175k salary and all gone

[175allgone]

This will ruffle some feathers, but after tax, mortgage , childcare, living expenses….there doesn’t seem much left. SE London, commuting, wrap around care. Whilst I appreciate I’m not having to watch my bills I’m hardly living an extravagant lifestyle.

So I should move to a cheaper less desirable area and cause gentrification

😂 How generous you are not moving. I thank you.

Has anyone posted the dril "spend less on candles" tweet yet?

She has two kids. Do you think that's an extortionate amount of children to have?

OK so £11K or £10k or pick whatever number you like, it's still a good bit of padding.

The OP did confirm that food costs are included in "living costs" as you might expect....

People can and do survive and live fine on a fraction of that.

You have made choices and they are expensive ones.

That's fine, but when your choices cost a lot you can't then be surprised about it.

You don't have to live where you live, you could live somewhere cheaper.

You could look at cheaper childcare options. Childcare will only be a few years anyway then you are several grand better off.

You have got a lot of money and you are spending it.

That's how it works.

If you want to maintain your current lifestyle and have thousands of pounds totally spare every month then you have to increase your earnings.

How?

We haven't left the country in a decade. Holidays are visiting family or friends (yes, we reciprocate) or camping in the UK.

I only buy myself new clothes if I need them, never because I just want them, or because it's a "new season". We shop in cheap shops - when I needed a pair of trainers suitable for wearing with dresses I got them for £14 from Sainsbury's.

A takeaway or a restaurant is a treat, something we don't do often.

Our car is currently off the road, and will remain so until we have the money to repair it.

I really didn't think I would be living like this in middle age.

The real issues here are political - childcare and mortgage payments are high because of government decisions over the years. And we've had over a decade of austerity.

Austerity was a political decision, not a necessity, and we're all worse off because of it.

In many other European countries, childcare is subsidised. It should be here, too, we really should be demanding this. (The 15 hours "free" childcare is a fuck up, it doesn't do what it says on the tin.)

Housing costs are ridiculously high in the UK as Thatcher allowed council housing to be sold off, while expressly forbidding local councils from reinvesting the money in new housing stock. And then every government since, of every party, has failed to address the issue of the need for a programme of building modern social housing.

I have a small hope Labour might do something about housing, zero chance the Tories will, and austerity was a Tory policy. Please join me in voting those fuckers out!

do you live in a period featured house with as many bedrooms as you can afford and the obligatory loft kitchen and side return extension? 2.5k in mortgage is an absolute bomb and I bet that you live in a bigger house than you’d need to the number of people in your home.

£2.5k mortgage doesn’t get you far in Islington.

👌👌

OP could live in a cheaper area in London though. There are lots of nice places in London. The only person I know who can afford to live in central London is extremely wealthy and doesn't have kids.

@175allgone
Having a London based successful career and associated expectations are no longer in balance. Seems like all the hard to get to where you are and you are still just surviving. Makes you wonder if it's all worth it.

I'd love to say things get better, and they do to a degree when nursery fees are done, but assuming your kids will go to a state school, what will happen next is a reduced cost for childcare, but wraparound still required before teen age. Holiday costs go up exponentially as you now need to travel in term time and pay full adult fare per child. Extra curricular costs. It's nowhere near as hard as the nursery years, but it's not easy either.

Forgot to also mention, if they intend to go to uni, may need to save for that too

@175allgone Have you treated yourselves to a long haul holiday this half term?

I'm wondering why anyone would be posting at 2am and 3am UK time?

If this is genuine.

£2.5k equates to about £500k mortgage which would buy you a poor one bed flat in Islington.

Even if 2nd DC is a newborn this is not 4 years of paying 4 grand a month til they go to school, it will reduce to 2 grand once oldest is in school. For a maximum of 4 years.

If I had the prospect of having FOUR THOUSAND pounds a month extra to spend in the next few years once both DC are in school, I think I'd struggle through with that tiny 1000 a month extra til I got there.

You already HAVE extra cash per month.
£1000.
And in in few short years you'll have £4000 a month extra cash.

That's your position. And I think it's a pretty enviable one for the vast majority on here.

@UprootedSunflower
”It began to feel mad working ft in London and what it cost. Appreciate I couldn’t do this in zone 1/2… but I can still travel there in 15/20min and the local parks are nice”

15/20 mins door to door from Z5 to Z1? Really?

having a small house in a cheaper part of the country where childcare is also much less. HTH.

we haven't even got nowhere near 4k (what you spend in childcare alone) coming in. What a tone deaf post in these times.

You might need a job with a higher salary if you're not able to make economies. But I'd start with that childcare. Hell, I'd give up my job to look after them for £4k after tax espesh if you can drop them off at start and end of the week. Good luck.

Oh how the other half live…

I agree. I was just saying it’s unlikely she has a large house with period features and loft kitchen in Islington on a £2.5k mortgage, which the PP was claiming.

It’s doubtful that you aren’t going to progress in your careers and nursery isn’t forever.

It's a fact of life that as soon as you become accustomed to having money, you want even more. Every pay rise i've had I've been thrilled for about 2 months then the dissatisfaction creeps back in. This doesn't stop when you're in the 1% club - our society is set up for more, more, more. I think London does this to you more than most place - since I moved out a few years ago I'm far more contented with my small lot, there's not the screaming wealth on my doorstep to make me compare myself with others.

You need to just step back and think what you DO have, not what you don't. You have far, far more than the vast majority of people this country. Your childcare costs are temporary. You have a house in London, a great income giving security for rainy days, you have two children, you can afford not to worry if you have enough for the mortgage. You can consider private education, private health care, fancy hobbies. Perhaps not the 5 star world cruise, perhaps not even business class flights. But there are millions more options available to you than there are most people. You are lucky and you are wasting what you have if you spend your life not enjoying that.

Of course that’s not true though - we fiercely tax income and ignore capital wealth to a great extent. It’s a tax regime designed to protect inter generational wealth and punish plebby upstarts.

Yep

Well people shouldn't have kids they can't afford.

So irresponsible.

Are you in favour of abolishing tax credits or child benefit then? Housing benefit?

From the OPs comment about how much stamp duty would be to move somewhere less expensive, they've got at least a million in equity, likely more, so it could be more like a period house, not a poky flat.

do you live in a period featured house with as many bedrooms as you can afford and the obligatory loft kitchen and side return extension? 2.5k in mortgage is an absolute bomb and I bet that you live in a bigger house than you’d need to the number of people in your home.

lol, 2.5k doesn’t pay for a house like that in most parts of London.