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?

That list adds up to 3890 not 4240, you’ve got another 350 a month going somewhere.

I’m very pro pet insurance, but, that’s a lot... I cancelled my last dog’s before it got that high because it was cheaper to just pay for his regular medication and I knew we’d reached the point that I wasn’t going to put him though anything requiring loads of intervention anyway. Is 160 a month really worth it? As in, have you actually worked it out or have you just automatically kept it on?

The food amount seems high for 2 adults and a small child.

The dog food - that’s twice what I pay for a large breed dog. Is it a prescription food? Because you get cheaper brands of those.

Everything seems quite high to me tbh, insurance, phones, etc. Have you tried just rejigging all those for cheaper ones?

Have another look at childcare near you - £8.50 an hour for nursery seems very high, are you sure that isn't just for if you are paying for an additional early or late hour on a day or half day rate?
Childminders outside of London/the SE tend to be about £4-£5 an hour.
You can also get tax-free childcare which takes about £2k a year off your childcare bill.

Which is exactly what my Mum did.

Vile post. DH is a SAHP to an 18 month old - he does all the heavy lifting at home, cleaning, cooking, life admin.

SIL is a 19 year old student, her loan doesnt fully cover her accommodation so she works in a care home around her lectures, then also works in a care home when she's home to save up to be able to support herself when she's back at uni.

As you are with Bulb, cancelling your DD will have no effect, there is no benefit to paying by DD with them. Just pay when you get your statement on the 1st of the month.

@Theyarellthesame I have a SAHP too. Any mention of money gets everyone either suggesting childminding (which requires a fair bit of space & prep, and registration… even there is even demand for a male childminder) or him getting another job. If he does that, he can’t do childcare, which means I can’t work.

We’ve also got an old drafty house… and I also grew up in and out of care. We’re kindred spirits!

No real advice, other than that cutting your pension temporarily until the cost of living eases might be the way forward for you, and to check that you’re on an electric vehicle rate for your energy. But I wanted to say, you’re not alone.

Why can’t your dp get a job? Even when I earned minimum wage on part-time hours I still had earnings left over to pay our childminder. From reading your post, I think you’ve got this opinion that the only option for him work-wise is to be full time & well paid, and your child would need to go to nursery full-time. There’s loads of in between solutions if you change your outlook.

Your car insurance is insane. £2k a year for a rural location on what you say is a “normal” car? I think you need to work out why it’s so £££ and maybe swap cars. My car is £350 pa for reference for a car worth £12k in a city. So I’m not suggesting you get a cheap round around but something doesn’t add up here.

i wouldn’t reduce your pension. You could reduce it down to 5% contribution which would be £500 saved but after tax/ni/student loan you’d only see c. £250 of that so I wouldn’t think it’s worth it.

is there anyway you can get cheaper dog insurance? That seems really high as well.

i bought something from Amazon that allows you to plug into sockets to tell you how much your device is using. I would get one and ask your dp to work his way around the house and see what’s sucking your electric because it seems really high. You might find his wood work is costing you more in electric than he makes from it?

i think £500 for food as well is very high. You could easily cut this to £400.

you haven’t mentioned child benefit in your income, are you claiming it? If not you should be and that’s an extra £70 a month I think?

Exactly what I've been doing for nearly 10 years.

People need to man the f up. Doesn't need to be another 6 hours. Just another 4 hour shift.

The size of an individual's monthly student loan repayments is totally independent of what the interest rate is.

Car insurance isn't £140 per month surely? And pet insurance could be rebroked?

Agreed. This is why I even asked if it's feasible for him to go to work. If he's able to make £3k they're better off £1.5k. If his work is going to cover childcare only, then it's pointless exercise.

That's a lot of money going into the pension fund...

I’m in a similar position and really try to limit spend on food and also use eco setting on washing machine and dishwasher, less heating, not use tumble dryer but dry outside under a tarp/ sail shade type thing. Is it possible to reduce student loan payments and pay back over a longer period, the same for mortgage? I’d reduce the pension payments slightly. Also look at childcare swaps etc and get your dh to work more. Unfortunately it’s hard and you’re not alone. You’ve done so well to build this life for yourself 😍

I think you should do some web searches for insurance quotes: definitely for the car, and possibly for the pet, as they do seem very high. With car insurance particularly it can be amazing how much lower you can get if you've not shopped around for a while.

In case you've missed it, with pension contributions taken off salary, you should be entitled to some CB - check out the sums on that.

I think your pension and car insurance need looking at

I would also speak to the energy company Bulb, as that seems astronomical. I do not understand how it can be that much unless the heating is ramped on 24hrs a day. I wfh and our energy bill is less than that, and I do have the heating on in the day, not all day, but partially

Could your OH do more work, do you think? Two nights in a bar per week could be increased? Or do something that pays better than min wage? There are lots of wfh roles he could do in the evenings that may pay better

The OP is a 40% tax payer though so this will not be available to her.

If your DH does all the life admin he would know all the incomings/outgoings, so where does he think you are overspending/should cut back.
Again, if he has a degree why is he doing minimum wage job??

@Theyarellthesame It’s a vile post because everybody doesn’t know the ins and outs of your highly unusual Family Setup is it ?

good luck OP buy yourselves a jumper.

Same here until I married.

Why would you assume stay at home parents are just leeches though?

Your pet insurance, car insurance, energy and pension seem very high.

I would tackle these first - can you reduce the payment or get them cheaper elsewhere etc.

If you think you can’t possibly reduce any of your current payments at all then your only other option is for DH to earn more.

I actually meant the sister-in-law but never mind.

Assuming you get child benefit as your pension contributions are so high, so you can add that to your income?

I've added this up a few times but I'm still getting £3890 for your outgoings, not £4240. There may be some other incidental expenditures you haven't included (or I really can't add up!). The things that stand out to me are: car insurance (I pay only a little more than this for a year, so you may be able to find a better deal); pension (as others have suggested, you may need to cut back a little here in the short term - you pay proportionally about £100 a month more towards your pension than I do); student loan (again, proportionally you pay about £100 a month more towards your student loan than I do); food (we probably do spend this much but this is one place you can more easily cut back). Annoyingly your council tax is very high but focusing on the positives, you do have a good salary and a relatively low mortgage (our mortgage is about 3x your amount...). Good luck figuring it all out and I hope you're able to find the savings you need to.