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 was about to say exactly what @Parapaderapa and other PPs have said - you need to look at living elsewhere in London. With that mortgage and nursery costs you are clearly in an expensive area - we are in SE london and FT nursery is £1300, and suspect the mortgage on our 3 bed is a lot lower. Yes it’s not as nice - DH and I use to live in Zone 4 with Gail’s etc but once we had kids it was clear we had to move to a less expensive area. There’s no point in living somewhere trendy if you can’t afford to enjoy it.

The rapid rise in COL feels unprecedented. (I don't know if it actually is but it feels like it!). I go through my day being suprised how expensive things are.

You need to move to a cheaper house. If the increase was £1200 a month your mortgage must be vast. You don't need to be paying anything like that much. You've over stretched.

This.

You could probably live mortgage free in the north. It's a no brainer.

go and get an airbnb in an outlying area for a week and trail how it would be commuting for your dh

that way you would have an idea whether it would work or not

It's not the equity; a smaller house, or one outside London, would have a lower mortgage.

Tell me about it, due to the increases I’m now paying £1,300 just in interest alone on my mortgage, and probably surviving on less money a month than you. Thankfully, I no longer have childcare fees otherwise
I would have probably had to leave my job.

You need a live-in Nanny.

I feel you. Can you remortgage for a better deal?? Remortgage for part interest only mortgage, fix for a couple of years? Take a mortgage payment holiday, give you a breather for a couple of months (it exists, you need to ask your provider for options!).

We moved up to Midlands out of London early this year, bought a larger, but cheaper house that is properly insulated (also had a freezing victorian before). It's warm, energy bills are a little less. Nursery is 350 cheaper. Downside is that husband now commutes to work (3 hour drive) and stays in an airbnb 3 days a week. I work from home. Life is a little bit easier in some ways and harder in others, he's looking for a job more local, but this will take a while. You can find a job as a doctor anywhere. Your husband will need to find alternatives or commute, it's doable. Also, you're in zone 3, just even moving out within the m25 would be slightly cheaper and completely possible to commute.

I don't understand why you need to travel out of London for work. Surely a locum consultant can earn enough doing carefully chosen locum shifts at high rates at more central hospitals? My F2+ relative earned plenty doing locum shifts, waiting until high rates were offered (not suggesiting this is morally right, but showing it is possible).

Totally agree with you. My salary is massively lower than yours (just over 40K) but I am a single person with no children and don't live in London so our previous lifestyles were probably similar.

I used to buy what I wanted when I wanted, go on big adventure travelling style holidays (I'm a teacher so have long summers), go to the theatre most weeks etc. I always bought everything second hand because I'm just that kind of person and love vintage stuff but that just meant I had way too much stuff, not that I saved loads of money!

But now I seem to spend exactly what I earn every month. I can't go on holiday any more, have cut way back on social activities and cannot save. I have a house deposit but there's no way I can afford a mortgage. I probably wouldn't even be given one (or not for something I'd want to live in anyway).

I'm not poor by any stretch of the imagination. It's just frustrating to have gone from earning way over average to about average without actually changing my job!
In 2014 I earned £40K and the average salary was £27K
In 2024 I earn £41K and the average salary is £37K
But most people I know are in the same boat so I'm not sure whose salaries are skyrocketing tbh!!

Totally sympathise with you. You don't have be objectively poor to feel and bemoan the difference in standard of living.

I’ve been so shocked reading on here the high cost of nursery fees. It must cripple most families financially.
I’d look at a completely different type of life.
Sell, move out of London. Your husband works p/t or wfh and does majority of childcare. Or he works 3/4 days, you work the other 3/4 so share childcare. whichever works the best for your family.
Buy a modern house that’s more energy efficient.

What about a Mon-Fri lodger. They will most likely be working during the day so you only have to turn the heat up in the evenings and mornings a bit, then you get private family time on the weekends. Or my friend takes in language students, again they are out for a lot of the time and you could have a little electric oil filled radiator or infra red radiator in that room only on a timer.

Don't forget the simple ways to stop heat loss- draft excluders, carpets rather than wooden floors, thick heavy curtains over external doors and windows, shutting internal doors. In the old days people even hung rugs on the walls to keep the heat in, or you could try thermal lining paper

I don’t think their mortgage was particularly crazy given their salaries. The increase alone on my £270k mortgage on a London flat was over £600 a month. And we lucked out by buying a wreck that needed months of work to make it liveable and a seller who needed the cash and a relatively quick sale. You can’t get anything for that price these days and I only bought less than a handful of years ago.

As a fellow youngish consultant I get it. You don’t expect to be a millionaire or live in a mansion but after many many years of training and very hard work you do imagine you will be able to live in an ok house and not struggle.

I’ll never be able to afford the types of houses that some of my older consultant colleagues live in. I think that is largely due to the state of the housing market when they got on the property ladder.

Having said that, I do live somewhat modestly but also very comfortably up north. I have a newish build 4 bed townhouse in a nice town a few miles away from the DGH where I work as a substantive consultant. We’re about 15 miles outside of a large northern city and many people in my town commute to the city for work.

i can tell you that my house cost about a third of my sister’s house in a (admittedly very nice middle class) London suburb. Hers is perhaps slightly bigger and does have a largish garden, but overall I don’t think the differences are that significant.

It sounds like you made a judgement about what you could afford a few years ago and perhaps took on a pretty big mortgage, perhaps with plans for improvements. Probably many people have made similar decisions over the last decades and it’s paid off and they’ve ended up with a lovely family home. You haven’t expected the cost of living changes and are now suffering.

i guess the question is whether you can weather the next few years and anticipate things being better once childcare costs reduced. But is it worth it? I get that selling up you will probably lose out somewhat in terms of money you’ve put in. But would you longer term have a more manageable and enjoyable lifestyle? I know I would rather live in my fairly modest house but not struggle than stretch on a big mortgage for a more impressive house and worry every month about surviving.

Im not sure of your speciality (is it very niche limited to city only tertiary centres vs widely available and whether it’s in demand or not). But you might find that looking for a stable substantive post in a cheaper area makes life more manageable. Would your husband not be able to find an equivalent job in a non-London city?

I get that people manage to live in London, and it does seem ridiculous that a consultant can’t manage that. And obviously many doctors are needed in London. But for an easy life personally I’d think about alternatives

sympathies - it does sound rubbish

CloudyB We have belonged to NT for many years, and there are loads of houses to visit.Every time we go on holiday, or days out there is usually at least 2 or 3 nearby .It really saves a lot of money . Also DM used to say "never buy cheap shoes!" I love Hotter as they are so comfy .

Hi OP

Could you explore your work options? So perhaps doing 2 fixed days at work to reduce full time nursery costs, alongside weekends where your partner could have the kids? And then could you try and pick up some evening shifts by doing some online GP work? Most insurance companies now provide a service where you can access a GP online and have a video consultation. My insurance company provides it with a company call s Square Health. Could something like this be an option for you and help reduce nursery costs? It doesn’t have to be forever, just to get you through the next few years. Hope things improve for you. X

Hadn’t stamp duty changed recently? It might not be worth the OP moving if any savings she’d make end up being given away to the tax man.

Whether or not you think it's crazy, a cheaper house is the obvious solution to an enormous mortgage. If she'd prefer not to, that is her prerogative, but then I would assume things are not nearly as tight as she implies.

What have you specialised? Have you ever worked on commercial trials? Might be work looking at medical monitor jobs at big pharma.

You would be supporting with the write up of the protocol and answering clinical related questions from hospitals participating in trials. Mostly remote based and generally normal office hours, but long office hours, you wouldn't be doing 12hr shifts. Might be worth looking into

If not medical writing could be good for you, again generally office hours, remote based, you may need to do some travel.

How much do you actually pay on mortgage OP - because looking at that increase I'm suspecting we are looking at around the £4K mark -

Honestly whilst you have kids at nursery I would be tempted to sell up , bank the equity if you have some and rent a nice insulated 2 or 3 bed flat for a few years in an ok London area - but in again when your costs drop significantly - I doubt prices will rocket over next couple of years.

My son rents a 2 bed 2 bath flat in a nice posh zone 2 area for £2200 with his girlfriend and a friend. But looking at areas like Crystal Palace , Kingston or Ealing etc it's doable. Ignore me of course if your mortgage is less than this or slightly more but I suspect it's a lot more given that jump and it might be worth thinking sideways first a few years

This is so sad you have worked so hard to get yourself a really good career and you’re feeling it so much.
we live in the north west so luckily much cheaper than London and we manage off just my husbands salary at the moment as I can’t work we wouldn’t manage if we still had childcare to pay for our youngest is 14
good luck op a few short years and they will be in school

london is the problem. Whether you need to access it for work or are trying to live in it, it’s pretty unliveable accounting for housing costs, transport costs and times, unreliable trains, and so on. Does your husband honestly have to do that job? Does he truly love it?

I used to commute daily to a job in London into a mainline station from about 35 minutes out. It was expensive, but it worked. I had a family house and a London work life. I was home in time to put my small children in the bath and bed and I paid for their childcare from my big London salary. That lifestyle has gone. The trains are chisellingly expensive and practically unworkable. Obv houses themselves in London are more expensive than ever, but even accessing London has become more gougingly expensive in real terms - not just financially but the costs to your time and life force of the constant, constant fuck ups.

Thank you for the all support and suggestions. I am reading each individual one - sorry if I can’t respond to all of them.

@ExcludedatfiveFML it is really hard not having a little luxury like a holiday every few years and having to have a side hustle over in addition to well paid jobs.

@Spirallingdownwards thank you - have not contributed to pension for the past two years to help stay afloat.

@Enterthedragonqueen - we have already found ourselves in Aldi/ Lidl which we like. Have gone down the brands. Will try some lentil based recipes though.
Cash back is sometime I haven’t tried so thank you as every little does help.

@Whaleandsnail6 - luckily I don’t have to do shift work anymore but will definitely look at weekend options. You must be proud you managed to get through it. You are right though - should be able to have small treats if working full time.

@nationalsausagefund I hear you. It’s scary how everything has jumped up so much. The redundancy sounds stressful. Hope you managed to get a job?
Will try the window film- kind of doing everything else. You are right - things would be more bearable if the house was warm.
Thank you for your views re moving out of London- there is always a sacrifice I guess.

@LiceoDolce never heard about subsidised nursery but will have a look. Left the nhs due to a combination of stress/ politics/ low morale/ poor pay/ never ending workload so would prefer not to have a permanent role but I will look into it.

@Dinnerplease not a bougie area unfortunately! I think houses have massively increased COL. If I had brought this house 11 years ago we would probably be in a better shape. I think sitting tight is one way to get through it.

@Bearpawk the main problem is the increase in mortgage by 1200 a month, increase in nursery fees 550 a month plus additional energy/ food/ life bills. We know children cost and budgeted for this. We did not expect to have around £2000 less a month due to COL

https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/what-we-do/imperial-college-healthcare-nursery/charing-cross-day-nursery

I think many of the London hospitals have similar facilities because of the issues you mention and the high cost of child care.

As you can pay by salary sacrifice you could potentially reduce your nursery bill by 40%.

If the NHS is too stressful you could potentially work for them three days a week (spending two days with your children) and still have more disposable income than what you are doing at the moment.

I am a big believer in take care of the pounds and the pennies will look after themselves. Whether or not you get a sandwich from gails makes little difference to the big picture with high outgoings.