33k and struggling

[farmanimals]

I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’m earning just shy of 33k which is a really respectable salary. Yet I’ve just budgeted for the month and I’m really struggling to save anything or even have anything to spend.

My total for rent, all bills, food, car, phone bill, subscriptions I need for work is £1400. My bills have skyrocketed. I am earning £1900 a month.
This does give me £500 but this has to go towards all outgoings including petrol, all my toiletries and make up, I have to get my hair done because it’s really damaged as well. So if I want to socialise it’s basically out of the question.

Also I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to save a deposit for a house. I’m putting lile £100 away at the moment a month if that, and only have £2k in a LISA. Makes me think I’m never ever ever going to buy a house.

Am I wrong in wondering how this is possible?

Could you make an itemised list of all your outgoings, including all subscriptions etc and perhaps we can make suggestions?

I think if you reread what I have said that is the point I make (or attempted to). Apologies if that point wasn't as clear as it could have been.

Have you got a petrol guzzling car? How many miles to the gallon/ltr does it do?

It's working out at £100 a week for your petrol and toiletries.

I can fully understand your rent. In the SE rents can easily be £1K for a 1bed flat and your £1400 for a 2-bed.

I don't understand your heating/ fuel costs though as you are both surely out all day (no heating on) and flats are usually well insulted compared to houses.

We're spending around £60 a week (which would be £3K a year if we carried on at that rate -but we won't once the warmer weather is here) on all our heating and fuel ( gas and electric) for a 4-bed house , 2 bath, 3 reception rooms and have the heating on for 14 hours a day when it's been cold.

Large pension contributions are a choice though.

Not always, many public sector ones you don't have a choice if you want to be in it.

£300 between the two flat mates for council tax seems very expensive. In the town I live in, it's £2400 ish a year for a band E property, in the southeast, so £200 per month. So you'd be contributing £100 per month. Are you absolutely certain that council tax payment is right?

£300 energy a month for a 2-bed flat when you are both out (?) daily is not right.
Unless one person is WFH and really extravagant.

That's not what she said @RoseslnTheHospital

And I live with a flatmate, our rent is £700 each, but our energy bill was £150 each and our council tax was also £145 each

£300 energy and £290 council tax.

Our council tax is over £3K pa

This is the issue with wage stagnation over the last decade or so. Salaries are crap for many particularly when you factor in tax, pension, student loan, housing etc.

If the UK didn't spend so much money on benefits it's teachers and nurses would earn a lot more. You cannot have 12m working age people receiving some form of state benefit without it affecting salaries for government employees.

Isn't that including the cost of a free NHS though?

And our biggest benefit spend is on pensions & with the population demographics we are in the shit.

@AIBUYesSometimes ah ok, so £290 rather than £300. I think the OP said this was a flat share, I just am amazed that a flat could be such a high council tax compared to what I pay for a detached house.

You’re so right. Sadly that’s what junior doctors are paid as well so if OP is a new doc she’ll have five-six years of student loans, professional subscriptions running into thousands plus she’ll have to pay thousands for her exams as well. On that magnificent salary…

@farmanimals The only thought I had about your fuel bills and your council tax which are high (maybe there are more than 2 of you in the flat?)

was...are you seeing the actual bills and not being billed by your landlord (who is making a profit)?

What's racking up your fuel bills so much?

Using a tumble dryer a lot?
Loads of hot water (immersion heater?)
Lots of laundry on separate cycles?
All electric and lots of devices on 24/7?

have you looked at ways to save on fuel by switching things off?

Her take home is correct if she’s in the NHS pension scheme (contribution of 9.8%) and has a student loan

If you are a HCP and doing lots of travelling, are you claiming your milage costs assuming you are public sector? Similarly, if you are NHS, you used to be able to claim one professional fee- usually the retention fee - up to grade 8a. Not sure if that is still the case. Sometimes the Trust doesn't make it easy to claim.

Your tax code must be wrong or you are paying a lot into your pension. I earn less than you on basic but take home 2300

Her pension is only £90 a month, so she can't be on £33k

Yes but for £290 council tax, e.g. £2900 a year, you're looking at at least a Band F (I looked at council tax for brigton as one of the most expensive areas in the south east). Roughly 80% of properties are Band D or lower so OPs council tax (and yours) is in the 7% most expensive in the country. Either the Council tax banding is wrong (in which case OP can apply to have it revalued and get a refund) or she is living in an incredibly luxurious 2 bed flat, in which case it would be worth thinking of moving!

Same with a £300 per month energy bill, it's very high for a small flat/house with 2 people, particularly if they are out working all the time. I WFH and my bill hasn't come anywhere near that all winter. So either it's wrong, or there's significant room to cut back!

People with wealth accrue houses. The money made from this gets invested in more property. The wealthiest accrue more and more wealth. This doesn’t get taxed sufficiently. Tax loopholes are easy to find. There is a massive gap now between the wealthiest and average to high earners. This is part of what keeps house prices high. In my area people buying holiday homes and houses to let push up prices so that local young families on decent enough salaries are priced out. Rent sucks up so much of the monthly income. It will only get harder to buy a house if we don’t start taxing wealth. We need a wholesale change to redistribute wealth in my opinion.

Someone I know casually busily told me the following today. She has an extremely nice housing association flat in a nice central development where 2 bedders go for about £1350 on private market.

Lady in question has 2 primary school aged kids , she gets £1700 approx UC and child allowance and on top of this gets £720 maintanance- her rent is £590- is there any wonder there is resentment in some cases while perfectly able bodied people are sat on their arse and not contributing- and I say this as someone who isn't a Tory and is social minded. Even after bills and rent we are talking about someone having £1500 a month just for food and spends- no wonder a ton of working people young and old feel incredibly resentful of things as they are. They have no chance of getting subsidised housing in most cases , especially if they haven't got kids or are modestly ok earners and are actually worse off than someone contributing zilch- just taking. There are zero reasons by the way this person can't work.

How old are you? Adds context as this is all so relative...

Totally agree with @FrownedUpon don’t give up the pension unless it is really and truly the difference between getting a house or not and it doesn’t sound like it is. There are big tax advantages to contributing to your pension in addition to the protection it gives you in later life.

you did say that council tax might go down? Sounds perhaps like you may be making higher payments to compensate for missed months when you moved in. I know my council is very slow to prepare bills.

I think if you are single and have the energy maybe overtime or a second job could help. Something like bar work could feel sociable too. There’s also a thread on here too , on finance I think, about earning extra money with surveys or things like that. I did it when I was on Mat leave and it’s nice to get ‘free’ money that you feel able to spend. But yes, I am sympathetic to the hard life of singles both from a financial and social perspective. I’ve shared my ideas to try to help but I also recognise none of them are a universal panacea.

What annoyed me as well is that someone could be getting £1200 a month maintanance and apparently it just isn't factored in. Unless a child has complex needs I think any maintanance over £250 a month per child should be factored in to the equation.

Do you see the bills OP ? or flatmate just tells you what you need to pay over to her -as my tax in a priceyush area is £290 a month over 10 months on a 4 bed semi - same with energy. It's not unknown for 1 flatmate who was the first in a place to overcharge the other person -to reduce their own bills. Just a thought

At least Yr trying and have something to aim for.
I learnt from having a huge unexpected bill a couple of times in my life, to now think - do I need this? Remind yrself of this and it really does help.
I'm trying to do the same at the moment so good luck!

You've got £125 a week for petrol and yourself. What the heck are you spending it on? I have my hair dyed and cut and it comes to £89. That once every 7 weeks, not every week. Seriously. £125 spends seems quite a lot to me.