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!

I think people are missing the point if those with a bit more money didn’t so end it when they have it, there would be less service, hospitality, manufacturing jobs and it would be worse for longer for those in lower paid posts, less VAT etc so less money for the government, but they would be sitting on tidy sums and probably accused of hoarding wealth… you can’t win sometimes.

No need to get into debt, just be aware of how everyone cutting out the “non-essentials” affects those providing these services.

Guys, instead of a second car, how many of us could be cycling?

When living in Denmark I used a bicycle as the second mode of transport and paid the extra for a good quality second hand one. I do recommend getting one which is electric if you have hills. Instead of £350 a month cost for a car, I paid about £25 a month as I didn’t do the maintenance myself. Upfront cost was £450 for the bike, accessories and lock, rain gear was £130 and I paid about £100 for a full service twice a year. I took the bike to the UK and keep it at my fathers house. I use it all the time when I am visiting him. It’s absolutely brilliant for getting around. The baskets on the front and back and the backpack I use holds a lot of shopping. Certainly enough for a family of 4 for the good part of a week.

If you have children the cargo bikes are great. They are about £3500-5000 new and definitely get the electric one because cycling with 3 children in the bucket is quite the workout.

No it’s not ‘cheap’ but it’s a lot cheaper than a second car. It’s also a choice which is towards what is needed than a car, which I see as a want. I make enough to have a second car and just bought one of the damn things because the road I need to take with the children doesn’t allow bicycles! Yes I’m currently in the US. For all the green energy legislation they should have started by forcing towns and cities to be bike friendly.

Cyclng in the countryside is great but there is no way I would want to cycle in my nearest city.. There are no cycle lanes and it's quite dangerous some areas. As for cycling with three children in a cargo bike- wtf?

Yup I rented a cargo bike and cycled with my 3 children. Worked far better than I thought it would and they enjoyed it. Of course they have to wear cycling helmets but really not an issue.

I cycled on the road a lot and traffic was quite aggressive. When it came to crossing traffic I used the pedestrian crossings and walked my bike across. Felt much safer than cycling into the middle of the road.

Cycling in Denmark is a completely different undertaking to cycling in the UK.

Denmark has proper cycle lanes everywhere.

The population density is much lower. Nearly all Danish motorists also cycle so you don't have a good proportion of them that despise cyclists and think they shouldn't exist.

In Denmark you can leave your bike on the street and expect it to still be there when you get back. This is an alien concept to any British cyclist, where bike theft is rife in many areas.

Denmark is, in the main, mostly very flat. A lot of the UK is very hilly which is not conducive to arriving at work looking neat and tidy. Plus in the UK you have many people who live a long way from work, because they can't afford to live where they work and there are no jobs where they live.

So it's really not a case that 'they all cycle in Denmark so we should do the same here' I wish it was, but it's not.

I wasn't questioning whether they would enjoy it. I was saying "wtf" because that would be incredibly dangerous in most UK cities.

Move somewhere smaller. Pick up more hours at work

The town I live in is really not great for cycling unfortunately - very busy main roads, narrow side streets and hardly any bike lanes.

Move somewhere smaller. Pick up more hours at work

Op why did you not think of this 🙄

Where I was, it wasn’t that flat. Take a look at Aarhus and Randers. Bloody massive hill to get up. As I said, if you have such a hill or hills get the electric bike!

There are cycling lanes but it’s not the network you think it is. It’s great to have on the outskirts of town but the city centers don’t have bike lanes. Traffic in Aarhus is similar to any busy town in the UK and in the center there are very few bike lanes. I cycled Aarhus to Randers a few times to get my hair done and cycled from the north of Aarhus to Hou with the children as a day trip in the cargo bike. It was absolutely fine. It’s also not true that you can leave a nice bike unlocked. I paid a lot for a good quality lock and when I rented the cargo bike I removed the battery pack when I locked it.

As Macron said, the era of abundance is over. We all need to adjust. Cycling gets you from A to B, often in the same time or there about as driving, and costs a fraction of running a car.

Op you haven't included much detail so noone will be able to help look at where you can make reductions. £600 per month for childcare sounds a lot since you work part time and presumably kids aren't in full time care but how many do you have? If they are close in age then it was always going to be tough (I've been there).

As for the people who think unless you are on UC or a single parent yoy you can'tan't complain about bills, do one. It's tough for many out there. Our household budget is more than yours but we too will need to look at our expenditure and figure out how we can make things work.

If it is "absolutely fine" to cycle around city centres in Denmark with three children in a cargo bike then it is by definition nothing like as dangerous as it would be in the UK.

It’s also absolutely fine to do it in the UK. I’d cycle through Chester, Manchester or Liverpool. I used to run/cycle through London 20 years ago as I started work before the tube opened and the night buses were terrible. If you use some common sense it’s fine.

I live in Manchester and cycle from the suburbs into the city daily, doing the nursery drop off with DC2 on the way. I’m a reserved cyclist and err on the side of caution and it’s fine. We need to make cycling feel safer for everyone and be welcomed and encouraged instead of there being a constant friction between car drivers and cyclists. I also think they should enforce large non parking zones around schools, bar children or parents with disabilities obviously, so it’s very inconvenient to drop in the car and it encourages more walking to school. Our catchment is less than a mile- there’s no excuse for driving.

It isn't "fine" in Birmingham.

It needs to actually "be" safe rather than "feel" safe.

Depends where you're cycling. I cycled or got the train everywhere in my old house and didn't need a car, now I could maybe just about manage on one car for the family but I'd need to hire one occasionally and get taxis otherwise so it wouldn't be cheaper.

@dianthus101 in my opinion/experience it is safe. I think we need to make tangible changes so those who have been anxious feel safer. I’ve never had an issue or even a near miss in 6 years.

In my opinion/experience it is not safe in many cities. The fact is that cyclists are more likely to have fatal accidents than car passengers (per distance travelled) and if you start carrying children around on bikes the risk for them will be even higher in the UK.

The more people who cycle/walk/take public transport then the more demand there is to improve it. The risk of dying in an accident on a bike is significantly higher than in a car per km traveled but it’s still less than being a pedestrian and most people don’t fret about that much so it’s a bit of a straw man argument for why people shouldn’t cycle.

Whereas I know 2 people who've been killed, several who've been knocked off and seriously injured and too many near misses to count.

When you analyse cycling deaths there are factors which vastly increase risk - younger people, cycling on inappropriate roads, no lights, drunk whilst cycling etc. But yes being hit by a vehicle whilst cycling is very dangerous.

Cyclists are at risk but there are many ways to cycle safely. For example I use a slightly longer route (+5 minutes) which is all off-road. My risk there is lower than driving to work, plus my long term health is better so my risk of death/ill-health from other causes is reduced.

I would advise anyone who can get out of their car to do so. Cars are bad for the people who use them (being sedentary, pollution, stress), bad for the local environment (pollution, noise, accidents) and bad for the wider environment (pollution, climate change).

Great to see a thread about budgeting derailed by the advantages of cycling 🙄

It isn't just a minute, you can ignore the bits you don't like. It is pretty boring not to allow conversation to meander.