How are people surviving

[Truthseeker456]

I don't get it. One income and I am on a what was a good wage 53,000. My mortgage is likely to double next year I have nursery fees and 3000 take home and always in my overdraft. How are people surviving, we don't hear anything in the media. Rents are also though the roof

Luckily no mortgage as cleared 2 years ago. Single income here but 18 year old ds has now started his first full time job this week and will be covering his share of the crippling weekly food bill.

Still a concern though as I am self employed....

@Emotionalstorm not offended, just see the 100k isn’t enough to live on trotted out regularly on mn and i find it dismissive of the masses who don’t earn that and perpetuates a lie that no one can have a nice life in London on less than that. It’s usually people with a very narrow view and encourages others to share that view so I do challenge when I read it.

dh and I earn more than that and no longer live in London so I’m not offended, just offering a different opinion. Thanks for the patronising undertone though; I found that an amusing attempt to close down challenge rather than actively listening to my point. I do acknowledge that 100k goes further if you live outside of London but there’s a time and a place to voice that when it’s not tone deaf.

I get that people who are earning less find it hard to believe that those on higher wages are also struggling. I think there is a big difference between literally struggling to pay your bills and feed your family, compared to struggling to maintain your usual lifestyle. However, the OP's point is still valid - the reality is that the increase in interest rates and other costs is in some cases totally wiping out people's disposable income and forcing them to make significant changes to the way they live. What was affordable a few years ago is not affordable now.

I will happily give my figures as an example. We have a household income of almost £95k pa which works out at roughly £5300 per month. We bought our house 7 years ago and felt comfortable paying the mortgage with plenty to spare for savings, holidays, eating out etc. Fast forward to now, we had to remortgage in April and our repayments have increased from £1000pm to £1700pm, plus increases in gas/electric/fuel/food costs.

So from our £5300, we spend £1700 mortgage, 400 DH work related travel, 300 petrol, 200 electric, 150 gas, 300 council tax, 850 childcare, 100 for 3 mobile phone contracts, 150 other bills (car insurance and tax, tv licence, internet, subscriptions etc), 800 food/groceries and £200 on kids hobbies. This leaves about 150 for school trips, birthdays, clothes, haircuts, any other extras, down from £850 before our mortgage change and from over £1000 before food, etc increased.

Yes we are incredibly fortunate that we have that £150, we can afford some luxuries and at the moment at least are not worried about paying our bills. But we are lucky enough to have 2 decent incomes, yet can no longer afford a holiday, or to eat out in the way that we used to, and we will have to look at cutting the kids hobbies to give us more of a buffer. I can totally see how OP is genuinely struggling to make ends meet on just over half of what we earn.

Family of 5, 3 children 10 and under. One wage. Same as we've always lived - State schools, no new cars, no holidays abroad, no new clothes. Cook from scratch, Cost Co helps with meat prices etc, no meals out ever, no pub, little alcohol. No fancy childrens activities. No theme parks etc. Only subscription is to Disney plus. No Sky Tv, quite old android phones, no fancy make up/hair dressing etc. Price rises have eaten into wages, but currently still managable as we've never lived an "extravagant" life with a lot of extras.

Yes I realise lots will be 65 plus but if you’d asked me i’d have guessed more homeowners than not have a mortgage whereas opposite is true on ONS stats.

I now have three jobs.

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Not "this". Take home pay for £50k would barely cover our mortgage and childcare bills let alone anything else. Everyone's outgoings are not the same.

Off topic, but while £30k is of course what many people do manage on, unless you live somewhere incredibly cheap, I'd be concerned that feeling 'comfortable' on this would often mean secret debt (or funds).
£29k gross for one person should be around £1980 take home per month then:
Mortgage £510 per month
Food and supermarket around £430 per month (£100 a week to include groceries plus occasional eating out, for careful but comfortable)
Council tax varies but often at least £100-150 per month
Child in nursery 2 days a week £693 a month where we are at £80 per day, though maybe your area is cheaper or you're doing half days or term only?
That would already eat up all but £200 a month without having spent a penny on transport or cars, clothing, birthdays and celebrations, or house related costs. Even with cheaper childcare, it's very limited ability to save or disposable income.

I disagree with this though. I have yet to meet somebody who has PIP who would be capable of working full time. They either seem to be not working at all o r working part time.

So far as I am aware it is very hard to be accepted for PIP.

Its all relative. My indian colleague told me that there are no poor people here really (compared to where he comes from). But at the same time, poverty is a real problem in the UK.

I think we are at the stage where income (even a relatively high one i.e. £200k) really counts for very little, it is wealth that determines whether you are truly comfortable .

We are on about 50k per year and have gone from having a comfortable amount of spare income to having none, sometimes less than that.
We have no cleaner, we don’t have any holidays planned, no takeaways, use budget supermarkets, and don’t buy anything that isn’t essential. I have kept my one hobby, and dd is doing hers, I have an evening job to pay for it.
Selling our house won’t help as to rent where we are for work and school would cost more than our mortgage, even though it’s doubled.
We are just going to hang on in as long as we can and hope for better times.

When you earn more money you tend to have a bigger mortgage, childcare costs, hence higher outgoings, so it’s all pretty relative.

I am struggling massively. Used to be able to let the kids chuck anything in the trolly in Aldi but not anymore. It’s a joke and there seems no end to it.

I have no luxuries, but friends still getting nails done, eating out, Botox, new cars. I’m not arsed about that, but I couldn’t afford it even if I wanted to.

im selling stuff on Vinted just to try get a bit more money. It’s dire

Childcare is important here. The poorest people in this country are overwhelmingly not working, or not working with kids.

This makes a huge financial difference - for many of us, we do better staying home with young kids than going back to work.
If you're on a £53k salary as a single earner, you are paying a huge amount of that out before you see any for even bills.
A single mum on £53k gets £39k take home, and could easily see £20k+ of that disappear on childcare for 2 kids (or even 1 young one, in London). That makes her take home £19k before even adding in costs of working like commuting or clothing, and the greatly reduced time to do things like clean the house or shop at Aldi.

A single mum with 1-2 young kids could also get around £14k a year in universal credit, child tax credit and some council tax help - and that's not even including housing benefit, free school meals, discounts available on UC.

The second one would be 'amongst the poorest', and certainly not have an easy ride - but would for now be on not too different income to the seemingly well off single parent, and with 40-50 hours more time per week with family and to save money.

PIP, and previously DLA were never about ability to work or not. Plenty of people claim one or the other, and work. They always have.

Non ability to work benefits are ESA etc.

I think the point is most of us do not actually aspire to be rich. We are all well aware of the hand we’ve been dealt from birth.

However, it is not an unreasonable request having worked for 40 hours a week him. Whatever area your skills lie you should be able to feed your children, use gas and electric, pay your rent or your mortgage and have a few treats and comforts.

If all of those could do that that be none of this bickering amongst ourselves.

So what what point are we going to say enough is enough ?

Husband works 12 hr shifts, 4 days on, 4 days off - earns around 14-15k a year.

Our rent is £400 a month - below market rent as our landlord happens to be my father. We'll probably stay here for some time.

5 year old daughter is disabled - we claim DLA for her but its ''only'' mid rate, so £274 a month - the recent £150 did help a bit but not by much at all.iously

Obviously we also get child benefit.

I cannot work as she has no school place - none named for September. I'd love to work and I'm physically capable of doing so but events conspire against me.

We currently receive zero provisions from the LA - despite her having an EHCP.

In some ways, we're ''lucky'' - its mainly the food prices and water bills that are killing us. We don't have much disposable income - when we do, its spent on taking our daughter out for socialisation.

All in all, we get by, but its still no life. I'm desperate to go back to work - its just not currently feasible.

I have disc injuries, worked full time and was eligible for PIP. I now don't have to work and don't need the money but I can still get it if I feel I need it again. I know it depends on assessors but it's not a rigged system. If you're truly eligible and fit the criteria they won't say no.

Household annual income of nearly £100k and you don't save anything per month? Wow...

What people on low incomes don't seem to realise is that they are heavily subsidised by the welfare system (UC, free childcare, child benefit, free school meals, grants and subsidies) so in reality there 'income' is equivalent to that of a high earner. Only a higher earner has to self fund all expenses and so are not better off than low income earners. That is the real problem here, so although 50k + all seem like out of this world salaries it's really not.

Our household income is 70K, which is a take-home of around 4.5K a month - neither of us are contributing to pensions. Sounds like alot, IS alot. But.....

Rent for a small 2.5 bed in SE London - £1600 a month (already well below market rate)
Nursery fees: £1650 - £1484 after childcare tax reduction
Gas and Electric: £300
Council tax: £150
Travel: £350 public transport
Water: £25
TV Licence: £14
Insurance: £11
Internet: £40
2 x mobile phones: £70

Leaves £456 for food, clothes, household items, toiletries, and god forbid we want to take DD swimming or do an activity. Its not a bad amount but £100 a week these days is hardly an extravagant shop is it? All my clothes have holes in, we cant afford things like a haircut or the dentist.

The difference is. for us, this is temporary. Once nursery is over, that £1400 is back into our accounts.

I dont think our outgoings are excessive in the slightest. I grew up in a bones of your arse council estate with mum frequently borrowing money from loan sharks to get dinner on the table. I was picked on for being the smelly kid. I know what its like to have no money. I also accept the fact that £70k is also not an extravagant lifestyle.

Its not a race to the bottom.

My husband does sessional shifts on nights and weekends, whenever he can pick them up. Otherwise we'd have no savings left and would be up the proverbial creek.

@gldd not since our mortgage went up. Previously we were saving £400/500pm and have a decent enough pot to fall back on if we need it. But that is my point really, the kids hobbies and food bill will have to be cut to allow us to save/avoid having to dip into savings for out of the ordinary expenses, despite having a decent household income. We are not struggling, but until either our childcare costs or mortgage go down there isn't much flex in the budget.

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Can I ask a question about benefits please ( I am not being goady or judgemental but I admit, I am curious)

How much would a family - 2 adults and 2 children receive in benefits if both adults are not working? Does the amount differ if you own a home, than say if you rent?

If both adults lost their jobs and they had a mortgage, what help is there? Would they get housing benefit to pay the mortgage?

Like I say, I'm curious, no judgement.