How the hell everyone is supposed to cope?

[Oink38]

Having a bad day of mass anxiety.

so, hubby and I earn ok wages. Not huge but we both work for charities so probably earn between 50k between us

childcare is killing us- nearly 1k a month for 3 days a week. We have no family or friends support. Now that the new funding has come in people who aren’t entitled due to being 3 shortly and not getting that funding until September will have to no doubt have their nursery fees raised again.

no pay rises in sight. Meant to be putting into work pension and also saving but honestly where the hell are we supposed to find the money

desperate to move but can’t cos nursery fees are too high.

fed up with this government. Not entitled to any benefits barely surviving month to month. Haven’t had a holiday in 9 years. Drive old car. No fun days out. Barely have anything left to do anything with. Utterly fed up of working for basically shit.

no can’t get other jobs I am specialised in what I do and hubby earns well for the field he is in.

and no we don’t buy take away coffees or avocados

just a massive rant really. Suppose aibu in thinking how the hell people are supposed to survive when everything is going up and no positivity anywhere

Rubbish.

@Yogatoga1

Yeah that's true. Sorry I forget that the UK is more flexible with people's working ours.

My husband works shift patterns so I can’t commit to weekend work and we don’t have anyone to look after our son bar nursery. I’ve looked at wfh jobs for evenings and weekends but nothing came of it.

You get the tax free childcare help though, don’t you?

Sorry but really? Do you think they're purposefully avoiding better paid, more flexible work? Next it'll be 'have you considered retraining as a doctor/engineer/career politician'.

Yes thankfully but it’s only £500 every three months and we need to top it up so if the nursery fees go up that 20% tax help won’t go up they just say up to £500 for three months. It is a help but still tough

www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare

Do you claim this Op?

Yep x

It's a shame if he is thriving in nursery but is a childminder an option? We've found it to be so, so much cheaper than nursery.

This became an option available to us when the WFH changes meant we no longer had the long commute at the beginning and end of each day.

My first child was in nursery 8-6 4 days a week, at £1400 a month. The next we went down the childminder route, and it was about £900 a month for 4 days a week. And now she’s in a term time only pre-school, which with funding is only £120 a month.

I know your child is settled at nursery, but if you really can’t afford it, it’s worth looking at alternatives.

It gets easier OP, hang in there!

I'm in a very similar position, charity worker and dp is low band NHS. On just over £50k between us. Our DC are 13 and 9 and things are so much easier for us financially than when they were little and we had huge childcare bills. With the cost of living now it's really difficult for young families.

Where in the country are you? I think this is a big factor, our mortgage is low payments which helps a lot. Could you move to a cheaper area?

Are you using the tax free childcare account.

If you're only working 20 hours a week couldn't you take on a second job in the evenings or at the weekend?

I mean if you both won’t change job, and you are part time, and you won’t or can’t work extra, I’m not sure what can be done really, you’re making a choice.

Seriously?? It's this attitude that makes employers not want to continue to allow people to work from home.

No I know nothing to be done just ranting as everything keeps going up and had enough of it!

You work part time, DH works less than full time hours, could one of you get some more hours doing something else?

We are Essex. We saw a mortgage adviser and basically got told we wouldn’t get anything more than what we have now. We can downsize. We are in a two bed flat

I just keep saying to myself, I’m in the middle of it. Once I get through full time child care for two, I will be more profitable.

This is exactly what I was going to say.

There's been a few of these threads lately where the OP and their DH are struggling financially, but 'they love their jobs' so refuse to change them for something with better pay.

I wouldn't even bother to engage with an unpleasant goady comment like that. I'm sure most people know how contemptible it was.

We don't earn as much as the OP and I remember counting down the months until the tax free childcare kicked in. All I can say is hang in there, I remember our days out were trips to the park with a packed lunch.

The poster who said you should have looked into childcare costs should know the cost of nursery has gone up by 1.5 times in just 3 years.

Please read the thread. I am successful in my job and it’s taken me 20yrs to get to where I am. I can’t do other work as no childcare help except nursery as husband has shift work including weekends so I can’t commit. My husband earns well for what he does. He can’t just suddenly retrain which would cost money and become a banker or politician who earn well.

I am just fed up of being borderline for any help and working hard (paid 25hrs but work much more) and everything going up. I’ve never known things to increase like they have done

I agree too. You have made choices for certain benefits … jobs you love, flexible employers, part time hours …. Life is all about choices.

That's a really horrible thing to say

We hear you OP , it's tough but I promise it gets better as they get a bit older

It sounds tough OP but in all honesty, £50k combined is not a decent income in these times. Yes the nursery is temporary but you both need to be thinking of ways to increase that. At the very least you should both try to work full time. Our combined income is higher but we've both always worked full time even when DC were small.