To be struggling to survive on 65k household income

[Soddinghell]

By the time we have paid mortgage, phone bills, bills car insurance, kids activities etc we barely have anything left. I don’t know what’s going on. DH earns 50k and I earn 15k part time. Please somebody help me I am thinking of going full time to stay afloat, I don’t know where we are going wrong, we are not in London or an expensive area, just outside manchester and people keep telling us we should be fine. We are not though!

@JaneBrowning why, where’s the issue? Perhaps clean bare nails would be social suicide for you, or Heinz beans are the only way forward, but to be honest I have a great life. Perhaps because I see the positive: healthy, environmentally friendly, fun to cook, that it’s not negative. Perhaps your mind set is off?

I wonder if a lot of people in their late 30s plus may also not realise that a lot of us in our 20s and 30s are paying back student loans. For me and my husband that equates to about £250 a month.

How much are you paying for phones,sky,netflix,takeaways,etc etc.My parents never sent me to extra gymnastics etc, My mobile is £7.50 a month.Children should not have expensive mobiles !
You have to get your priorities right !

Are you having a laugh. Your generation had it much easier than ours. Your house is paid for and your complaining. Some people will never own there own home.

Children should not have expensive mobiles

Children should have whatever you can afford, are happy to pay for as long as they take care of it and it’s used.

It’s nobody else’s business how much people spend on their children.

You’d die if you saw the phone my kids have 😂

We have a joint income slightly higher than the OP. When I was 20 if I had known that was our future income I would have been ecstatic. Imagining all sorts of luxuries. The truth is you do adjust to your income and as a PP says it's not amazingly high. It's pretty standard.

I have some savings and always put the maximum in my pension (which has taken a disastrous turn the last few years!). I have a good while to hopefully recuperate but it is something else that worries me. It is not fair to make the assumption that just because someone's income is higher than yours, they have it easy. (Although I am not complaining, I am okay with my situation - The OP is in a tougher position than I am though)

A high mortgage and childcare costs do eat into that income quite substantially, and I don't know if we feel any more comfortable than when we were on a joint salary of 23,000 20 years ago, and balancing childcare between working different shifts.

I think it is just a case of stripping back and starting again. Look at every single thing you added to your life without thinking about it. All those monthly subscriptions, the filling up your trolley without considering the price, If you have the mindset of a low income while being on a medium income, then you can start to create a barrier of safety. And savings are an important part of that.

IKR. Boomers always let themselves down so so badly when it comes to stuff like this.

Even this apparently ‘low income’ pensioner will have had it so much better than most people when she was young (and with a family, of that’s the case).

Also most nurses are not on 32k even

Every full time nurse who has been qualified longer than 4 years is on more than £32k and that’s before you add any unsocial hours payments. There are far more nurses who are either qualified longer than 4 years, or who are doing specialist roles at band 6/7 than there are band 5 nurses qualified 3 years or less. Most AfC workers are working at the top of their band.

OP maybe if you set out your actually figures in detail. But maybe this will make people realise that middle earners are also going to suffer and then, maybe finally, people will see the shower of shit that this government is.

I have a high household income and we are worrying. I graduated in 2003, had student loans to pay off and did not have any parent help (foster care) to help with a mortgage deposit - which many of my peers did!

childcare was so expensive, we were paying the same as our mortgage just so we could keep working. Now the kids are at school, and don’t need childcare, we can finally start saving properly - but our mortgage is still about the same level as it was (as that’s how it works!) and will only go up. We don’t have expensive holidays, have only been abroad once since having the dcs 12 years ago, have a secondhand car etc etc.

If people want the economy to do well, then they have to accept that you need people to have disposal income - how else do they think businesses thrive without people spending money? That’s why this government is a bin fire because they only protect those in the top 0.5%.

If you can't live on 65k in greater Manchester you are clearly not living within your means. I wonder what your house looks like/holidays/yours and kids hobbies and extra curriculum activities look like/cars/shopping and general spending looks like. There will be obvious changes you can make. Ask yourself how are families managing on a 3rd of that?

We also blamed the generation before ours for the problems we faced, the generation below yours will blame you for theirs. So crack on with your insults and petulance as it will all be returned to you sooner than you realise.

I expected some nasty replies but I can totally see where you are coming from. We are closer to 80k living in the North West too, we don't pay nursery fees but do pay wrap around some days, we only have 1 car and our mortgage is small compared to many people. We still have student loans going out but no other debt yet there isn't loads left at the end of the month so on less income and nursery fees coming out I can totally see why you'd only just be breaking even. I think the people in the income bracket that we are in will be hit hardest, there's no help with anything, you have to cover the cost of everything out your supposedly decent salary (which was fine once upon a time). I was only saying to my husband the other day we were paying some silly inflated price for something at my children's school, the cost of the thing worked out as £10, yet we are charged over £30. Clearly subsidising those that don't pay, yet we aren't rolling in it as it might appear when you write your salary pre tax and pre pension down! People on benefits will be propped up, middle earners will just have to earn more (not sure how on a fixed salary and working long hours as it is).

In fairness, there are boomers who get that and who wouldn't embarrass themselves bleating about 27k with no housing or childcare costs. My own parents are boomers and absolutely understand the generational inequality situation, although they're working class which probably helps a bit. It's just that this particular boomer is not one of the informed ones.

Write down a list of all your outgoings and tackle them one at a time. Cut out, reduce or replace with cheaper until it's comfortable within your income. It's all about that old saying, cut your cloth according to your coat. Moneysavingexpert has discussions on this that will help you.

It'll get to the stage where any income won't be enough for the basics.
I just hope the new government can make some difference to this high cost of living because it's getting ridiculous if someone on this kind of salary are struggling.
It's pointless blaming ' boomers 'too , even though I know that many are selfish and dont understand how much harder it is now
I'm not a boomer , but I had it easier than they have today and I feel it's sad.
The young have been shafted for too long

HairyMothballs · Yesterday 21:41
Are you having a laugh? We've got an income of 27k (I can't work due to having a stroke) That includes my £83 a week PIP. Admittedly, our very humble 1930s semi is paid for (we're in our 60s but not due to get a government pension for 3 years). Stop being so utterly ridiculous“

how rude are you? You have no mortgage and no children. You are the ridiculous one.

Not all boomers had it easy. There was a lot of social and economic upheaval in their lives too. Opportunity for things like Uni just weren’t there. Todays cost of living crisis also happened in the 70s. You can’t directly compare where a boomer is today after sixty years hard graft to where a younger person is today with decades fewer of hard graft.

That seems quite normal and not hair shirt like to me too. Means we have money to go on lots of holidays, overpay the mortgage, have savings, not worry too much about bills going up, despite not having a pay rise for over a decade, likely be able to retire at 60.

Prepared food and drink especially (so that at theme parks/attractions, supermarket sandwiches, fast food, coffee shops, takeaways) isn't always that nice and increasingly expensive for what it is, so far from a treat and quite a disappointment to find yourself in a situation where that's what you end up eating as I've never seen the attraction of queuing for ages to pay a fortune for a poor quality burger.

Discounting the lowest incomes where money is a struggle and the highest, where people don't have to think about what they're spending, there's a lot of people in the middle where how they manage their money has an enormous effect on their overall financial stability.

The range in what people spend on groceries, tech, cars, subscriptions, utilities, stuff for the house, clothes, personal grooming etc varies hugely and it's possible to spend a lot less without much detriment to lifestyle by shopping around and just thinking about whether the thing you're buying is value for money to you.

And it's also probably not the case that the people with/spending /doing the most are the most satisfied, because they always seem to be looking for their next fix and wondering why they never seem to have any money, whereas the people who have the same amount of money but save some of it and are a bit more careful about their spending are probably a lot happier with their lifestyle and finances.

I think childcare costs make a huge difference. I remember when we stopped paying for that 10 years ago, we seemed to have so much more money. So really it's a case of holding on until then.

Apart from that it's difficult to say as you haven't given much detail. I presume you've looked around and checked that you're getting a good deal on the mortgage, insurance etc? Also check that there aren't any direct debits or standing orders going out, that you don't need. Perhaps consider cheaper holidays until you stop paying for childcare (depending on what you currently spend). Avoid takeaways too.

It's a cohort comparison, so individual examples of boomers who didn't have it easy don't actually pertain to the point. My own parents in fact are amongst the less privileged of boomers. They still appreciate that their socio-economic equivalents in younger generations will be in worse positions than them and their friends.

That said, the examples you give here are bad ones. Opportunity for university was much less back then, but it was also less of a requirement than it is now. Having to get into thousands of pounds of debt to be considered for job roles that never used to require it is not an example of younger generations having it better. The contrary, in fact.

Additionally, lots of boomers are still in their 50s and only the most hard working of the very oldest will have worked for 60 years at this point, never mind worked hard. It simply isn't the case that the whole cohort are going to have grafted for 60 years, and there are people who've taken the piss in that generation just as there are in all.

Not that any of this actually relates to the subdiscussion being had, but it's still worth correcting.

Boomers have had it better than any cohort - ever - in the UK. Pensions, housing, healthcare, social mobility, the list goes on.

So yea, comments like the one I am referring to, stick.

And I am probably older than you think, part of an extremely high earning household and am very happy to pay more taxes and am not badly affected by the current awful change in living circumstances that worry most households.

So I don’t quite match the object of the narrative you are espousing here!

Sorry!

Agree with this completely!
Well put.

Thanks!

I'm quite surprised at how many people are saying that 65k is a very high joint wage. I left the UK in 2003 and our joint wage then was around 60k then. We were a a part qualified accountant and a brickie, so not high rollers, although we were admittedly in London. Wages in the UK really seem to have declined a lot! I know UK housing costs are crazy now too, we paid 850 a month for a beautiful one bedroomed garden flat in Zone 4, I guess it would be quite a lot more now!

So I can totally sympathise that 65k wouldn't go far if you are paying a mortgage and nursery fees, especially if you are in an expensive city. If you can up your hours, that's probably going to be the most cost effective, especially in the long run.

I love how everyone is quick to critiscise anything that they see as frivoulous spending without thinking of the knock on effect of when this is stopped.

To some people getting your nails done may be a waste of money, or getting a takeaway, or a coffee and cake but that spending creates jobs. So yes now that we are in this cost crisis people who could previously afford to get their nails done now can't, so the salon loses customers and cuts jobs or closes. The takeaway loses customers so cuts staff and closes, so does the coffee shop.

People get rid of their cleaners, stop using their dog walkers, stop going to restaurants, stop getting their hair done etc. etc. this all has a knock on effect. So yes people will just have to cut down but everyone needs to wake up to the serious consequences of this instead of acting like people were silly to be spending this money in the first place, back when they could comfortably afford it.