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?

Why are you 'frightened' OP?

Just lower you pension contributions till you can afford to up them again. Job done, not that difficult is it!

If you wanted to save abit more look at your dog and car insurance as both are excessively high.

You are in a very privileged situation compared to most that you are putting more in your pension each month than alot of peoples mortgages!

I think you are doing all the right things.

I'd be incredibly proud if my children were as together and savvy as you. I certainly wish I was.

I echo renting out the studio to others, could your husband look after another child for 1&2 days per week?

Then I think you need to work on some sort of passive income. What's your side hustle going to be?

Both of you maybe able to offer online tuition to students- this could be more lucrative than other roles- and you may only need a couple of students each per week. £20-30 per hour x4 will cover the short fall.

Sorry crossed wires on your car update.

If SIL does care work and needs a place to stay in Uni hols is live in carer an option.

“We used our £17k for a couple of things: we paid off a long standing debt with £7k of it, then £5k set up the garage as DH's workshop and the other £5k went into savings where it's gradually getting eaten by unexpected expenses like dishwashers, the boiler (hence we now have boiler insurance) and replacing the kitchen after we had a burst pipe last winter. I have about 2 months of wages in savings.”

Youre struggling with bills but bought a dishwasher?

And spent £5k on a workshop that he’s not able to work in full time?

1. You’ve listed pension & student loan out of net income. That’s not right. What is your net income AFTER tax, NI, pension & SL?
2. If you’re paying a lot into pension to get CB, where is that listed in your income calculations?

Then there’s the fuel costs and the car insurance. You need to look very closely at both of these.

Fuel -

• move your home office to the middle floor, instead of SIL’s bedroom. SIL has loft room. Then you don’t need to heat the top floor all the time, which will be costing you loads as you WFH up there.
• wood shop electric costs and how much the side hustle actually earns. Where are material costs etc in your budget - is DH funding it from what he makes? Electric costs could be really high here - it may be a hobby that isn’t viable in the current climate.

Cars -

Presume you need 2 cars as you’re rural & you commute? Is this insurance correct though? It does seem huge.

I would not reduce your pension. That would have knock on impacts (eg CB, tax rates etc) so you would have to drop a lot to make up the amount.

Side hustle is the way to go.

You lost me at 'DH doesn't work'. You have 3 dependants.

Your DH needs to get a job. Even if it's minimum wage he needs to think how to eventually get promoted, or get better pay once he has more experience.
That's just the world we live in my husband earns 4x times that and I STILL wouldn't quit my job. We have one kid. My income is a lot less but it's still an income.

I appreciate some of the difficulties but your DH needs to work more. We never thought one of us could just do 2 nights in a pub and a side hustle. He needs to get a weekend job that pays much better. I also understand that you can’t give your dog away but that is another expense that people seem to think is essential starting out. I just would never pay money like that to have an animal. And as pp have said, you bought a very old house that is hard to heat. There are several things going on here that are contributing to the situation and if you do t want to move house and obviously can’t remove the costs of having a dog then you either need to bring more ££ in (DH does) or temporarily reduce the pension contributions.

Her DH DOES work. Being a SAHP is work, especially if his wage in a paid job wouldn't cover childcare at all, or would only just cover it.

Just vile how disparaged SAHPs are on this site tbh.

your food & car insurance are FAR too high! Food especially could be easily cut back. Where do you shop? From your OP I get the feeling you attach a lot of prestige to your salary and your career trajectory and what you have now vs. where you came from. (Not judging - why shouldn't you) but is this prestige manifesting itself in pride that is stopping you from shopping in lidl/aldi as opposed to m&s? as well as not making other necessary cutbacks?

I totally get the dog thing, mine is on butternut box and has the highest insurance, I always said if times got tight i'd cut my own cloth before cutting his as he didnt ask to come live with me ;)

@Mascia nobody's suggesting he works 5pm-7am so not really sure why you're getting so angry about it.

He already works a couple of evenings a week so he can work a couple more.

That's just the world we live in my husband earns 4x times that and I STILL wouldn't quit my job.

Your husband earns £240,000?

I work part time in a job that isn’t that much more than minimum wage. I work the job because it works well with my partner’s full time hours and means we don’t need to pay for childcare.

He needs to get a job. Even if he “only” earned £800 or so per month, that’s still an extra £800 a month. It basically covers your entire mortgage.

That's a hell of a lot for car insurance. I have just insured a brand new SUV for half of that.

Nobody's disparaging SAHP's when it's affordable.

For the here and not stop paying into your pension. Or at least 1/2 it.

If you believe this to be a temporary cash flow issue eg until fuel becomes cheaper, then don’t pay in for 12/18 months.

Then see where you are at. You may need to then sell up but at least it gives you chance to get your head round it and your SIL a chance to find her feet.

What’s the point for saving for the future if you are struggling with outgoings now?

There are plenty of disparaging comments regarding SAHPs on this thread, including saying they need to get off their arses and other such comments.

Completely ignoring the fact that it is much better for children to be at home with a parent in the early years than farmed out to childcare. We should be asking why that isn't more possible, financially, for more of us.

It’s not disparaging to say that if you can’t make ends meet with a SAHP then you can’t afford to have a SAHP.

I'm confused by this. Also that the OP and DH apparently had savings enough for deposit on a house in early 20s, bought a new hybrid outright from more savings and yet two years ago had 7k in long standing debts.

Sounds like money management classes would be a more useful family investment than a dishwasher or even a week in a caravan.

Haven't read the whole thread but over £400 on energy is very high, you must be using a hell of a lot. I guess that it may be down to a large, poorly insulated house?

60k isn't a high income to support a whole family. Either your DP needs to get back to work, or you may need to downsize, and expect that you won't have any holidays/ treats/ luxuries for a while.

Being an entirely SAHP only works if the breadwinner earns enough to cover all expenses.

If they don’t then they need to get paid work. No one is saying for him to work full time, but you can easily find contracts in retail from 8 to 25h per week, in evenings and on weekends, which he could work around OPs job. He needs to bring in additional money.

I do it so I don’t see why he can’t.

Sorry, I included student loan and pension on my outgoings because i know both are more than average and wanted to avoid all the 'why is your take home pay so low?' questions. £3,600 is my take home after tax, then the pension and loans are on top.

But you don't take home £3600: student loans and pensions are taken off you get given the amount that you actually take home.

You are making it sound like you have £1150 taken off from your version of your take home pay of £3600 for your student loan and pension. When it's actually more like £650 is taken from your take home pay, because of the tax relief.

If you are genuine, then you obviously need help budgeting and keeping track of your expenses. The meaningful money podcasts and youtube videos are a good place to start.

Sorry to keep going round the loop on this, but on a 60k salary after pension and student loan you're saying your take home is £2,450?

Surely that must mean you are effectively putting in £1250 or something a month before tax? That's 25% of your pre tax salary which even I, as a person who massively massively encourages paying into pension, think is pretty bonkers - it's not a surprise you feel as though things are tight if that's the case.