To be in this job and feel poor?

[fedippp]

I trained for seven years, reasonably large student loan etc, to end up age 35 on 58k, and barely anything left at the end of the month!!! Mortgage is 1300 for a 2 bed semi, (up from 800 last year). Student loans are still hundreds a month. I have a car on finance as I couldn’t save house deposit and car deposit, need car for work. I eat beans on toast 3 nights a week. I feel like an idiot. I missed out on so much in my twenties to get into a decent job that I thought paid well and it seems to have been a waste of time! Does anyone else feel this way? I feel so disheartened.

What profession???? Please put us out of our misery!

You need to look at that energy bill. Ours is £75 a month for a 2 bed place.

OP can I ask what profession you're in?

You'll get people saying YABU but for a single person, with a decent sized mortgage, this isn't actually that much at all.

Your energy bill is enormous, really really enormous for a two bed place.

Honestly, sounds like there are ways that you can cut costs but probably need yo actively do it.

Could you take a couple of days off and go through all your bills, direct debits etc and then move them onto different providers wtc

Mine is £150 a month for a 2 bed and there’s only 2 of us who are both out all day.

We also don’t have heating apart from a log burner which uses wood.

I think you just have very cheap energy.

Or you have very expensive energy.

We are on the standard price cap tariff, use heating (gas central heating) for at least 4 hours a day in winter and don't stint on hot showers.

A 2 bed for a single person is a HUGE extravagance.

But yeah I get that you feel hard done by. Our whole generation is feeling it.

We are much worse off than our boomer parents.

Write an angry letter to your MP/newspaper!

yours sounds expensive, ours is £250 a month for an old 4 bed house, we have a young baby so put the heating on more than we would. It was £200 a month before.

Take home day 3.4 k
Mortgage leaves you with over 2 k

You should be able to manage fairly well on that ?

And what's wrong with beans o toast or other cheap dinners? We did egg and chips tonight

The usual - write down everything you spend your money on and work form there what is really not essential - there are lots of things previous generations did without whilst buying their homes , no reason for you to be different

Did you live the same life as OP and make the same choices and sacrifices? No? Oh! Explain what the point of your comment is then please

My children are the next generation down to you and may never be able to afford to buy (at least without a lodger).
I would strongly suggest you do the boring thing and keep a record of what you spend over a fortnight or a month. And see if there are areas you can economise on.

I'm 37 and take home around 55k. My mortgage is simular to yours and I am also supporting my son at uni. I have paid my student loans now thankfully but I am undertaking another MSc to hem further my career so that will start again once I finished. It feels tight I agree, but not impossible. I find meal planning has really helped reduce my spend on food enormously and I'm pretty tough about putting the heating so I will only put it on if absolutely needed. A dehumidifier has been a god send to help dry clothes!

Well whatever life choices and sacrifices either made the fact remains that the OP has a decent salary, is a homeowner and is far from being 'so poor she can only afford beans on toast for dinner'.

I suspect that if she posted full details of her incoming and outgoings there would be evidence of spending that can be trimmed or expensive choices eg a car that cost more than necessary to meet the basic need of essential transport.

I get that increases in mortgage costs will have been a big shock but we've been here before and people had to take second or even third jobs just to pay their mortgage let alone pay for anything else.

And car finance was an impossibility. If you needed a car and had no money you paid a few hundred quid for a heap of junk and hope that it lasted at least a year or two.

Which it often didn't because then, a 10 YO car was a pile of rust fit only for the scrapyard whereas now they look and rin like new.

Because she has £2k left after paying her mortgage and still on beans on toast.

Op will be getting £3300 a month, not near your net on £28k?

How will you afford to rent at 70?

Op I think that you are looking at this from the wrong perspective

Positives
Above average salary
Home owner
Car owner
All bills paid
Possibility to earn more salary in the future
Possibility to rent out spare room
At some point in the future, you will be mortgage free
At some point in the future, you will have a car fully paid for
I presume that you are paying into a private company pension too
You actually have a lot of positives, be thankful

Suggestions
Investigate switching your energy bills, insurance etc to cheaper providers
You are young, get a second job or do overtime for more money. It is easier to work extra hours when you are younger
You can earn up to 7.5k per year renting out your spare room
Cut down food costs, by buying yellow sticker, use Olio or Too Good To Go food waste apps
Move money into an account that pays higher interest

Your mortgage went from 800 to 1500? What was the differences were you originally on interest free?

Lol what planet are you on? 'bills £300' 😂

Council tax
Gas
Electric
Water
Car tax
Car insurance
House insurance
Food shop
Fuel

And I'm sure other monthly regular expenses

£300? Can I live where you live please?

I'm betting Architect. And if so, OP is doing very well to be on that salary 10 years post qualification. Or ever tbh.

OP - house prices are insane, no wonder you're fed-up.

@SweetFemaleAttitude - OP corrected herself and said their mortgage is £1500. Plus hundreds in student loan repayments.

You are young, get a second job or do overtime for more money. It is easier to work extra hours when you are younger

It's likely OP has to do a lot of unpaid overtime every week in their profession. A second job on top of that - really?

Just reading in the paper that inflation is on the way down at last, which will result in interest rates dropping over the next few months. Gas and leccy prices are starting to fall too. We have been through 4 turbulant years with covid and just as we were coming out of all the lockdowns, Putin invaded Ukraine causing this inflation by cutting gas supplies. The war in the middle east hasnt helped either. If you have got this far without running up more debt, you should start to see things improve this year. Just hang on in there.

@fedippp
You are on a good salary and have worked hard to get there and I guess it will carry on increasing (someone suggested you might be a doctor?)

A part of the reason for this is the astronomical level of taxation now in the U.K. You are a classic example of what is wrong. Being broke on that salary. If you had kids as well your marginal rate of deductions from salary would be over 80%. That is how and why people are sick and tired of things and the excessive spending by this and previous governments.

This is why emigration by our talented people is so high and being replaced by relatively low skilled immigration.

I feel for you. The young in this country are being royally screwed by utterly incompetent politicians (especially spender Boris)

You seem most upset by your lack of pay in your professional life. What is your profession, why won't your wage increase as your experience increases?

7 years studying there are only so many careers demanding that, mine Architecture was one of them with 3 degree, 1 in practice 2 studying and 1 studying part time. Anyway, age 35 and most UK wide qualified architectswon't have a £55k salary, probably more like £40s and are likely to have similar loans and very likely to be living in London in rented flats.

Point being you aren't using your salary correctly if you need to eat beans on toast 3 times per week. So as others have said have a look at your budget, write out where you entire wage is going for the next few months you will be surprised where money leaks away to.

The next bit of your wage being capped, sorry but I do t believe you, there are few career paths that do not offer opportunityto increase your level of pay. Medical and you can head away from NHS into private and earn higher wages, or you can specialise further and increase, legal there are many routes.

If you are unhappy witb your level of earning within your profession, look broader at the skills you have and diversity.