To think there should be more help for middle class families

[RootinandTootin]

This isn't a hate mongering post, those on lower incomes and can't work should be helped. My issue is that there seems to be little to no support at all for middle class families. Myself and partner work 5 days a week and have 2 kids. Not a terrible wage so I can't complain about that but the energy cost, food bills and fuel are going to cripple us soon enough. We also have Christmas to think about and a couple of birthdays inbetween. I just feel so unbelievably stressed out all the time about it. I'm praying this all calms down by the end of next year when our mortgage is coming up to renewal. There is pretty much no help being offered to us (unless anyone has some hints). I can't see it getting any better and its pretty depressing, alongside other personal issues going on at the moment I just want to cry.

150 versus me in London paying over £800 and that is because I am lucky enough to have family who can do some early collection so I get part time days a few times a month. I wouldn’t mind paying a bit more taxes if nursery’s were subsidised and also with the same quality of care and same level of qualified staff as Finland or Sweden. Like you said kids are an investment in the workers of the future. Childcare and education will be a big biggie for me when it comes to the next general election and manifestos.

I think it’s frightening how quickly your disposable income can be entirely consumed.

I consider us middle earners ( ~66k now) and fairly sensible with money. At the start of the year 50% of our income covered what I consider non negotiable costs (Mortgage, c tax, utilities, insurance, food/household essentials shopping, childcare, fuel/car maintenance & internet/phones).

Come April if we had to renew mortgage as well as all the other rises it would take 70% of our income to pay those.

I’m not going to suggest we need state support but I’d imagine if you started with similar income but used 70% of your income to start with you’d be left with basically no disposable income

@Discovereads an observation on your previous conversation...FYI if you move for a job, you don't have to sell your house, plenty rent it out and rent in the new area, especially if your job is likely to move around, and again hindsight maybe a wonderful thing, but when you took out the equity release, was this on the advice of an independent financial advisor as usually they give advice to try and retain assets when you are younger ie move out into lower cost in the short term and rent out higher cost asset until financially back on track or negotiate interest only for a period with mortgage lender.

FYI if you move for a job, you don't have to sell your house, plenty rent it out and rent in the new area
During the years we were moved about, rents were actually cheaper than mortgages for similar sized & quality homes so no, renting out the house we left behind was not a realistic option as it would not even pay for itself. It would be a significant loss every month. Back then interest rates were higher-ranging between 5-7% on a mortgage. Trust me did the cost analysis on that!

when you took out the equity release, was this on the advice of an independent financial advisor as usually they give advice to try and retain assets when you are younger ie move out into lower cost in the short term and rent out higher cost asset until financially back on track or negotiate interest only for a period with mortgage lender

Yes it was. At the time I was using my sick and holiday leave (so still technically on full pay and employed but getting close to running out and having to go on unpaid leave- so imperative to do this before I had £0 pay slips) and there was hope I might recover and be able to keep my job & career. I was in intensive long term rehabilitation. We had just modified our home for disability access- so any suitable properties to move into would be hard to find. Moving would have also uprooted the children from school- two of whom had SEN- when they had just settled in. An interest only period would not have made enough of a difference to the monthly mortgage payment as we’d only been in that house for a year so were at the start of that mortgage term.

I want to make clear that I didn’t lose my house/foot on the property ladder due to the equity release. If the rehabilitation had been fully successful, I would have returned to work and got back on track financially. The equity release carried us through those 10mos while we had that hope. As it turned out, the rehabilitation was only partially successful and at the end of the 10mos, I was put in for disability retirement. Which then had its own (didn’t know about) 14 months wait time as they processed it and assessed my medical records before paying out while I was simultaneously recalled back to the U.K. & replaced (this was a foreign posting).

It was then that we sold up. There was no point keeping a house in a foreign country we couldn’t pay the mortgage on. And we thought my disability pension and insurance would not have such a ridiculously long processing and approval time. We thought 2-3 months tops and I’d have an income and we could maybe use the equity buy a small place, the DCs could share rooms. That was the plan.

But over a year later, by the time the disability pension and insurance started to pay out, it was too late. We had had to live off the equity because not eligible for benefits with such cash in the bank. I know equity destined to be rolled into another house is exempt from benefits calculation for a window of time, but we soon passed that window and DWP knew we weren’t eligible to buy a home. I was not working and had no income for over a year so I couldn’t get a mortgage in my name during then, and my DH is an immigrant who did not have ILR (settled status) which is required for him to be eligible for a U.K. mortgage on his income which was PT (and still is) as he is my carer. So DWP counted the money as cash in the bank…as was their right to do so.

It is what it is. Perfect storm and all that.

Op you are lucky to be able to afford birthday and Christmas my children don’t even have warm hats or gloves my 8yr olds birthday is on the 4th of November and I cannot afford any I just about have enough to feed is and pay bills

YABU "To think there should be more help for middle class families"

What we need is a government who understand that they have a simple choice - use taxation and government spending to reduce inequality, so that those at the bottom can get by OK, those in the middle can work hard and prosper, and those at the top can get rich... or... continue the "small state, trickle down (lie)" tory / neo-liberal / post-1980 approach of "screw everyone who is not incredibly rich".

I genuinely believe that the only people who the Tory part serves are people who -

Are so rich that they have incredible private health-care, and the cash to pay for any operation that they or anyone in their family might need if the health cover doesn't cover it.

Genuinely do not care about anyone else, or the state or the roads they have to drive on, or whether British businesses have access to a healthy well-educated workforce etc etc

Russian / Chinese state actors trying to harm the west

Extremists in the UK (both authoritarian socialists and fascists) who believe the best way of bringing down capitalist liberal democracy is to have it eat itself.

When did I say that having middle/high income jobs means you work harder than poorer people?
What I'm saying is that I work hard and its all going out onto bills and that's bullshit.
People who work hard but earn less are being given support, which they should as times are hard, but when are things going to be levelled out for those of us in the middle?? We need help too, not in the forms of handouts but life prices reducing!

I think you mean middle income not middle class.

Hahahahahahaha