Exhausted with current situation - money issue

[Dreambow]

I don’t really know what to expect from this but please be kind.

We are a married couple both in professional jobs (doctor and DH works in the city - not a banker).
I have been contracting the last few years as NHS salary doesn’t cover enough outgoings.
We have a 2.5 year old and a 8 week old.

All we do is work work work. The cost of everything is eating up everything and we have several credit cards (interest free). We live frugally as we can but our outgoings are huge and have increased so much over the past two years. I am so worried that this is going to get worse over the next few years.

We have a large mortgage as live in London for DH work - since the rate of interest has gone up we are now paying £1200 per month extra. Still better off in the long run than rent and we are grateful for this.

Nursery fees were £1050 per month in Jan 2022 and now £1600 (£550 per month increase) for full time. This is for one child (not eligible for government help). Absolutely dreading when the second one starts nursery and when they go up again next year. This is for a cheap nursery - most are £2000 per month for one child full time.

On top of this energy bills and food bills all increased. We have a Victorian house and it’s freezing cold (apart from the ground floor which has underfloor heating). Currently 10 degrees in the house (not ground floor). No insulation (apart from loft) and heating bills are huge so try and turn off as much as possible but harder with children.

We never go out, no date nights (babysitter plus cost of going out would be too much. No coffees out, no meals out, no cinema. No holidays. Clothes from Vinted.

Our living costs have increased by around £2000 per month including increased mortgage £1200 month, increased nursery fees £550 month, energy and food bills etc

For the past two years I worked every weekend (apart from Christmas and Easter) and 2-4 days in the week. Some of my work is adhoc so unpredictable with childcare and have to put DC in nursery for full time.

I feel like we are working a lot harder but wages are not going up. Our outgoings have increased by £2000 month over the last two years but our lifestyles are much much worse.

We used to be able to go out for coffee/ meals/ cinema dates comfortably. We used to go on holiday a lot. We were able to buy high street clothes without thinking twice. House is currently freezing cold and on top of it all we also have a mouse problem (coming in from next door).

I know we are in a better position than some but I feel pretty down-beaten and exhausted with it all. I think inflation will back up again next year and I am not sure how we will financially and mentally manage it all.

To expect to have a better quality of life, working full time and working hard?

I agree @Sheepsandcows. but in this moment things probably feel crap to the OP hence the post. Hopefully with some perspective the OP will be able to be more glass half full and see that she does have options….

You need to write down all your outgoings and go through them to see where you could save some money. Families live on less money coming in, you just need to adjust your lifestyle accordingly.

you both have good jobs, it is hard to garner sympathy when people are making suggestions and you brush away them all. If you want to make big changes then something has to change.

Hi OP, sympathies here - my husband and I work ourselves to the bone with a combined income of around £200,000 and whilst we live in the south east there’s no chance with two young children we could afford to live in London.

I don’t know how the government childcare bits work but can you overpay into your pension so that you get the benefit of the funded hours? Or is that not an option if you’re contracting?

There’s little more miserable than constantly feeling cold in your own home. My advice would be to focus on that aspect.

If you can’t insulate or sell up, can you rent your place out and rent a place that has good insulation? That then opens up the possibility of a lodger or live in childcare.

If you cannot, make sure you all have heated throws, electric blankets, etc.

Remember that this budget situation should ease somewhat when they start going to school. Or if the interest rate goes down.

Do you both LOVE your current jobs that you couldn’t possibly change? You’re supposed to work to live not the other way around. It sounds as though you are prioritising these jobs above everything else in your life at the moment. Are the jobs worth it? Fair enough if they are - that’s a choice you are making. But are very rich people living a life where you are worried about money. Every bit of that is YOUR CHOICE. You can change everything about your life. I don’t think penny pinching here and there is going to make the slightest bit of difference.

It almost makes me chuckle when people say they can’t move out of London because there’s no work. What do you think us northern peasants do to get by 😂.

Thank you for all the nice and really helpful replies.

@MarchInHappiness - thank you will look at working weekends again and sacrificing some family time. Might work out better especially if two in nursery.

@PragmaticIsh - such a nice post! Thank you - will hold my partners hand tighter and try and plough through it. My son loves nursery and has really thrived.
Will look at the insulation charities that a PP mentioned - never heard of them before. Same poster mentioned nutritious cheaper foods so will look into that as well.
Have the thermal linings but will look into window film- good idea.

@ChocolateTelephone thank you for being so understanding- I was so scared to post. I have seen so many PP who are higher earners have so much hate thrown at them.

I'd bite the bullet and move. Victorian houses are lovely but they can often be money pits. As PP have said, if you are already struggling with heating now then there's the potential for longer term expensive problems. You need a house which is better insulated and has cheaper running costs.

You both need to stay in London but why not look at moving further out from zone three?

You gave birth 8 weeks ago, so you are sleep deprived and everything looks bleak. I sympathise.
You do have options, but in the fog of looking after a newborn it's hard to think objectively.
You are both numerate adults and it's time to make a spreadsheet and actually model the different scenarios that you are dismissing such as

-downsize house
-increase mortgage term to reduce payments
-move out of London
-get a nanny until kids are at school
-change job/one of you take a career break

I think you need to sit down and really hash out the figures together so you can see the light after nursery costs. It sounds like your head is swimming with money worries (which I totally understand having experienced financial worries across my lifetime).

I would also dig into what life would look like living in another country. You both sound like you have very desirable careers and yes you deserve to be able to afford a lifestyle where you can go on a date night and a holiday. It’s absolutely ridiculous that you can’t. People wonder why so many professional people are priced out of having children. It’s literally this. Unless one of you can stay at home the childcare fees are crippling. Add in massive mortgage hikes, food and electricity increases, council tax caps have just been lifted so that will also be going up - before you know it you can’t afford life. It’s despicable.

They aren’t. There’s a GP job crisis currently. OP may not be a GP though.

Trussonomics has a lot to answer for 😡

Appreciate you are 8 weeks post partumn, and at this point I hated every life choice I had ever made!

Unfortunately, unlike 90% of the country, you have the income that will allow you to have options that can make a difference.

Your post should be updated to 'I can't believe I don't feel as wealthy as I am'.

I'd advise you re look at your financial planning, as you seem to be living a life that costs more than you want to pay (for the little it leaves you with).

Maybe move to Australia for a year or two while your kids are young, there’s heaps of work for doctors and you’d have a great lifestyle,

You can’t afford your house. You can’t afford to run it, and have no equity to sell it and move on. Two kids in nursery will always be expensive. Why are you living in London and commuting out to work? The house needs dealing with - insulation or moving somewhere less trendy or central.

I think you would be better off working in the NHS with some private on the side when the nursery years are over.

My sympathies OP 💐

Just echoing others who have said the nursery years aren't forever. DS dropped from full time nursery at 2k a month, to school + £250ish clubs/wrap around a month pretty much overnight and our standard of living has shot up since 😂

I fully empathise with how you feel OP. You made plans but the COL crisis has bitten hard. We are by no means hard up but if I compare my life now to what it was 5 years ago we aren’t feeling the wage rises have made much difference at all to our standard of living. We should be able to afford much more and more easily but everything has gone up.

Hell, I’ve just been sorting out a box of receipts from 2007 and we must have been positively rolling in it when I look at what we were buying but it didn’t feel that way at the time!

As well as a proper budget OP could I suggest you add in two extra tabs on your spreadsheet. One is a Shit Hits The Fan (if one of you loses your job) and the other is expected wage rises. I’ve no idea if, as a consultant in the NHS, you are likely to hit certain bands or whatever and is your DH looking for a step up too? It’s really difficult to balance this all with young children in the mix but take comfort in the fact that there are people in the same position as you right now (but they aren’t the ones in Gail’s).

Sounds like you stretched yourself too thin with your house purchase and 2 young kids. It will improve as the kids get older (unless you go for private school). Your options are to continue as you are or downsize or move out of London.

Right. You’re 8 weeks post partum, you must be shattered. Doesn’t help that you spend time at home and on your own, living in your own head is bound to mess things up.

Get a heated blanket and an oil heater today, and have them constantly on, you can’t be cold. Buy some tin foil and put it behind the radiators, they’ll reflect the heating back in, as opposed to seeping into the walls.

Pick up the baby and go for a 5k walk every day. Go to the library at nap time and read a book in the warm, get a thermos and keep drinking warm drinks.

I know you’re accustomed to a certain lifestyle, but whilst the kids are not in school, those years are pretty dire for everyone.

I don’t know how you have set up your finances, but now is a good time to throw any savings you have into the mortgage in order to lower the interest. Even a £50 overpayment lowers your interest rate, you’re probably talking pennies in your case, but do it anyway.
Keep a notebook for all your expenses. Physically write everything down. If your budget for mobile phones, Netflix, prime, Apple, internet etc is bigger than the food one, start cutting down.

Food is expensive, but you’re in London, plenty of Eastern European, Turkish etc shops, I promise they’re cheaper and better quality than the big supermarkets.

Above all, it’ll get better once the kids grow up a bit more. Hang in there.

@dreambow, its hard but somehow you have yourself backed into a corner.

Start by drawing up a proper budget sheet - all monthly costs, all annual costs.
Versus income.
You need to see exactly where the drains on money are, including things you might not be noticing, and if you can afford to live as you are on current income. If not then you need to plan to turn this around sooner rather than later.

Then you need to make a plan, and decide if you sell and move or if you stay and economise.

Take emotions out of it and simply look at the ins and outs. Don't be fixed on not selling the house and downsizing / moving out further if needed, there is always a solution.

Then sit down with your husband and decide.

No advice but you have my sympathies, I am now late 50s but it seems like just half an hour that I was in your situation, albeit as a band 7 AHP and DH as a care worker in a modest flat in zone 3 . We only kept our head above water through an inheritance, I don’t know what we would have done without it. The thing that worries me in your post is the contract work, I hope you are contributing to a pension/ NHS pension , I started to at 27, wish I’d done it earlier, those early years of contribution really make a different to your final statement. Hang in there, it will get easier.

Surely with an 8 week old you are on mat leave?

Just take the 2yo out of nursery. £1600 a month- if you're off for another 10months that's £16,000.

Then at end of mat leave they'd be at least 3.5yo and they'd be moving to preschool anyway?

Seems the very obvious solution for a huge saving.

Nursery when you're at home is a massive luxury.

I agree with these 2 posters

you are unable to see that there is a life, jobs and work outside of London.

a modern house with insulation would also help.

I remember haemorrhaging money when my DD was very little. It is very tough indeed. Until they reach a certain age, where you can reliably walk out of the house for two or three hours to go and get something and tell them just to watch TV, everything you do costs tonnes. Pizza express? Hundred quid once a babysitter is factored in.
Consider a lodger. One friend is making £1200 per spare room. You could say reduce that marginally and ask for a couple of nights of babysitting?
I love that people say leave London it’ll cost so much less, but as I’ve said on a different post childcare issues are a total nightmare, as is the commute. One friend moved to Cobham and struggled to find anyone to cover her kids for just two days a week.

have you overextended yourselves on the Mortgage? Would you be better off downsizing?

Is the weather getting to you? You have an eight week old and perhaps you’re stuck at home. These things get thrown into very sharp relief when you potentially have a little bit of spare time, but no money to do anything with it.

If you are at consultant level then depending on your specialty you have options.

You may be able to do private work - London is a good place for this. I have a friend who is qualified in dermatology and while she only does nhs many of her colleagues do private sessions.

Private work is considerably better paid than nhs.

You state that you are not in the nhs but that you need to travel within London to get shifts. I presume you are locuming.

There are London hospitals that have nurseries with extended hours so you might find your childcare cheaper if you took a permanent post and got a space in the nhs nursery.

Friends of mine in a similar position to you have moved out of London and one half commuted in. The medic then moved into a more family friendly specialty. The cheaper house prices outside London meant they could afford a warmer nicer house.

I honestly don’t know what I did wrong as I look at other consultants 10-20 years older. Nice houses in nice parts of London, kids were in private school, some have nannies to help.

If you a consultant contracting you ought to be bringing in a minimum of 100k if not quite a hefty chunk more. Assuming your DH is on similar, you ought to be ok when not on mat allowance? Unless you bought a really pricey house in a bit of a desirable area like balham or tufnell park or something.

Are you sure you aren't getting doom and gloom because you are currently essentially on one salary & still paying a huge nursery bill from it? It will be miles better when you're back at work.

Its not just you - housing cost has made the uk a very expensive place to live.

I think medicine is a funny one as lots of older doctors came from really rather wealthy backgrounds and led a very affluent lifestyle, its perceived as a well paid job but simply doesn't earn what law or finance do unless you are a prestigious specialist in private practice. Also don't discount - NHS pensions are huge & valuable part of the pay, doctors who go private often fail to recognise how much they need to earn in salary to make up for it.