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?

Yes, you are rather nicely underlining how small minded villagers can be. My statement relies on data, unlike your opinion (which is not backed by data). worldpopulationreview.com/world-city-rankings/safest-cities-in-the-world

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66604588.amp

The nursery years are tough. When your youngest one starts school and you don't have to pay nursery fees anymore you will feel like you won the lottery! I still remember the joy when after 5 years of nursery fees we were done with it!

Mortgage hikes and living in London is a pain, we also have to live in London for work and our mortgage recently went up by £500. We also live in an old house, lovely and cool in the summer but a complete nightmare in the winter!

My friend lives in Richmond, hardly the Bronx

kingston.nub.news/news/local-news/richmond-park-cyclist-attacked-by-machete-wielding-gang-speaks-out

The UK is full of lovely cheaper places to live than where you are .
Why would you put up with living where you have no money left for anything that makes life enjoyable.
Your husband can get a job elsewhere,doing something different
It's clear you can't afford to live there
People have to move areas and jobs all the time ,why stay somewhere when your quality of life is so poor

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/terrifying-moment-machete-wielding-thugs-33115591

Maybe you need to read a bit more? You don’t seem very switched on to the issues on your own doorstep..

I am relying on the news every day. Stats mean very little as most people don’t even bother reporting the crime anymore!! Jeez.

@Dreambow

I don't know if anyone has suggested it (I know you've said no to a lodger due to the cold), but you could plan to have a 6m lodger from, say, Mar to Sept. Then you don't need to worry so much about the cold house, but get some income over the year.

Or, a M-F lodger who has a VERY demanding job. In London you'll easily find someone. They'll come after work M, then leave Fri am. I've had several (outside London) and they tend to work long hours in the week they are away to give themselves free time at the weekend. And just heat the room with an electric heater, and hang nice thick curtains. If you make it clear when you interview people that it's an old draughty house, you'll still get someone and the worst that happens is that they don't like it and leave and you look for someone else.

Could be an extra £500+pm which would be a real boon for you.

@Beemum2 it really is depressing isn’t it. I love the clinical side of my job but I wouldn’t do it again if I could go back. On top of it COL has become so bad. Good luck for the new baby! Try and focus on positives - I know easier said than done.

@Notgoodatpoetrybutgreatatlit haha those wacky Victorians should have invented insulation! Hope you got those opera tickets!

@LivingLaVidaBabyShower I feel for you stuck in a job you hate. I know the feeling - one of my previous jobs was temporary and the only way to get through it was little treats every month or so. You have done so well to fix your mortgage!! One less thing to worry about

@80smonster thank you. You have hit the nail on the head with several things. The high tax and the lack of help with the government with childcare has truly messed things up. I feel very little incentive to keep working so hard as there is no reward. It’s very much stick and no carrot. Some people are just going abroad or cutting down working so under a tax bracket. Didn’t really want to do that and makes less sense from an economic point of view but maybe we should just do it. Sell up and have a chilled life with more time.

A couple of PPs mentioned taking DC out of nursery or dropping days while on mat leave - looked into this but there is now a 18 month - 2yrs waiting list. Several nurseries have closed in the area and this is a lifeline for both of us to work.

Have you looked at using a childminder? They're usually a lot cheaper than nurseries- I'm a childminder and charge half what the nurseries charge.
Also,are you able to use the government tax free childcare account where they pay 20% of your childcare bill? Not sure if you're eligible, but have a look at www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Having young kids is always an expensive time.

However you are making it so much harder for yourself by living in London. People who want to live in London always make endless excuses about why they absolutely HAVE to live there, but in reality, you are educated people with adaptable skills, and you could easily have a much better quality of live elsewhere the country.

I was born and bred in an expensive part of the south east. Moved north in my late 20s and never looked back. You can still earn a high salary in a northern city and quality of life is so much better.

We had to sacrifice the close age gap due to costs, there's 4.5 year between mine so that there wasn't 2 lots of nursery fees at one time (aimed for 3 year gap but suffered 2 losses in between)

Moving may still be an option though, but maybe further than you think, we are in the NE - with a 4 bed detached house on a mortgage of £180k - £900 a month in our new deal, house valued at £250k. You could both take a step down in careers and afford to live comfortably, while not killing yourselves in the process. Each of us could take a step up and earn more, but at the minute, with an 8 and 4 year old, we're happy to work our 40 hours and come home every day by 6pm. Joint income here is £75k and we have a holiday abroad every year, and a centre parcs weekend, things have gotten tighter - but not so much that we're turning down a takeaway or a meal out once a month.

If you aren't eligible for government help towards childcare eg the tax free childcare accounts presumably one of you earns more than £100k???

You are picking entirely anecdotal sources, not globally held data. This is what I mean about small-minded…
London is safer than New York, which holds 15th place.

@QforCucumber whilst this is undoubtedly true- the problem is you both have to be if the same mindset and not mind moving where you may have no friends or family- not everyone is prepared to do that , even if it makes life cheaper and easier.

I'm not quite understanding this op. How much equity do you actually have?

I live in what's considered a very nice area in Yorkshire. House is worth maybe 300k or a bit less (3 storey, 3 bed), it's extremely energy efficient and next to a river and woodland. The villages surrounding me are even better value. You're a consultant so you can't pretend to be earning a pittance. You could easily live very comfortably here on your salary and your DH could do a different job from home part time and look after the kids. You'd probably just need a small mortgage.

I think that you're struggling psychologically to make that leap and over-complicating it. It's understandable, but when you think about what you would be gaining it may feel easier.

Would it be easier to stay at home with your children to stop the nursery costs and work two night shifts at the weekend when.your husband could take over looking after them fully? You would still earn and work 24 hours a week but not pay the child care bills.

Quite a few families we know have already emigrated, these are high net worth individuals, who own property in other European countries. We were also victims of 100k rule, so received not a penny of nursery funding (bar the standard 15 hours). For us this meant I took a backseat earning, to reduce our overall tax liability. Sadly the UK is penalising those who have worked hard to achieve good grades, have large uni loans and now find families unaffordable, even in top professions. Whilst a huge proportion of society loafs around on Universal Credit, having the gall to tell other well-paid individuals to move house. If we want Scandinavian-style public services, all of us will have to pay, or we will see a continued brain drain of important and valuable professionals trickling out of the UK.

This is very good advice!

https://crimerate.co.uk/london/richmond-upon-thames

Richmond is a lovely leafy suburb and has a lower crime rate than the UK national average. By contrast I visited Hastings recently, I’ve never seen so much poverty/obvious drug problems in such a short space of time.

Have you heard of Dave Ramsey? You might find it helpful to listen to his podcast and go through his financial university course. It’s very basic common sense advice that might help. If you listen to the podcast there are so many people on there who have gotten through and paid off huge amounts of debt and got out of tricky financial situations so you may find that encouraging.

Some advice he would give is stop all pension and saving contributions until all debts like credit cards and car loans etc are paid off. If you have a car at the sell it and downgrade etc.

They also really encourage budgeting and tracking every penny of spend to stay accountable.

We were in NY over the summer, not sure what happened to their zero tolerance policing which worked so brilliantly.

I don’t mind you calling me small minded as I am aware of my own breadth of travel, experience and knowledge. I have lived extensively overseas. I would say London as always is a story of two worlds. I agree with you about the brain drain, it is a real concern. Achievement, accomplishment and ambition needs to pay. And yes it is galling. Our medic friends are going to UAE for 5 years to avoid these issues.

We are (well) past the nursery years now, but there was no way DS1 went to nursery while I was on maternity. Can you reduce, or remove, the nursery bill for the remainder of your time at home. It allowed us to save enough to stomach the year of double nursery fees before the oldest started school.

The nursery years ARE tough. If you can find a way to keep afloat through them, life becomes cheaper for a chunk of time.

As an alternate to taking your older child out of nursery you could also consider a very short maternity leave and go back to work much earlier. We had a FT nanny which was not financially feasible on statutory mat leave [2nd time around] so I went back to work PT at 16 weeks. A nanny in your own home is obviously a different prospect than giving such a small baby to a nursery but going back to work earlier is a choice you could consider.
I'd also calculate the cost of two kids in nursery in due course given both your working hours. If might not be any cheaper to have a live in nanny but it might be considerably less stressful in terms of logistics and other add on benefits. Coming home to children who've had dinner and a bath already is a game changer rather than spending £4k a month and then working through the witching hour after a 12 hour day on your feet. You won't feel any richer but you may have marginally more headspace.