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?

Does it not cost money to become a childminder? Insurance, registration, advertising etc etc.

Apologies haven’t read the whole thread, I’m so sorry for your situation, but I earn just under £60k, my mortgage costs are higher than yours and also have nursery fees of around £700 and after school club of £200 per month and could manage ok on just my salary if push came to shove. Also we are with bulb and have dd of around £280 per month, they tried to put ours up to £300 and something but we refused. We live in a four bedroom, old house that costs loads to heat but don’t envisage paying as much as you quote. Also interested how your spent £15k on mat leave, does your work only offer stat maternity pay?

^HilaryWentworth
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.^

Yeah, I get it. It must be a bit gutting when you see children who who were 'farmed out to childcare' grow up just as happy and well adjusted as your own kids and their mums and dads have successful careers and good pensions to boot. I'd probably be a tad envious too

Curious about why your food bill is so high. If DH is an SAHD he should be cooking everything from scratch or at least be able to conjure up some cheap meals. I also think he needs to work more.

Essentially, you need to change something. Either your DH works more, or you pay less into pension, or you move to a smaller house, or you eat less expensive food, or you take in a lodger... Actually you have more choices than most, but things can't go on as they are

My friends husband became a childminder and he really struggled to get children to mind as lots of dads in particular were very uncomfortable with a man childminder.

we are a family of three our daughter is a teenager and our food is just under £100 a week including £15 for school lunches, that includes normal toiletries and cleaning stuff from supermarket I think you could shave £100 off your food budget we are not vegan our food budget includes meat cheese etc but we rarely buy alcohol, due to pre diabetes with DH we can't bulk out meals with lots of carbs so that stops us cutting costs further with potatoes pasta extra bread and lentils etc as he is limited to 2 -3 portions of legumes per week, I think £100 a week is very realsitic for food, go SIM only after contract finishes £10 a month will give all the data you could possibly need we pay £6.50 per month as use wifi at home and don't need mega roaming data still have about 5GB at that price

your car insurance should fall by about 20% next year but a cheaper older car might cost a lot less to ensure

you could trim pension contributions down to about 500 also make sure DH is getting CB ( even if you pay it back loss most of it) to give him NI years you now need 35 years for full state pension

We’ve recently budgeted and managed to find ways to save £400 pcm just by lots and lots of little tweaks and abstentions here and there. DH did this kicking and screaming however - he thinks penny pinching is not something you should have to do ‘at our stage in life’.

I do also wonder if in OP’s case there is a bit of DH-resistance, or at least not the same all-consuming worry over the finances?

In my experience, when a father is the SAHP or much lower earner, they are often a bit unwilling to compromise on their hobbies, lifestyle and don’t naturally economise. This is sort of compounded by the female main earner feeling like they need to make sure their bloke is happy because he’s sacrificing his earning potential to stay at home, so they overindulge when, if the tables were turned, the family would just say no, there’s no money for indulgences. It’s the patriarchy, innit, and a good dose of working mum guilt mixed in. Often when mothers stay at home with their children they’re made to feel like that’s the luxury already - the time with the children - and so they don’t deserve more and try to scrimp and save. When a father stays at home he’s considered to be doing a sacrifice, not gaining a luxury of time with his kids, so he deserves more (an expensive hobby, leisure time, whatever).

I’m sure it’s not the dynamic in all SAHD/FTWM relationships but I have seen it a lot.

If your DH is on board with making the family finances work, OP, all shall be well.

We shop at Morrisons.

Heating costs relate to your home.
You've said it's 4 bedrooms. What's the EPC?
For many people investing in simple insulation might actually make a difference to their energy bills.

You've increased your wage potential, but your partner didn't.
One income appears to not be enough for your lifestyle choices.

Not to mention the absolute refusal of many women to leave their child around any man that isn't related. He's hardly risk pickings between being quite rural and being a man

Humm let me see.
Pay £750 per month into a pension. Or not be able to heat their home for themselves and an 18 month year old.
Not tricky really.
Nothing to say they will both make it to pension age. But in 2 months time they need to be able to have a warm home for their child.
£750 is a hell of a lot to be putting into a pension when you can’t afford heating right now!

Sorry (not sorry) but 😂

There are people living on far, far less than your income and managing their money.

That food bill is crazy for the amount of people. At most we spend £300 a month for me, dh and ds. Where do you shop?
The pet insurance is ridiculously expensive.
I can see that you could cut down easily in several places. My guess is that you are used to living a certain lifestyle but unwilling to make changes.
if you are really struggling you shouldn't be able to put away 100 savings a month... If anything I would cut that down to half.

@RNLD1981

Yeah. I think the plug in hybrids are good - if you can limit your trips to the max range. I think the problem is with most of the plug in hybrids the range is not really compatible with a 50 mile each way commute (unless you can charge at work) meaning you get all the up front cost of the plug in hybrid but none of the benefits of fuel savings.

I have a bog standard Ford Focus diesel (probably worth about 2K) and it does 50 mpg, more probably on the long run and £20 pa tax. I reckon it does about 0.15p a mile, so for a 1200 monthly commute it would be about £170 and be a tiny fraction of the up front cost of the Kia (£30K+ ?).

Obviously the OP would want something a bit more reliable than my skip on wheels, but there is some significant opportunity to free up some cash there.

OP you don’t mention child benefit - your pension contributions mean you should be entitled to claim most of it.

Can I ask if Dh is claiming child benefit
Also why did you use the inheritance to put sil through university.

Surely if she had lost both her parents wouldn’t she have been entitled to a lot of benefits.

It is also a nice idea to put money aside for a deposit for sil’s house but you really can’t afford to do anything like that.

I presume your Dh had his share of the inheritance.
Where did that money go?

I think you need a different mind set to money

Whilst it is nice to have savings and have a SAHF and pay £750 into your pension and £400 to your student loan and buy your forever home in your 20s and pay for sil’s university and put aside money for a house deposit

You don’t earn enough to do these all these things.

I think you have to be realistic and atm you are living in a fantasy

Your Dh is no more likely going to work in his workshop full time as he is going to put his children in nursery and go and work at the local Amazon warehouse

Did you cost out how much realistically your Dh could earn in a few years time.
Has he sat down and drawn up a realistic business plan.
How many orders he could get.
The time he takes to do the orders, the cost including the garage remodel to workshop, electricity used and how much per hour he charges

I think it is very telling that considering he has so many orders that he doesn’t have time to fulfil he instead works in a pub 2 nights per week which suggests that a minimum wage bar job is more lucrative than this business which is supposed to be a full time employment when dc goes to school

I might be completely wrong but I have seen this type of thing before in both sexes.Where one stays at home till the children are at school then they will go back to work or have some niche business they are going to start

Yet as soon as one is at school there is another baby and the whole thing starts against
Spoiler. They never do go back to work.

If you are thinking of having another child then wouldn’t the status quo remain.

@PurpleWisteria1 Okay this is getting boring now but I’ll explain one last time, if she cancels the £750 into the pension because she is a higher rate payer of tax she will not be £750 better off it will be absorbed into tax national insurance and student loans.

You might shop at Morrisons OP but what do you buy?? I have DH and three kids, two in nappies full time, one in nappies evenings only and our shopping bills are comparable

Not many families can live on one wage.

You might shop at Morrisons OP but what do you buy??

Exactly my thought! You must have a huge trolley full to the brim every week to be spending £125 a trip! Do you end up throwing out a lot of food? (again no judgement, i just cleared my fridge and could kick myself at what i let get out of date)

Do you make a list and stick to it or just decide what you need when you're there?

Could your partner not work more doing his woodworking? Evenings and weekends? Can you compress hours so you do 4 longer days, and he can then have a whole day working on his business?

Would you be able to Reduce your income to help your partner work more? I don’t know if this will be better off with tax?

DH get a weekend or evening job. Even if just for a few hours. Wouldn't pay any tax on it if his income is low.

Your DH needs to work much more and you need to shop somewhere cheaper.

If you are thinking of having another child then wouldn’t the status quo remain only if she has baby after baby endlessly 🙄. As it is it'll continue until new baby is in nursery, altho the gap between babies might mean he goes back to work first and thus has a higher earning potential to pay for nursery etc.

I got pregnant with twins just as DS was going to full-time school. Despite being a pathetic SAHM who sets an awful example to her kids by living off a man and all those other MN tropes, it was just when it happened, not a ploy to be a vuvlalodger

If DH starts meal planning and you switch to Lidl or Aldi you will save a significant amount on your grocery shopping.