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!

Yes, agree with this.

Hi OP,

Nobody here could possibly help you without seeing your SOA, which is obviously very personal. If you feel up to it then post it, if not, then don't. Or, you do an incoming and outgoing list and scrutinise the hell out of it.

The only thing I can say (without figures) is that sometimes we need to make some sacrifices to the way that we live now, in order to get through the shitty times.

I've had to do this at times in my life, getting a mortgage is one example. That was a choice I made though. What we are seeing now is not a choice we have made, it has been forced upon us, and it is fucking frustrating. I can't even begin to imagine how some people will be feeling.

Some personal tips I've discovered along the way:

Eat less meat - I'm actually vegan for ethical reasons, but I haven't always been. Cutting out meat prior to my decision to go vegan saved quite a lot of money. I substituted meat for lentils in things like lasagne, bolognaise, chilli and who doesn't love a daal.

Bulk cook - If you can, buy more, cook it all and freeze. It's not only financially better, it is less time consuming.

Cancel any dds you don't use often - Amazon Prime, Netflix and the Gym. Absolutely don't if you get your moneys worth.

I'm not in a situation where I need to worry about these things anymore, but my mindset has changed over the years. I don't mean to sound tone deaf, but I can now afford to not worry about rising energy bills, I can buy new things, I can go on nice holidays and I can buy designer clothes. I don't choose to do any of those things though. I don't care about having the newest car on my drive (2004), I'm more than happy to holiday in the UK, I couldn't even begin to bother about fashion/labels anymore and I certainly will be cutting back on my energy usage because I can't stand to think that many children and elderly people will be so cold whilst I'm toasty and warm. It isn't self-flagellation, it's about knowing I don't need to keep up appearances and I can't help thinking about others. I will also do my best to help others.

More information needed from OP before we can say she'd have more money by increasing work hours. Depends very much on work costs.

YABU

You are not 'struggling to survive'.

I feel you OP. We are into six figures joint and yet planning to not use the central heating unless absolutely freezing this winter. We’re already shopping at Lidl and avoiding using the car.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that two adults in professional jobs are having to scrimp. It’s all gone very wrong somewhere.

But on MN you aren’t allowed to complain about this. Unless you’re on minimum wage/benefits you are rich scumbags who clearly piss money up the wall every month.

We earn 22k, that’s it one income and rent is 1200 and we can’t move as smaller houses that would be suitable are 1300 min and we need to stay in this area due to illness and disabilities. We have cancelled our TV plus cancelled our streaming sub so we only have internet, phones aren’t being upgraded, obviously we don’t have new cars so not payoff out for those other than the usual.
We literally have nothing m else to cut back on and we aren’t able to keep up and we are hitting our unplanned overdraft and I’m even skipping meals to make food stretch.
You need to look at what you can cut back on even if it means sacrificing some of the children activities.

Maybe try apps like Olio, food left over end of the day to help with the food budget.

Unfortunately choosing to work part time is a bit of a luxury if you also want to complain about living costs

But full time work doesn't necessarily bring in any more money after childcare costs, more fuel, less time so possibly more convenience food and from more expensive shops, because instead of shopping in person in Aldi, you spend twice as much getting a delivery from a more expensive supermarket.

OP without detail of how much your mortgage, childcare and other bills are, no-one can say whether its a case of little or no disposable income due to these things taking all your income, or if there's scope to cut back (grocery shopping, food and drink out of the house, things like phone contracts, subscriptions and other bills often could be trimmed)

So you need to run through all your bills and see what it looks like on paper and also look at what you've spent over the last few months, to see if money is leaking away somewhere. Have a look at:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

Hi OP I don’t know your outgoings but on paper your income is good so first thing I suggest is sit down and look long and hard at what your spending money on.

write down your monthly expenditure of everything (yes I know it’s tedious but it can be an eye opener). Look at your outgoing and work out what is necessary and what is luxury. Set a budget for clothes, food, kids toys etc. Cancel contracts you no longer use and renegotiate those you need or can take cancel.

I did this and saved over £100 month. With planning and better shopping I cut my food bill by £200. I also cut my fuel bill by £40 a month by walking much more and walking the kids to school. I went through all my kids clothes, toys etc and wrote down what they needed rather than just buy for the sake of it. Started doing proper food shops every 8 days instead of 7 days, cut Netflix, Amazon etc. I also cut the kids classes that they didn’t really enjoy but kept the ones they love.

I would suggest to keep a record of all spending in a month and see where you can maybe make savings.

@Soddinghell I think the issue is that people live to their means. You get a new job, higher wage inevitably you spend more you don’t save it. You get a fancier car/house. Hard times hit and there isn’t much room for the additional outgoings. Everyone’s money struggles are relevant. To those on low incomes that sounds like a lot of money to be struggling with and they would probably feel rich if they suddenly woke up to that kind of income. What you do need to look at is what you can go without. Obviously mortgage and bills are a must but can you reduce usage? Cut back or cut out subscriptions. I would also assume kids clubs would be high on the list to keep too. So now look at meal planning (do you have a lot of waste) try to keep prices down with food. I’ve been doing two online shops one at Asda bread, milk, cereal all cheaper but at Iceland things like fish fingers, chicken dippers are cheaper. Takes me twice as long but saves me about £20-30 a month. Do you have any outgoings for things like window cleaner, gardener, dog walking all these things could go and get the family on board to help. Not really sure of what you spend your money on so hard to see where you can make cuts. Hope you find something.

You’ve got to tighten your belt . Drop the clubs . Shop at Aldi /Lidl.Meal plan .

you can’t change nursery fees so the savings have to be made else where . Every person i know is cutting back somewhere to make savings .

hairymothballs I’m afraid that it’s you that is being ridiculous. I am older than you and my income is £16,000. I am still probably better off than OP. as I have a house with the mortgage long paid off. Have you any idea of the cost of childcare, commuting and a mortgage? It’s people like you that cause all the negative stereotyping about boomers.

Could you take in some ironing?

I have no doubt you are feeling your change in circumstances due to the cost of living crisis. But your household income is more than twice the median uk household income. I don't think you will starve!

OP, it’s a tight squeeze but things will be better once childcare costs less.

This is one of the worst posts I have read for a long time. Cannot believe OPs inability to read the room.
OP get a full-time job. Remember there are people so much worse off than you.

Well on the surface, yes kind of because even £700 in nursery fees and activities should leave you with quite a lot - but it depends on your mortgage and other debt, car payments etc. Without all that info it’s a bit hard to tell why you’re struggling.

Well the OP’s fucked off so I guess there’s no advice to give, but an idea of how much the mortgage was would have helped.

I'm not sure about that. I work 18.5 hours in a low paid role, so I currently don't pay tax, national insurance, or student loan (plan 1). If I go full time, my wages would not double. I used a tax calculator and my wages would only increase by 60% for 100% more hours. This is because all those things I don't currently pay, I would become eligible to do so.

We would also have to cover more childcare. Currently we use after school clubs and then for school holidays we split our annual leave, having one week off together and the rest split to be off with the kids. Because I work half the week, DH can take one week's worth of leave to cover two weeks of me working. I.e., he books off Monday to Wednesday (morning only) for two weeks and I look after them on my day off. If I was full time, then DH would have to take two full weeks for my two weeks off etc., meaning that he can cover less of my weeks overall, so then we would have more weeks where we would have to pay for holiday clubs.

Once you take all that into account, financially it doesn't make a great deal of sense for me to work full time based on my current salary. Luckily DH is a high earner and we're not struggling, but I don't believe it's always so straight forward that someone should just work more hours.

You need to sit down and figure out your monthly income, your fixed outgoings and what that leaves for discretionary spending and then budget for spending accordingly. We earn close to £90k between us and it’s true that you get used to having (& spending) what you earn but in general the higher your income the more possibilities you have to reduce outgoings. We’ve been looking at our finances and how we will cover the energy increases. Up to October we can manage by saving less but if there is another rise in January in line with predictions we will need to start cutting spending somewhere. We will probably cut holiday spending and make Christmas & birthday gifts more things we need like clothes and things that provide entertainment through the year for us all like board games, sports equipment or classes for the kids. You have to start with knowing what you spend though so if you aren’t sure then start tracking your spending and classifying it into buckets so you can make sensible choices about what you’ll reduce. You probably aren’t really struggling to survive but to maintain a certain standard of living. You will hopefully find a few changes in how you shop/entertain yourselves really help you.

Piss off. You don't need to be poor and destitute to ask for money advice.

Well I worked out that our food shop has increased by at least £100 a month. Petrol is more expensive as we know, it's more expensive for takeaways or eating out (although we don't do this often), clothes for DS are expensive, nevermind shoes! So overall you are probably doing the same but it costs much more!

I can't believe some people's inability to read the thread title.

It's quite clear what this is about, the OP did what it said on the tin, so you've made an active choice to read something you know you won't like. That's your own fault.

I'm the same OP and the simple but boring answer is learning to say no.

No to the coffee at the coffee shop
No to the expensive haircut
No to non essential new clothes
No to impulse supermarket buys
No to a drink out with friends even occasionally

Etc