Am I stupidly poor? Or living in the real world?

[Chunkythighss]

Just off the back of another post…
people commenting that they will have to live off £1900 AFTER paying the mortgage and how this is going to be a struggle.

nearly £2000 a month extra.

This is more than I earn a month and pay rent, bills, etc… yet people are saying they’d struggle to live on this after bills?

Am I massively poor or is this normal? 🙈

Family of 4 including 2 primary school aged dc. Our essential bill just under 3k, out of this mortgage is only 700. 1900 for a family isnt a lot

”I don’t have any sympathy for people that say they can’t afford to live on £1900 after a mortgage they clearly have poor money management.”

but surely you must see that people’s childcare take up a pretty high proportion of that in a lot of cases without them swigging champagne and burning £5 notes. Eg our nursey is £1200 a month, we then average £200 a month for wraparound and holiday clubs. Add in council tax and we’re already at £1700.

It's all dependent on lots of variables. £1900 after rent for some will be huge, others hardly anything.* True. Mine in bold.*

My basic bills per month are as follows.
£400 per month gas and electric (this is hardly on.snap
£300 a month council tax.* £150 3 bed semi in the North*
£350 a month for car insurance tax and fuel.£30 own 14 year old car
£70 for house insurance.* £30 but my life insurance is £60*
£35.00 for broadband.* Snap*
£75.00 water. £25.00 water meter
total £1230.* 635 with life ins.*
Then you have food and other small bills like tv license. I live in London £670 is not per month to cover food and small bills.

@It's not a different thread, this isn't a thread by a privileged person who is struggling, it IS the thread by 'people very concerned about that' thread. YOU'RE the one derailing. You tell me I don't need to read it, have YOU read this thread? Or were you too busy derailing 'every single thread' where people disagree with your stance?

We are vegetarian (so lots of beans & pulses). We don’t drink alcohol and we cook and bake from scratch. We have to buy food for 2 cats and 2 small dogs. There are 2 of us. We spend a good £140 per week on food & per food. We stopped buying organic when inflation started to bite. Good quality food, rather than rubbish food is not in the least inexpensive!

I’m 66, mortgage and debt free and live with a small dog and cats. I run an old car, pay all my bills, buy heating oil, and eat well enough, and manage to save £100 a month, on nothing but my state pension of £740 every 4 weeks. I’ll have another £300 a month when my old work pension kicks in and will feel pretty well off then.

I buy all my clothes and most stuff for the home 2nd hand and apart from the odd book from eBay or charity shops I rarely buy anything I don’t need. I cut my own hair, don’t have nails/brows etc done, don’t eat out unless I’m treating my little grandson, take my own flask if I’m going out, I don’t go on holiday, nor to anything with an entrance charge!

I’d like to have more put aside to pay for house repairs, but I’m warm enough and the fridge and freezer are full. I think I’m doing fine.

I absolutely thought the same thing when I read that thread! As you say, everybody said No Way, but my family probably lives off a similar or smaller amount after the mortgage is paid. No fancy holidays, buy second hand, no extravagant gifts. To me this is just normal. Watch the Panorama doc on iplayer now; we have indeed had a huge drop in living standards in the UK.

‘How do you know Gym membership’s aren’t needed for health reasons’ how about enjoying the great outdoors for free and walking for a couple of hours, just a thought, money saving tip, no charge.

The fact that someone mentioned 'dry cleaning' as part of their essential bills 😂

I have around £20 pm left over for anything not deemed essential. And I deem essential as food and petrol basically.

Walking around the boring same estates makes me want to blow my brains out.

Of course for some gym can be the best (and safest) way to exercise. There is a reason GP do referrals and don't just say "go for walk mate". Machines and supervision can make exercise safer, better and in some situations actually possible.

Also that "walking" most people who keep going on about it do cannot possibly raise the heart rate....

There are utility bills, which are not negotiable. Most people realistically need a car, so that costs them either in maintenance or in repayments. But I'm always surprised that people on MN regard things like gym memberships and mobile phones as essentials. I've never set foot in a gym and have a health problem, but I walk a lot to counteract it, because you're better off exercising in the fresh air than in a stuffy gym. My phone (not a smartphone, because why does anyone actually need one?) costs £4 per month. You can still eat very cheaply if you think about it a bit. Holidays are not necessary - ditto cafes, coffees etc (take a flask if you want a decent coffee - Lidl do bags of good ground coffee for the price of less than one cup of Costa). As for the likes of "hair and nails" - well, I despair.

Remember OP this could be all lies, and a massive amount of people don't earn anywhere near that money.

Also that "walking" most people who keep going on about it do cannot possibly raise the heart rate....

I bang on about walking, and walk about 7 miles per day at a brisk pace with dogs. That's just for starters. So you can't assume that people are ambling around (though some people may be - who knows?)

If they’re ‘struggling’ with £1900 of disposable income per month, they’re either untrained in the mysteries of home economics, or are holding onto a misguided belief that they and their families are somehow entitled to a plush lifestyle that they can no longer afford, on the grounds that they are used to it, worked hard for it, and therefore deserve to keep it forever.

Many of us work hard. Cleaners and wait staff work hard, and even when they do an exceptional job, there is no exceptional reward. Illiterate Big Issue sellers whose husbands will not consent to them attending night classes work hard. Some probably dream of earning half as much as the ‘leftover’ money that isn’t enough for people who are used to more.

After the house and bills are paid, myself and DH would have over 8k leftover between us. More if he does a lot of OT / night shifts. Both our phones are PAYG and our car is bought outright (v modest car) so we are used to having around 5k left in bank each month but some months this does go down.

if we only had £1900 a month after we would struggle, but only because of our current lifestyle. We are both more than aware that £1900 is more than some people’s monthly wage and is absolutely enough to survive on, and both grew up very poor so would be able to cut back if needed.

My council tax is £300
Utilities £250 (sometimes more)
water - £25
Childcare - £800
fuel (I don’t do many miles £100)

Thats just the main ones I could think of - but I couldn’t do it either.

The thing is with bigger houses the other costs rise proportionally too.

When I bought my first house I managed on £1900 pcm total income but my mortgage was £500 and utilities £80!

I understand what you’re saying and I don’t have luxuries as I don’t have that kind of money. But if I was earning 100k I would find it ludicrous that I couldn’t afford “luxuries” like a gym membership or sky when people on much lower incomes could. I do think that 100k doesn’t get you what it used to and that people on those salaries are realising their lifestyles aren’t what they wanted them to be having worked hard to get their careers to that point. I think that’s fair enough as it’s how I feel after more than a decade of teaching and working my way up in my career only to find that all the extra pay has left me in the same position each month as when I started out (with pretty much nothing left). Sure, if I hadn’t made the career progression I would be getting into debt each month but it’s galling for anyone (no matter their salary) to work hard to increase their salary only to find that it doesn’t increase their lifestyle or saving capabilities.

A lot of people lie on mumsnet and make up fake lives, people have openly admitted that on here.

The average UK salary is around £38,000 yet a good i'd say 80% of posters or their partners seem to be 'high earners' earning over £100,000.

I'm sure some of them are, but I would call bullshit on the majority of stuff you read on here, especially regarding salaries.

The difference would be that they work hard, but specifically in a job that pays more.

it’s not unreasonable to complain at the cost of living price rises when you’re still making the same money, but are now struggling to pay for the things that are usually affordable to you.

not sure why the drive to gatekeep financial trouble, given that you could be acceptably poor by the standards of this thread and there will still be someone worse off than you that can tell you to suck it up.

But I'm always surprised that people on MN regard things like gym memberships and mobile phones as essentials

Agree gym isn’t essential but my smartphone is, I use it to clock in at work, and for some apps for work. My contract is £7.50 a month (sim only, I bought the phone a few years ago which the intention of making it last as long as possible).

The poster said their bills were £1600.

It was after the mortgage

I assume there are more skilled immigrants on here. People who would not be let into the UK unless they earned a good salary and had very good educations.

I get £1900ish pcm on benefits & everything including my rent has to come out of that. It is what it is, I guess it's the price I pay for being disabled & divorced.

Yes. I think there is the real world, and Mumsnet world 😂

I only take home just shy of £1700 a month and am more than comfortable. Admittedly I live in a small 3 bed terrace up North (solid stone, well insulated loft, triple glazing so only need heating on around Dec - Mar), don't have central heating or gas (I only pay around £200 a month electric max at the moment - just use electric heaters with thermostat & timer built in, and heat hot water an hour a day for handwashing/cleaning - have electric shower and dishwasher, don't really do baths) and there's only 3 of us. My cock lodger only buys the shopping and pays half of the childcare.

I guess the issue is that people will be used to living within a certain income bracket and struggle if their circumstances change. I've never been a high earner and don't like to buy anything on credit (if I can't afford to buy it outright I don't buy it at all). I've been poor and know the struggle. Whereas there are many that earn a high wage and think nothing of taking out various kinds of finance, often with no contingency/savings for if things go tits up.