How skint are you ?

[Jbrown76]

Inspired by this thread on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/s/iR5TPqfSR7

I have a tenner to last until Tuesday! Luckily I've bought fresh milk bread ham etc so fingers crossed should last us. Next month I'll have £100 left after bills food etc but need to magic up £150 for my DS birthday party and presents for my parents big birthday!

I am very lucky that my rent is very low as I rent off family and they have kept rent at c.£400 a month!
Childcare, car, other bills etc would be around £800 so I have a couple hundred every month to either save, or put towards paying off holidays etc I have booked

I forgot my MOT is also next month so I am expecting the next few months that my savings won't go any higher as I won't be able to put anything away.

I do OK on my wage but thats also with meal planning, shopping lists and budgeting hugely also.

my salary just went in. £80 in current account and -£3000 on credit card. DH gets paid next week £2500, but doesn’t exactly clear the debt or leave anything to live on. Combination of doing expensive emergency repairs, getting hit with massive bill increases.

Car just broke down and looks to need £1000. House needs desperate work to resolve mould issues.

We are trying very hard to not spend anything and I’m trying to get extra work but I’m honestly exhausted (work more than full time hours already)

So the flipside of this is that if you're skint now and don't figure things out, you'll probably be skint later. And that will likely become your DCs problem. Unless you have a good private pension, which many in the UK don't have.

My mum wanted to give us everything. A big house we couldn't afford. Presents we couldn't afford. So now it's up to me to part fund her retirement. That's fine, I love her and won't see her without basic necessities, but it's definitely not what I want for my child.

Choosing a present you can afford is different from leaving a child empty handed.

Because "boomer" is used as a derogatory term, as it has been on here

£28 in my current account and payday is in two weeks....but all bills are paid and I have £7k in a savings account so on balance, not that skint

This thread is almost as bad as the how much you earn, who can out do who with the seven figure salaries. Now who has the least amount of pennies to rub together. Bit tedious.

I haven’t read any of those threads. To me that would be failing to meet basic essential needs and would be way past ‘skint’ into poverty.
To me, the two terms are very different. I appreciate that others may disagree, and this has been an interesting thread to follow.

Agree 100%

Christ @RiderofRohan that's a massive stretch?

Did you bother reading my post? 😐

I replied to the point that presents were wants not needs. And similar expenditure, explaining how it was more nuanced than this.

You are correct, of course, it's important to address systematic financial issues - which I'm doing.

That's a far reach from the situation you describe where your mother lived extravagantly continually & intentionally, creating a legacy issue for you.

Until today I was broke but my daughter found a money bag with £120 in a bag I gave her that I've not used for years. I could not believe it. It's going to keep us going to the end of the month with having to borrow

Why bother posting so? A typical contribution from you.

In fairness it's not that hard.
I got a warning as I turned down a stupid offer on a item, so the potential buyer reported the item as counterfeit in revenge. It wasn't counterfeit. As it all happened in a very short space of time it was obvious what happened.
If I'd got another warning I'd have ended up with a ban 🤷🏻‍♀️

@EarringsandLipstick

You had a strong relationship, a spouse who was on the same page as you. It's worth a huge amount in terms of how successful you can be - financially or otherwise.

You are quite right, DP & I have always been on the same page about this stuff, but that was a deliberate choice, not an accident. If anything, he is even more boringly risk-averse than me, to the extent that his obsession with spreadsheets & budgeting can be frustrating. He thinks everyone does this; I know they don’t.

I can understand that it must be an utterly soul-destroying betrayal to have your financial position ruined by an irresponsible partner. I couldn’t forgive that.

Not at all. I was in debt for a long time and got used to living frugally. I do have issues with spending money on myself as a result of living in poverty for so many years. I also enjoy saving and investing which I suppose helps.

Normally we live pay to pay day but my dh had an unexpected inheritance a couple if months of ago from his estranged father it wasn't a huge amount £15,0000 but enough to treat the kids pay off some bills etc and hopefully have a good holiday ( we haven't been away for five years )

Yes, quite skint of liquidity.
Business having a bad year, living off borrrowings.
Next year will be better.

£15,000*

I agree. There is a massive difference between ‘I am skint. I literally have no money & no access to money’ vs ‘I am skint. I budget £X of disposable income per month. I have already spent all that money this month, so I can’t afford to go out for lunch / buy a coffee / buy a new top until pay day’.

i always consider “skint” as having nothing or very, very little left. So on that basis I’m not skint. But I’m not well off.

we have debt that we’re repaying and no savings. But we can pay all our bills, buy everything we need and some of what we want.

I’ve been completely skint before - behind on rent, not able to meet payments on credit cards, missing meals etc. I thank goodness I’m not in that place anymore.

Permanently live in my overdraft (£1600) and I am currently £7 off going over it with around £250 of bills left this month and payday not until the 31st. Daily overdraft fees are currently around £1.70 per day. No savings. Total debt with loans, credit cards and car finance is around 30k. I owe money to family but can't pay it off. I would say I am totally in the shit but I can usually pay all my bills every month so at least I can keep a roof over my kids heads. I can't plan anything for the future as I can't see myself ever being debt free and I will never own a house or be able to get a mortgage. It's shitty but I've lived day to day for years, you get used to it after a while 🤣 There are many people worse off than I am.

This thread is bonkers.

People putting down £350k deposits

People with multiple cars and pets

People with 1000s in savings

People who've just booked 15k holidays

All claiming to be feeling skint?!

Is there a meaning of skint I don't know?

I'm in a similar situation to you. I can't get past the anxiety and struggle to spend money on myself. There's no way I'm going back to trying to find change in coats and down the back of the sofa just to be able to buy a value loaf of bread.

I've got £22 to last until Fri. I have food though and my bills are up to date. I wouldn't call that skint though, just short. In the past, I've been so poor that I stole potatoes and bananas from outside a shop. So £22 for 5 days, with food, shelter and heat is no hardship.

£23 in my bank account, £3k in savings, about £800 interest free credit card debt. On unpaid maternity leave though so will improve soon. And a big shop done last week so sorted for meals until pay day. January is a long month.