I earn £60k and I can’t keep my family warm

[Theyarellthesame]

Exactly that and I’m so, so frightened.

im 31 and I’ve done everything ‘right’ - went to uni, got myself a job and in 8 years increased my wage from £16k to £60k. We waited 13 years to have a baby until we’d saved up £20k so I could afford maternity leave, had £6k-ish left over after mat leave.

I live rurally in one of the cheapest areas in the country in a 4 bed Victorian semi, it’s not grand in any way. Lovely, but a basic 4 bed, 3 storey family home. When we moved in I had the loft insulated but we can’t have a smart meter because of something to do with where the meter is located.

My DH is a SAHP so no childcare costs for my 18 month old and he’d only be able to earn minimum wage so his take home pay per hour would be less than the cost of childcare, hence why he’s a SAHP.

Yesterday I got an email from bulb putting my direct debit up again from £290
to £470. It was £120 2 years ago. On top of everything else going up I just categorically cannot afford to pay that. There isn’t enough money by £149 a month to cover the bills for the household.

I think my options are to cancel paying in to my pension to free up that money or stop paying my student loan? Can you do student loan holidays?

mortgage is on a 5 year fix with 2 years left at 1.99% so that’s as low as it can go, we don’t have Netflix, sky or Prime anymore, we just have a TV license. We do have a Spotify subscription. Both our phones are on £20 a month contracts, we don’t have any debt other than student loans and the mortgage. We do have a dog and his pet insurance is £60 a month but it’s none- negotiable that we keep that going.

We batch cook using the instant pot to avoid putting the oven on, we do use the washing machine a lot because we use reusable nappies. I drive a plug in hybrid so the electric is high because of that.

We have 1 or 2 U.K. holidays a year, usually a static caravan or holiday cottage for a few days. Total cost of holidays per year is around £1k so I’ve already knocked saving for those on the head.

No chance of my wage increasing again any time soon, I’ve pushed very hard for the last 8 years to climb a very greasy ladder and there’s no where else to go from here.

WTF do I do?! There’s news all the time how this is going to get worse again in January and the only advice coming out seems to be ‘go and get a better paid job’ but I HAVE a well paid job! we want another baby but I’m currently telling DH no because we can’t afford it and need to save like crazy.

Im very very frightened, how much worse is it likely to get from here?

1680 per year car insurance in a cheap and rural area for two drivers over 25? That is more than I pay on a car in London, usually insurance is a lot cheaper when far enough away from towns and cities that rents are too low to consider letting.

What are you driving? You should shop around for insurance.

You also can't afford to put nearly a third of your gross income into a pension atm, or to continue savings of 22k per year unless DH works more or SiL contributes.

You have choices.

Your pension contributions are too high. Yes in an ideal world it would be nice to put that much away, but it’s not an ideal world. Also, aren’t your pension contributions coming out of your gross salary before you see it? And your student loan payments? What is your net salary without those things?
£500 for food is too high. We spend that for 5 (2 adults and 3 children).
Do you submit meter readings?

Is the woodworking very energy intensive?

£750 into a pension is insane if you’re struggling. Even if you cut this back to £500 it’s still more than most people save and you can use the £250 towards heating! Job done!

I know it is. That's why I said 'even accounting for your car'. I wasn't suggesting they charge their car less but they are obviously using lots of other energy which they could reduce. We charge our car at night and our bills are much lower.

Also - on your DH’s state pension - check with DWP what he needs to do to get one. You now need 35 years of NICs to get a full one- usually accrued through claiming child benefit (only for first 12 years), claiming some other benefits or working and paying tax.

He presumably doesn’t earn enough to pay tax, but do the child benefit payments go to him? If so, he’ll accrue NI credits - worth checking else he’ll not get a full state pension.

If you can work it out so he gets his credits then maybe reduce your own pension contributions to your employer pension to 10% (inc employer contribution and tax relief) for a few years to give yourself more money now. However, 20% (inc employer contribution and tax relief) is good long term, so go back to that as soon as you can afford to in future.

Do you not have a workplace pension scheme whereby the employer also contributes towards your pension? It is a lot of money you are putting into it. If you have a workplace pension you should get tax relief on your pension as it is a tax deductible benefit.
I think your issues are that your pension is higher than average (I'm assuming because no tax relief and no employer contributions) and you have large student loan repayments.
This is an illustration why the interest rate the government is charging on student loans is shocking. It means ex-students have massive monthly repayments affecting their quality of life whilst the Governments friends who own the student loans company are making a fortune.
Your pet insurance also seems a lot at £160 a month. What is the excess on the policy? We stopped paying cat insurance when the cats became old as the excess was £500 and we had to pay 20% of each bill on top of a massive premium. Made more sense to save the money directly (unless of course your dog has a long-term condition the insurance is already paying out for).

Are people insane? OP's DH looks after a small child all day and now he's expected to finish a long knackering day and then go and work for another 6 hours?

And also to suggest childcare doesn't cost the same as a NMW job is also insane or just ignorant. I had a full time childminder and I paid her £1500 per month. I had a full time place in nursery afterwards and that was £1700 per month.

Being on a similar wage I know that you probably take home about £3400 per month so with the bills you've mentioned but if you're also paying back your student loan that could be several hundred pounds. What do you actually take home OP?

OP that comes to £3890 not £4240, you've added DH's income as an expense so you are just in the black.

Those outgoings 'only' add up to £3890, plus:

You've not listed CB, which with your set up, should be entitled to keep 90% of, so worth claiming, even though a tax return will be needed.
It's likely your energy bill won't be that high.
Your car insurance looks very high, even if it's for two cars, do you shop around?
You could shave a bit off phone costs
You possibly could reduce your grocery spend a little
As others have said, you pay be paying more than necessary on student loan costs.

Few tweaks and it might not be as bad as first feared. Especially if you can get SIL to do some baby sitting to allow DH to work, in lieu of contributing financially.

Could your husband do some childminding alongside looking after DC? I wish now I had thought of that when I was doing a low paid job and all my money went on nursery fees.
2 or 3 days a week could make enough difference to take the stress off you.

This is reality on actual low incomes.

The OP isn't on a low income, she is a high rate tax payer who is choosing to put nearly a third of gross income into savings and keep a SAHP and subsidise another adult. She is not short of money. Either the savings come down, or something is cut from the budget, or DH works more (eg when OP can look after the child), or SiL contributes when she is there.
There are plenty of choices in that mix.

I think this thread is a good illustration of the fact that supposedly enlightened people don't really consider looking after children as "work". Explains why SAHPs are so undervalued.

1. Can you work another day at home to reduce petrol costs?
2. Is your husband claiming all he can as work expenses ie insurance, electricity etc?
3. Is your husband making a profit when you take everything into account? Does he need to raise his prices?

Two things stand out here Energy+fuel is VERY high = I have a similar property and ours is nearly £250 cheaper than this even after recent increases...you haven't got an immersion heater or electric shower running? they cost loads....

Food - I spend the same amount for 2 adults and 2 -nearly- -adult- teenagers and I buy quite a lot of luxury foods/ready meals....If I made more from scratch I could cut our bills by about £100 per month minimum. I am certain you could cut this amount down substantially.

Look at your usage for the past year, do the maths to see if the DD is reasonable. Do you have a credit built up over the summer?

Cut usage - do all rooms need to be heated? Turn thermostat down. Do you have an electric shower? They cost loads to run.

I'm with Bulb, and to be fair they've not been crazy with their suggested changes to the DD - I worked out from our past years usage that our monthly cost would be £175, they worked it out as £176. With the credit we've built up and the credit from the government they have suggested £96, which I'm ignoring and have gone for £120, with £50 to go into savings. Our income is around £25,000 gross.

Does your DH claim child benefit and then pay it back due to household income? That would enable him to get the NI credit towards his pension.
Cadent charge about £500 to move a meter so that you can then get a smart meter and go on an EV rate, it’s work it as it applies to the whole house during those hours so even makes all the washing cheaper.

OP I don't know if this is an option where you are but I've just had another thought. In the area we used to live two SAHD's set up stay and play groups for toddlers.
They were really successful because it felt more inclusive than classes aimed at moms and babys.

Have you tried Scottish power? I’m in a 4 bed, 3 storey, I do t pay anything like what you are.

have you got heavy curtains? Or fabric Roman blinds? They seriously help keep warmth in. Floors, have you got carpets? Rugs?

top floor, Shouldn’t need much heating, I leave doors open and airing cupboard door open, as heat rises through the house. If cooking on ground floor I leave door open to get the heat upstairs.

Are your radiators efficient? Have you bled them?

Your husband needs to figure out how he can contribute more. My dh only has a handful of gcse's but manages to earn nearly 6 figures. As do I. Because we need to. We have 5 children (youngest is 2) and both work full time. It would be lovely for one of us to stay at home but we need the money to provide for our family. Yours has a degree and a huge entitlement that he can faff around whilst you are worried about paying the bills. You even saved uo so you could have a materniry leave. What the fuck is he doing.

OP to put your struggles into perspective -

My DH earns less than you. We live with two small DC in a tiny 2 bedroom flat.

DH works from home 3 days a week. His “office” is a desk next to our bed.

I was a SAHM but we were beginning to really struggle so I got a part time job. I look after my DC during the day and work 9pm -2am 5 nights a week.

So in all honesty it’s rather hard to hear you complain about how tough life is from your 4 bedroom house with an office and a massive garage earning nearly £10k more than DH is, with one child and a househusband working two nights a week with a nice little “side hustle”. That’s not really what I’d call a difficult situation.

Your issue is that £60k sounds a lot, but isn't really.

If your take home is £3000, then that's the equivalent of 2 people earning £20.7k a year each, and no one would be saying they were a well-off couple!

Cancel your direct debit.

British Gas are still insisting that if I move back to direct debit it's £350 a month. My actual usage for the last 12 months is £160 a month (on today's prices) They couldn't even tell me why they wanted so much more.

Cancel it and take monthly readings and pay quarterly. Take back control.

Also your DH needs an evening job. I do the daytime childcare (and school runs) and then go to work in the evenings.

I was a SAHP, and when we could no longer afford for me to be a SAHP, I got a job. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t valued, it just means we couldn’t afford it.
Its almost irrelevant though, as the OP could easily cut her pension contributions and have more disposable income.

OP do you have other pets? You stated £60 per month for dog insurance but have put £160, in your breakdown. We have an old dog and pay £60, so that sounds about right. Also you've included your DH's income as an expense. Hopefully things aren't as bad as you feared, particularly if you drop your pension contributions.