Just been paid and I can’t see a reason to go on

[Broksa]

I earn on the face of it ‘enough’ money. I was paid today. After all bills… childcare being the key one of 1,700, I have got 130 to last me the rest of the month. Ex pays cms of 800. My mortgage is 1k. I feel sick. Stressed. I will have a horrible day at work again as it’s so busy and I’ve had three hours of sleep. I honestly wish I could disappear what is the point.

A lot of people on less than 50k are eligible for support and can apply for grants from their utility companies.

OK so good news is you can claim child benefit from early April - you will pay a bit back but remember it takes into account pensions so actually it won't be too much as they have reduced the taper so on 69k assuming a pension contribution of 5k a year you would only be paying back around 20%. They should be updating the calculators soon so you can see it but your P60 from last year will also help give you a rough idea.

It can be completely overwhelming but I really recommend sitting down with excel and your bank account and going through it line by line.
Things that contribute are top up shops - you can reduce these by buying an extra loaf of bread and milk when doing your main shop and freezing. Meal plan, bulk cook and look at what your cooking. You can bulk out meats with red lentils for instance.
Its cheaper to buy and roast a whole chicken and strip it down for several meals (can also freeze portions) then it is to buy chicken breasts etc.
Soups are a tasty lunch which can be done cheaply especially this time of year with Easter veg price slashes.

Look at your energy bill are you using an air fryer instead of the oven for instance (although this will have a cost to purchase if you don't have one but I can roast a whole chicken in about 35 mins!)

Clothes for your child use vinted bundles, NCT or nearly new sales.

It may seem like small fry but there are ways to save a little on somethings that then add up over time - we saved £100 a month by stopping top up shops!

Can you do a mortgage repayment holiday? I think they offer those for 6m - in that time you could save a portion of the mortgage money to eke out over the six month after that? Only a short term solution, but might help for a year? Banks are usually amenable if you say you are taking steps during that time to

Is there a cheaper childcare alternative? A local childminder might have slightly more reasonable rates than the nursery, for example? I know childminders are gold dust, but it might be worth exploring if it can reduce your costs by a few hundred a month? Also, could you arrange hybrid/home working a few days a week, so that DC can have shorter nursery/childcare days as you could collect earlier without a commute?

Sorry, these are all the ideas I can come up with.

It's got to be your outgoings on that income!
I know someone who pleads poverty, but always has the latest iPhone and nice Audi car on finance.
These sorts of expensive items you can do without.
I have £100 phone and a Giffgaff SIM for a tenner a month.
I'm not saying you do have those things, but there has to be some things you can cut back on, if that's all you've got left for the month?

This.

@Broksa - your DD needs you - she is the reason to go on. You are your own reason also but perhaps you can’t see that right now but no doubt you can see your DD is your reason.

You’re in the midst of the most labour-intensive part of parenting and under the most pressure - things will get easier. Don’t worry about saving right now. When my children were babies/toddlers, I just broke even on my salary. I took the view that continuing to work was an investment in my and our family’s financial future. And it was - the time of peak expense passed and, as I became more senior, my earnings increased. I have friends who were SAHMs and amazing homemakers but that’s not my skill set.

But for dealing with your immediate stress: does your employer run an Employee Assistance Programme or similar? Can you speak to HR? It would be good if you could have a bit of support from your employer at this super-stressful time.

Ok Assuming you have student loan plan 2 and put 5% into you pension your take home would be 3,700 ish +£800 for CM. So £4300 in total.

Take off 1700 + 1000 listed. That £1600.

Now these are my estimates:

£200 for utilities (phone+internet+water+power.)
£300 for communting
£200 for Council tax.
£100 insurances (house + car)

Thats about 800ish left. Now those figures are pulled out my arse but I can start to see everything adds up. Without a budget though it's hard to know what you can trim.

I sympathise but you must have a lot of debt that what, £5k a month isn't enough? I get your childcare and mortgage are a lot...but combined they're less than half your take home pay.

You need to seriously scrutinise your finances. There must be something that can give.

Then shopping (c.£80 a week for an adult and one in nappies) - takes you to £540
Then life insurance (a must with a mortgage) - takes you to £490

The thing is, it takes a bit of extra time to be frugal. Sole care of a baby plus a FT job is a lot.

Your salary if you drop a day would be your current times 0.8. I work that out to be £55,760.

Sorry if this has already been answered, I’ve not read the full thread.

The 0.8 is worked out as full time being 1 and a day being the 1 divided by 5, so 0.2 times 4 = the 0.8.

So with money left after all essentials - at least 300 - it's the op choice how much to save against a rainy day and how much to splash

And it looks like it may be possible to find more to save if peoples rough and ready calculations are correct

Having money left over is a good thing !
If lack of a safety net is worrying you , put 250 into a savings account each month - after a year that's a good amount 3k saved - keep the 50 for treats - a haircut , a takeaway , a trip to the seaside , a birthday present , a new top , whatever is a treat for you

If she has one of these events each month that £300 reduces to nothing

Emergency dentist (or check up plus a filling)
Opticians + new prescription
New tyres for the car
Emergency plumber call out
Car service and MOT
Servicing debt
Babies birthday
Christmas
Baby has a growth spurt
Op puts on/loses weight
OPs only pair of work shoes fall apart
TV licence due
Roof tiles fall off in a storm
Boiler breaks down

I could add to the list but £300 spare and then being hit with one of these every month I can understand why she's stressed out.

It's one of the biggest stressors of being a single income household, you are stuck when an emergency happens.

Is £69,700 your total yearly income including net salary, child maintenance and benefits? Or is that your gross salary?

What are your outgoings apart from mortgage and childcare? Do you have any debt repayments, eg car finance, credit card?

Your income seems high so there must be some additional outgoings that are making things difficult for you.

Just going to add:

1. I think it sounds as though you may have PND - this can impact you at any point for years after having a baby, but being a single parent and working FT strikes me as a ripe environment and you may have been muddling through not realising it is getting worse. Please talk to your HV (today) and GP so that you can get some support.
2. Also think it might be worth sitting down with a debt advisory service - Citizens advice? - and going through all your outgoings to see where you can make reductions/ask for payment reductions or holidays while you get back on track as a new/single mum. We can only make suggestions here, but without the granular detail over what your gas/electric/council tax/mortgage terms are, we are all scatter-gunning random ideas. Sit down with someone independent and with expertise and consumer knowledge to see how you can streamline things, change tariffs etc.

You are doing a difficult job, raising a toddler alone, so be proud of the fact you have got this far largely without help - but DO ask for help.

I can see how it all adds up, too.

It's all very alien to me, because I work in welfare rights and am used to doing financial capability work with people on very low incomes. But looking at those kind of numbers, I can see that there's not a huge amount spare, especially if there's a car on PCP or a loan and if the home is a flat with service and maintenance charges.

I also realise that in a highly paid job, there's often an expectation that employees look immaculate, so costs for hair, clothes, dry cleaning etc, and that the work can also come with an expectation that you join in expensive work social events for networking purposes.

This is the most expensive time though, OP, when there's no help with childcare costs and everyday expenses are increasing. It will get better, there are some great suggestions upthread, especially around salary sacrifice for childcare, and some of the childcare costs will be covered by "free" hours come September. And you're probably "time poor", so that the last thing you feel like doing after a day's work, commuting and dashing to nursery is to roast a chicken to feed you both for a few days or make a nourishing soup from scratch.

It does, and will, get better.

If you have a mortgage could you ask for a 3 month mortgage holiday? If you could you could stock up your freezer with food, boost your savings, buy your DC some summer clothing. It would give you breathing space so you're not living on the edge all the time. In the grand scheme of things it won't make much difference to your mortgage. Once your DC gets some government funded hours childcare will come down. These childcare years are always so tough but they do end. Your DC is close to 24 months when childcare gets a bit cheaper then at 3 years cheaper again.

We can help you budget, OP, if you're willing to share your outgoings?

I was a single mum to two DC. When they left home in 2018 (aged 18 and 19), I was taking home £1,600 a month. My mortgage was £800. I sold my house and moved to a cheaper area to be mortgage free.

There are things you can do to reduce your outgoings. Compressing your work hours is also a good idea, as previously suggested.

Hello OP, we are really sorry to hear you are feeling this way.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources.
You can also go to the Samaritans website, or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.

We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

Thanks everyone.

What is the interest rate like on your mortgage? There are some better fixed rate deals out there now that could reduce your monthly outgoings.

As others have said, look for a childminder to reduce childcare costs, definitely get ex to cough up more if possible.

Would a lodger be a possibility, even if only short term to bring in some extra income?

Hang on in there OP. These early years of child rearing are hard enough without being single and also having money worries. Agree with the poster who said to take a day off for self care. Keep talking on here - there is lots of support for you x

Can you extend the term of your mortgage? I needed to do that when I was in similar circumstances and when childcare went down, I overpaid so the whole term is actually back to what it originally was. It does get better and easier, hold in there.

You’re in a better position than a lot of people including myself! At least you own a home/are working to pay off a mortgage rather than renting and have a good job and security and 800 a month child maintenance is huge!! You won’t have to pay childcare forever.

Take home pay will not be 5k a month no where near as extra tax, NI and usually pension contributions plus potentially student loan.
It's usually around 3.5k take home pay mark(depending on student loan) So their nursery bill and mortgage alone makes up 2/3rds of that.

You earn £70k and are skint?

things are tough when kids are wee but in a few years you’ll be in a great position. There are plenty of people out there on a fraction of what you’re on who aren’t going to have £1k month extra disposable income in a few years

🙄 helpful!

Not a race to the bottom and not helping the OP at all. Plus the idea that 70k goes into your bank account is stupid it doesn't its about 20k in taxes alone.