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!

Their total income, including CB for 2 DC with 5% pension contributions, and plan 1 student loan repayments DH is a little over £4k, slightly less than the example given, but not considerably so.

I agree with this on a basic level. There are many businesses than no longer exist because they were unable to react to economic and environmental factors. People who work in any industry where their income is based on a healthy economy will need to think about strategies moving forwards because this may no longer be the case. I am not basing my personal financial security on continuing to spend to keep businesses afloat, and I don't know how many people would tbh. I don't know what the answer is.

I do agree that for some people spending on their nails, or hair, or daily coffee is part of their lifestyle they maintain for good mental health and shouldn't be judged. But some people don't even know the Direct Debits they have coming off their bank account, only look at their bank balance when it gets to the end of the month or don't consider the cost of something when they go to a restaurant or bar. I'm not judging them, I know what can cause this kind of attitude and know many people with it, but this may have to change for them if they want to get a handle on their finances. The future is not looking very bright at all at the minute, but we have been here before (well not exactly HERE, I have no idea where here is 😁). I just want as many people to come through it as unscathed as possible.

The problem with getting rid of every lifestyle choice item is where does that leave the economy?

Everything you have cut directly affects someone else's job.

I am a low consumer and do not have expenses anything like the list above, largely for environmental reasons but now of course costs would make it necessary anyway - but what is your answer for the economy when holidays, haircuts, clothes shopping, gym use, activities etc are all cut? Those people will be made redundant.

The UK is in an economic death spiral

Pets - a lifestyle choice?

Well yes sure they are, but is she suddenly supposed to just get rid of them!

Behave yourself.

OP - one thing that is massively helping me at the minute is that we take out £120 each Friday. That's our food, petrol, clothes anything money (basically anything that's no direct debit bills)

It really doesn't go very far, but it stops unnecessary spending on the cards. Those little £10, £5 shops add up. Put your cards away for a month, see how much you can save.

Yeah, just get rid of your pets all of a sudden.
And don’t go out and do things and also cancel anything remotely pleasurable on TV subscription wise.

Also, get rid of a car. Never mind if you need it and will end up paying extortionate fees on public transport instead of it, just get rid of it.

@andymary Seriously, you need some good financial advice.

You ought not to be paying off £200 pm in debts owed (which you have ramped up) while saving for things like holidays and Xmas presents.

Your debts are presumably credit cards so you are spending yet paying interest, but at the same time putting money away for things like holidays and presents.

Your spending on non-essentials is very high.

Your 'entertainment' costs are huge. You are paying way over the odds for your phone and internet.

Your mortage and council tax are , in comparion, quite low. (My coucnil tax is more like £280 a month.)

I can't get my head round these outgoing.

Have you thought of asking a professional to help you with your budgeting?

I can see how if you have a big mortgage and childcare costs, 65k could be quite tight. It might sound like a lot to earn but you won't be living a very lavish lifestyle on that.

Maybe people can eat their pets, save on food costs and the upkeep.

WTF is the UK coming to when people are blaming ordinary people for buying ordinary things.

I have much lower income than the OP, by far - but I can see it is not really in my interests for everyone in the country to be tightening their belts and stopping spending.

You don’t need to have two cars, you choose to have them.

It’s because of the choices you made to live to 99% of your income then you’ve left no capacity to weather any increase in costs.

Same goes for all the other optional costs like subscriptions etc.

You can’t whinge and say you have no money when you’ve spent it all.

@Quincythequince Never allowed to earn money on mumsnet! It would be nice if there was ever a positive view of high earners and the tax they pay that (amongst many other taxes) funds every single government stimulus package. Social housing, schools, benefits, furlough, energy bills, it's all based on tax take that provides the collateral for governments to borrow on top. People invest in government bonds, the underlyer is tax. If my DH and I both worked and earned, say, 70k each, our take-home household income would be 96k. As it is, the income is from a sole earner on 140k, so our household income is 83k. So that's 13k additional tax a year (and a total of 57k) that is being redistributed, which is fine by me, but it would be nice if it wasn't always somehow a negative to earn a lot. If nobody earned that much, we'd all be even more utterly fucked.

Some families do need 2 cars though depending on the public transport network locally and whether they are required for work or not. The bitterness and desire for everyone to suffer because some are is part of what's dragging this sorry little island down the toilet.

@Quincythequince Now you are being the silly one. That list of TV stuff is mind boggling. I wonder how I've lived with just my TV licence for decades without the need for all those other subscriptions? Truly amazing. Maybe it's because I have hobies and interests that don't depend on watching other people do stuff on a box!

And, being very serious, pets are a commitment both in terms of finance and time. No one is saying get rid of the pets, but there is a huge amount of unnecessary spending on that list.

This is such a ridiculus thing to say. Some families have two cars to get two people to two different workplaces.

Our family has no cars, but I can understand why other people have them.

Do you live in 1955 where wives stayed home and men walked to work round the corner?

No you are not BU. We have a similar income and have no clue how to afford full nursery fees. Our mortgage is too high we should have bought a cheaper home but didn’t anticipate other living costs going up so much. Recently confided in a relative and she had a right go at me for ‘earning loads and complaining’.

Mobile Phones £40 (2x £20 Sim Cards) You can get near unlimited everything for £10 a month

Rubbish! Show me where you can get unlimited for £10 a month.

Additionally,

-Pets are not a lifestyle choice.

-Whether it was poor financial planning or not, the debt still needs to be paid now

-Car insurance depends on many thing so to blanket compare it to yours with no other information is just stupid.

-If you’re locked into a sky contract, or an internet contract, again, it has to be paid now. You can’t always just swap.

So much ignorance and judgement on here!

It is the rapid change that is causing the problem.

People are rational and sensible, mostly, but we now have an energy crisis that the government did not know was coming and inflation that Johnson (the useless twat) said was not going to happen.

Unlimited data that is.

And don’t come back with the ‘who even needs that’ because that’s not what you said.

@Cherryblossoms85 I agree. My DH's tax was around the same as some people earn- around £27K pa. We were not living in luxury, as we were supporting 2 DCs for a total of 7 years at uni, at one point. (And before anyone says anything on that, they were doing degrees that did not allow time to work during term time, only in the holidays.)

People forget it's high earners who are paying their benefits and for the NHS.

@Quincythequince I will. We pay £8 per month for unlimited.

You don’t need to have two cars, you choose to have them

You don’t know what she needs though do you. Stop talking utter crap Mrs 1950s stay at home servant.

Umlimited data?

Not texts or minutes (those aren’t used a lot nowadays).

Which provider?

So much ignorance and judgement on here!

Yes, try reading your latest post.

It's all a lifestyle choice.

They may be locked in now, with pets and subs for things, BUT THEY WERE NOT WHEN THEY MADE THE CHOICE TO TAKE THEM ON.

And you come along defending debts as if they just happen. No, people make choices.

Hmm, you've pissed me off because high earners benefit from being at the top of an economy that enables you to earn what you do. Your tax contribution goes into sustaining the very system you are benefitting from.

I am not a race to the bottom person but your comment is pretty annoying so you can have and if you want to do an experiment, bugger off to somewhere with no lower paid workforce propping up your earnings and see how you get on.

Telling someone to get rose of pets, and a car and calling them lifestyle choices that you don’t need to spend on, is deluded.

Just dump your pet? Really.

Just sell your car and use public transport.

Just waiting for someone to come on and say you don’t need new shoes. Just repair the holes with cardboard and tar.

People should expect more! Competitive poverty is so tiresome. The OP came on for help.

@JaneBrowning do you understand economics at all? Do you just want other people punished? What do you think will happen to the UK economy if all 'lifestyle' spending is cut - do you understand how bad that will be for services and the poorest?

I am a fairly low spender, but people who want the economy to fail are very strange.