to think the amount of money im left with by the end of the month is ridiculous?

[yellowcheesepie]

I recently went back to work after mat leave and am sat here wondering how on earth this is worth it ?! after paying all my bills of food, rent, electricity, water, internet, netflix, phone, commute and childcare etc i'm only left with £200 a month to save? i'm not a big spender either, all my income goes on the mentioned above plus £100 spending allowance for myself.

I'm not trying to rant, but i'd like to understand how other working mums do it? is this a reasonable amount to save per month or is there something very wrong in my finances? I live with my DH and we split all bills / expenses if anyone is wondering

You are being ridiculous! You have £300 left, you should be thankful you can save anything as well being able to put aside money for spending.

When they’re not something pretty much everyone has to pay, throughout their lifetime.

We choose to have children, and the highest childcare costs for them are generally about a 4 year period of our lives from 1-5.

Those are the years when it’s perfectly normal not to save, and rely for emergencies on savings tried to make before we had children.

I wish we had huge tax benefits for childcare. I’d love to see that change, I think it’s good for society and the state. But I don’t see it as a basic cost the way I do rent/mortgage, electricity, food…

£200 is really good.
Especially as you give yourself an allowance of £100.
Lucky you.

I'm surprised you dint have anything with childcare!

Welcome to the Real world.of being a family

So if you saved £200 a month you would have saved £2,400 in a year. What is the problem!

I think it sounds comfortable and understand why people would be upset at you moaning if they have nothing spare but at the same time, it's not a lot when you consider DCs birthdays, Christmas, school uniform, etc.

I technically have a fair bit more disposable income than this (I must stress though this is because I keep my outgoings very low, have no car or childcare costs) and I still often have little to no money by the end of the month because DCs need a haircut, new uniform, new trainers, new coat, it's their birthday, they have a party to go to, etc etc..

@yellowcheesepie - as you can see, many think that’s good.

it’s not for long, when your dc turns 3 you’ll get some funding towards the childcare and the costs will fall again when they start school.

we are coming out of the childcare costs - dc2 is year 5 and we’ve already discussed that next year, two of the days DH works from home, instead of DC2 going to the childminder, we’ll let her walk to and from school herself. (We don’t want her coming home to an empty house so only going to allow that on WFH days).

dc1 is at secondary, but now commutes by train which costs us about the same as we used to pay the childminder.

I remmeber a friend who went to work for £50 a month. After childcare, that’s what they were left with, beyond if they didn’t work. That wasn’t even after paying bills. But £50 made the difference between not being able to make ends meet and being able to….and it meant the career kept going.

It’s not always just about the immediate money that’s available.

Mr Gradgrindtalks about expenditure exceeeding income= misery and income exceeding expenditure= joy. You’re in the latter category, which is better than many.

Just how much do you exoect to have left after all your bills and costs?

I think you should count yourself lucky you can pay all your necessities and have £200 left a month ! Do you have any idea how desperate some people are in the country at the moment?

Ditto!

So in other words exactly the same as the OP 🤔 She just hasn't pre allocated exactly what the money will be used for and of course if you own a home you're already better off than her. This thread is either bonkers proof that MN is full of arseholes or idiots I can't tell which.

I see where you are coming from op. It was a decision I faced 15 years ago. I have decided to become a sahm after my 2nd child as I only had £500 left every month after paying day nursery fee and travel. Work was demanding and I was exhausted and together with all those guilt.

I doubt I will make the same decision if I could go back in time, childcare fee drop significantly once they are in school but your career may not ever be recovered, I guess it's depends what you do as well so think wisely.

If I weren't so fucking lazy I'd go through some posting history to see which of those carrying pitchforks counting their monthly 5p own their own homes or pay for classes and swim lessons for their children.

Because of so they're already better off regardless of what's left at the end of the month

I hate the whole ‘race to the bottom’, but I don’t think you get how lucky you are. We are dipping in to savings by £200 a month to pay for basics, I was invited for a coffee today and didn’t go because a fiver is too much to pay out for a luxury (and a coffee out falls in to that category for us). You are in a really good position if you have money left over each month.

Do you live separate yo dh ?
Why "my" bills
Serms like as ,family you are 300 a month better off
And you getting pension paid into
Paud holidays
Seems fine
Long term you will be much better off

But I haven't got a savings. So shall I stomp my feet over how privileged you are that you have the option? And is there anything over and above Netflix that you pay for?

Are you both single?

Or cohabiting?

I’m really not sure how unusual this is tho. 30 years ago when my mum had me, she worked solely to pay mine and my brothers nursery fees. They lived off my dads salary which admittedly stretched further than it would today. She was playing the long game thinking of NI and pension contributions as well as keeping ticking over in her career until the had the experience and energy to go for promotions.
childcare alone is 70% of my take home pay. Good job their dad is working too!

I don’t even have a fiver spare! I own one pair of winter boots which are falling apart and I don’t have any spare money to replace them. Count yourself lucky you have money to spend on yourself and save.

It’s all relative as well isn’t it - if all your friends have significantly more disposable income than you, you’ll feel poor if you only have £300 left after bills at the end of the month. I don’t think that’s much to be left with at all really, once you’ve clothed your DC and yourself and had maybe one trip out in the month and a few coffees or lunches, that’s gone.

If you have £200 a month left over and are not working silly long hours / days you are doing ok in my book, I’d be well chuffed with that sort of expendable income. I work full time but my basic wage doesn’t even cover my outgoings, I have to hope every month that I will get enough overtime just to cover them. This month with weekend enhancements (I work 2.5 weekends a month most months), 7 days overtime (2 of which were also on weekends and a bank holiday at enhanced rate), a couple of extra long days, mileage payment for work trips I’ve done, and a working time directive payment for the number of hours I’ve put in I’m left with just over £50. I’ve just done 16 days straight to get just one day off before doing another long stint. All I ever seem to do is work and still have no money to actually enjoy life.

You would have spent all of that bar childcare before, and childcare isn't a surprise, are you therefore talking about how much costs have gone up?

Also remember it's just temporary, from age 3 you'll get (some) free childcare. Those years until then are bloody expensive though.