought property. I tried to explain a deposit and legal fees would be worth one year of my salary.
I came off the phone feeling extremely embarrassed and I’d riled myself up, spun round in circles trying to defend my/our outgoings and explain over and over how costly bills and rent are.
We do not drink, drive cheap older cars that we own outright and are working hard to build a future. We eat out maybe twice or three times a month at chain restaurants on nights when you can use a tastecard to make savings. I might have got my wires crossed somewhere but I just felt ashamed afterwards. The crazy part is, this time last year when I was more disciplined with my money, she was telling me I was not making memories and had no sense of fun. I felt self conscious about this and then tried to do everything possible, mainly for appearances so that nobody thought I was having a boring life (I wasn’t, as it happens). I shouldn’t have been so impressionable then but my self esteem was, and arguably still is, on the lower side. Working on it.
DM kept repeating that we have more disposable income than she and my father so it’s ridiculous that we haven’t saved more than we have. This doesn’t compute to me, as they are lucky enough to own a beautiful home in an affluent area, they go on plenty of holidays and drive new cars. DSis’s wedding was funded by my parents, easily in the 10-20k ballpark. I am fairly sure their house was partially too, and she herself is a top earner. Parents have said they will put an ‘amount’ towards our house deposit once we’ve saved, but to do so comes with the caveat that OH’s family also contribute otherwise it’s not fair. There is no one in his family who is able to unfortunately, nor would we expect or ask for help.
I would never demand or expect to receive any kind of monetary support, I want to be really clear on that. I had a privileged upbringing and would not expect a penny as an adult, and thank them to excess when they are kind enough to pay for everyone at a family meal etc. I was just hoping for a chinwag and a vent, with some moral support of funny anecdotes coming back from her maybe to reassure me it isn’t all that bad!! AIBU? Very open to criticism if it’s due.