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? 🙈

It's because people think sometimes ahead.
So now they are 1900 after mortgage, when their fix ends they might still have 1900 after mortgage but mortagge will go up, so did bills so instead of (example) 800 they had for fun and food, they now have 300 because leccy went up in that years, so did petrol and pther costs and mortgage is now going up 500. This could easily happen on 5 year fix now

I hate the "living in a real world" phrase around money on this level. Everyone lives in real world, just not yours.

Do you really only earn £1700 as a full time police officer? I didn’t realise it was so low.

Amd that 1900 would also have to cover loan repayments on at least two loans iirc.

Am I massively poor or is this normal?

Both are 'normal'. It's 'normal' to earn a lot and it's 'normal' to earn a little. Some people work hard in meaningful and worthwhile work but are paid a relative pittance. Others perform comparatively meaningless tasks but are paid a lot. Some people are blessed with good looks or intelligence, others aren't.
Your op seems based on the assumption that there is some golden mean out there, against which we should all be measured, but sadly it doesn't exist. Everything is relative - we just have to make the best of our own realities.

Oh come on now. First of all the person with a £10k income and a £2k mortgage will almost certainly have a decent savings buffer to tide them over for a period. Well, unless they’re an idiot but you’d have to imagine if they’re capable if generating that income they’re not completely stupid…

Secondly, if you earn at that level chances are you have the knowledge, experience and contacts to get another job at a similar level. Even if they had to take a cut to £8k a month or £5k a month, they’re really not screwed.

I know these threads tend to get a bit race to the bottom with posters competing about how they survive on tuppence ha’penny and anything other than water is a luxury but @Ionlydrinkondaysendinginy you’re basically arguing that it’s tougher for the wealthy person because the less well off never had it to miss!

Someone asked here a while ago who the squeezed middle are. My reply was that they're the people who have spent years telling people that it's their own fault they're poor because they don't try/work hard enough and preaching about choices and personal responsibility, and now things have got tough enough to affect them, suddenly it's all not fair and nothing to do with choices or personal responsibility.

There is some truth in this, yes.

@comingsoon22 I am so sick of some men pretending they earn 8K a year so they don't have to pay anything or a very small amount in child support. It's a total disgrace and I don't know how it's allowed. That's the real scandal.

I assume they rely heavily on benefits which exist because others who are earing 10k a month are paying a significant amount of taxes. You seem to be missing my initial point which is it has a significantly bigger impact on a 10k a month earner to lose a job then a 1k a month earner to lose their job as the fall is significantly greater.

£300 after paying sky, gym membership etc is a lot of money-

I live on less than the total left after mortgage- then pay rent before bills

Yes i do get benefits , Dla for Ds work 32 hours which is as much as i can manage.

I think that there are a group of people who haven't had to budgets .

It is in the perfect example this thread is littered with people able to feed a family of 4 on a pound...

The fact food banks , warm hubs exisit and are needed is where some people are at .

I think lots of people have a real lack of insight into the poorest struggle ,

Just totted up our ‘essential’ bills (haven’t included any kids activities, any of the ‘fun stuff’ like Netflix, prime, Disney+ or any savings). £3000 a month, includes mortgage which has just gone up and all truly essential bills aka the ones we could not cut tomorrow if we had to.

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

My basic bills per month are as follows.
£400 per month gas and electric (this is hardly on.
£300 a month council tax.
£350 a month for car insurance tax and fuel.
£70 for house insurance.
£35.00 for broadband.
£75.00 water.
total £1230.
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.

Lots of people have childcare costs of £1k +, food bill of £400-700 a month, £400+ on bills, hundreds on petrol or train fares for work. Then add on costs like basic clothing, maintaining a house, dental costs etc which are all necessary. £1900 doesn’t go far.

If you’re not looking for debate, why start a thread on the topic?
This is a discussion forum so of course you’re going to get other views - and even if you don’t agree with them, they’re as valid as yours 🙂

The bottom bit of that comment is exactly what I'm saying. Iv always been poor so it's never even entered my head to put my kids in private school or to buy them a pony, I don't have a massive mortgage or massive outgoings because in my situation it wouldn't be possible however if I was on 10k a month it's likely that would be my lifestyle and if I then lost my job that would significantly impact my life. But as someone who gets less then 1k a month from their job if I lost my job it would be annoying but it wouldn't be massively life changing

We have no debts or childcare but the bills (no mortgage) are £780, medium sized town house with low utility costs. So yes I can see how £1900 can get eaten when there's children

Surely, SURELY, it’s all relative? DD’s nursery costs are £1,850 a month which would leave us with £50 after ‘mortgage and a single bill’.

I think the issue isn't the amount or what it's spent on.

The issue is how much it's reduced from a year or two ago and how experienced the family is in cutting back.

DH and I were both poor when we were young. We now have a big pension, shit cars and a house smaller than any of our peers.

But when everything tightened we had the live skills to cope (no more saving rather than no more Audi).

If you've never had to think that way, the gear change is really hard.

The higher your income the bigger the impact. If a person on a higher income loses it their kids will be pulled out of all their activities and sports a person on a lower income their kids won't be doing horse riding, piano lessons learning French. On a higher income the kids would most likely have to change school again this wouldn't be necessary for someone on a lower income

My heart bleeds 🙄

The person on the lower income will be worrying about whether to heat their home or feed their kids, or about whether they can afford to put fuel in the car to get to work.

You're hardly struggling if "cutting back" means no longer being able afford weekly riding lessons or private tutors 😂

And you seem to have missed my initial reply, if you have an income that large you have enough disposable income to put money aside to cover a drop in income/rise in living costs. If you have £8k left over after housing costs, you really have no excuse not to have saved up enough money for emergencies.

But surely that's something you factor in when you plan to have children and you discuss childcare options?

How you're living is not sustainable, you can't keep using credit cards every month you'll hit your limit in the end and then what?

Could your partner not go full time and use free childcare that you might be entitled to?

Are you sure you've looked into everything you might be entitled to? It seems off to have to use credit cards every month, unless there's some expenses already on the go like loans/finance etc, things that would not be considered a normal monthly bill.

But that's the whole point of the post the op is talking about the person getting a mortgage beyond their means said they wouldn't have money left for savings which means if something did happen they would be screwed

Health insurance, savings, presents, dry cleaning, holidays, days out, charitable donations... All of those things are 'nice to have', not 'absolutely have to have'. OP's point is that it's a lot of money to have to spend - and she's right, because to be able to pay for health insurance and dry cleaning and holidays is stuff you do if you have spare money. Go and ask someone on minimum wage what their dry cleaning or health insurance bills are.

The original thread was about a mortgage - £700k mortgage on £67k income was in the title.

IIRC: family already had a house/mortgage but wanted to move to a more expensive area for good schools. Price ranges in new area £550-700k. Houses at bottom of the range within their budget but wife wanted top of the range. £700k house could only be achieved by maxing on mortgage and getting a loan from family of tens of thousands of pounds.

Posters were replying it was irresponsible to stretch that much and a mortgage of that amount might not be available anyway, especially with the "loan" from family.

But this existing thread has turned into "can you manage on £1.9k a month", which wasn't the context of the original thread.