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?

Yes this is fair enough. Especially with a student loan being paid from it, and with taxes in mind you’re getting less

He could work for a few hours in the evening or in the early morning. Doesn’t have to be an all-nighter.

Could you apply for flexible working and condense your hours? Then DH could have a day a fortnight to do his side hustle?

How many times do people need telling, just come off the direct debit, that isn't your bill ffs.

We live on a quarter of the OPs gross income and we get by fine, admittedly with the house paid off.

There seems something wrong here. We are on Eon's variable rate and have been paying £350 a month. This month they wrote saying our DD is actually coming down to £290 a month (we've built up a bit of credit over the summer).

We live in a poorly insulated 4 bed detached house and have had 4 adults in the house most of the time for most of the year.

Before you worry about anything else OP, investigate the bill. Lots of good advice on here.

Even with things as they are, it’s not likely to be that high. You are panicking more than you need you right now.

Then focus on how you can reduce costs - if it’s an old house, how are the windows? If they aren’t great, use plastic insulation this winter till you can improve it. Your Dh sounds handy so make it his job to sort.

Other than that your DH needs to think about how he will improve his earning potential longer term - right now with the kids it’s not a priority, but he should think ahead to when they are at school.

Your SIL pays rent presumably?

Have you got a smart meter?

The SIL/ inheritance etc is a huge drip feed!

Use that inheritance to buy her a studio in her uni town now.

I think your electric useage probably is huge. Woodwork tools burn it up!

How much did you spend converting the double garage?

Heating that on top of the 3 floors of a house will cost ££££££££.
Move your office to the first floor and don't heat the top floor when DSIlL isn't there. (Make that her room).

I'm starting to read between the lines that DH is a Cocklodger.

Does he wander around in a t shirt with the heating on? He's struck gold with you, very high salary and lovely big house. Gets to do his hobby job.

How much housework does he actually do? Or is he one of those SAHD's that does the bare minimum 'babysitting' but leaves all the other wife work to you?

The fact that it's you posting this thread and not him speaks volumes...

Energy costs aside, you must be spending beyond your means on something, especially if you take home more than £3,000 a month and don’t pay out of that for food.
I’m a single parent of two, working part time and earning just under £30k, so half what you earn. We have a small 3-bed house and my latest energy bill was £85. It is expected to go up to £150 next month according to the supplier. We are OK financially as I get maintenance from ex, and I own the house so no mortgage. But I still have more than £800 a month left over, so even if I had the same mortgage payments as you I would still have some money left over at the end of the month, on just over half the salary you are on (if I include maintenance). I also pay for music lessons for the kids, so not scrimping at all. We don’t buy anything particularly flash, or posh labels, and never have. I have a car, so there are running costs for that, insurance, house insurance etc.

DH definitely needs to review his rates. If he's turning work down, he's not charging enough. No-one will be surprised at his prices going up. Everything is going up and there will be a heat, light and equipment cost to his business. So he needs to charge more.

YY to checking temperature of heating, including the garage. If this is the case, he needs to wear outdoor clothes, not heat the space to indoor temperatures.

You also need to charge SIL rent unfortunately. You can't afford to house her for free. She'll have student loans and might be entitled to extra grants if she doesn't have living parents, so she needs to look into this.

Another poster mentioned on another thread if two people earnt £40,000 you would have a joint income of around £5,000 as overall you would be paying less tax seperatley than you would as one earner at £60,000 a year, which equates to around £3,500 ish depending obv on your pension and any other deductions. You would also prob benefit from a small amount from universal credit but i cant say for sure.

Her DH does already work in a bar!

@properdoughnut it says in her first post that they can’t get a smart meter

@9102012117J are you really unable to think outside the box even a tiny little bit?

You think he can't work 6pm-midnight and get home for sleep?

The dh works two evenings a week in a bar job. He could increase that to five evenings a week.

Op works full time and looks after a baby on her own two nights a week. How is this different to looking after a baby during the day and working in the evening. It isn’t. The DH is having the luxury of a hobby which is never going to make real money. He needs to take on more shifts. Clearly not night shifts but evening work is perfectly possible.

Can your DC not go to a childminder and your husband work? I appreciate nursery costs are so expensive, I currently pay out £1,600 a month for a full time place, but a childminder here is significantly less, it just doesn’t work for us for various reasons. Sorry if that’s unhelpful, but might be worth looking into

Have you looked into childminder costs? I live in the SE and they cost £5ph here.

60k isnt that much after you've paid tax, pension and a student loan, it sounds it but I know it isnt loads. Your husband needs to work opposite shifts to you to bring in a wage, my parents did it, they couldn't afford childcare but also couldn't survive on one wage. Like you my mum was the bread winner too. Your husband can't just be a sahd hiding behind "I can't earn more than min wage". Another option is you could look at doing compressed hours ft over 4 days and he works the 3 days you are off. Long term he needs to do some training to increase his earning potential, sitting at home doing childcare isn't helping you in the long term, his time out the jobs market is just making things harder. It'll be a struggle juggling but it's what a lot of people do to afford children.

Before you start panicking, you need to understand what your usage is. Just because you aren’t on a smart meter doesn’t mean you can’t check your usage. Go to both the gas and electricity meters - gas will probably be outside and electric inside. Take a photo of the numbers and add those numbers to your online account. It usually takes a few days to recalculate what your actual bill is based on usage so check back in a few days. How direct debits work is that they will build up a small credit over summer to see you through the winter, if you have a large credit then absolutely do not agree to put your direct debit up.

If you’ve had a debt on the energy account and you’re trying to clear that then the DD will be higher but you can talk to your energy company about debt plans.

If, after adding your actual usage, the Direct debit is still high then you need to look at what is actually using energy. DH might have to put his prices up because it sounds like tattooing wooden instruments will use quite a bit of electricity. DH might have to look at stopping his side hustle and getting a job that pays more than childcare and somethings with flexibility - NHS admin for example. He will have to do what most people do and do the side hustle in small amounts of time available at weekends and evening. Him being a SAHP and doing his side hustle only works if you can afford it and you can’t. The other option is that he gets an evening job. I’m not dismissing the work he does during the day as a SAHP. However, he’s the lower earner and so it makes no sense for the higher earner to get a second job as you would pay more in tax. I say this as the lower earner in our situation (working 4 days a week on a reasonable wage) we can’t afford more childcare so if we need to increase our household income then I’ll have to get an evening/weekend job. I’m reluctant to do that because I won’t see my DD but if it comes to the point that we can’t afford food/to heat the house I don’t have a choice.

So you can't compare yourself to OP then can you?
I'm pretty sure if OP's house was paid off like yours, she wouldn't have even started this thread.

The fact that it's you posting this thread and not him speaks volumes.. what that OP is switched on and knows how the money she earns is being spent?

I think you do have quite a lot of areas to look at:

4 bed house for three of you - if you love the house, could you rent it out and rent somewhere smaller until your child gets the 30 free hours

Pets - I know Mumsnet thinks you should give away your kids before you look at rehoming a pet but it is a luxury

Car - do you actually need one? Could you ride an ebike to work? I realise you 're rural so the roads may not be safe

Can you compress your hours so that you have a day off that your DH can use to work?

Comb through your bills and expenses more generally

Rent out the workshop is a good suggestion

We had a local joiner build us a woodshed for 150 and filled it with logs and kindling, another 120.

We are hoping it will mean we can keep our heating bills down by using the fireplace to heat.

I used to work for a utility company. First and foremost, ignore what Bulb have quoted, look at what you have actually used in KWH over the last year. Times that by the unit rate you are on and add on the standing charge and then the VAT. Then look at whether the quote from Bulb is reasonable. Are you on a tariff for cheap car charging? I am with Octopus who I cannot recommend enough. I don't have an electric car but my friend does and they are also on Octopus which has a low rate in the early hours of the morning for car charging.

Get a plug in energy monitor, we used Tapo and see what your washing machine is using. I also did the whole reusable nappies thing and ran different cycles to see which one was the cheapest whilst still getting the nappies clean. Plug other things into the Tapo, we have 3 of them and used them to monitor everything. On Octopus we could show the teenage boys how much their showers were using so they had to be conscious of that.

Realise that everything that is plugged in uses electric, most should just trickle but unplug anything you don't use or switch it off at the switch. If you have old appliances they too could be guzzling electricity. I am basing this on the possibility that your energy consumption is high.

We have very very similar finances to you and have plenty left over. Do you have cars on finance? Loans? Credit cards etc?