To think UK jobs are on the whole badly paid and IDK how a lot of people are managing

[AnonymousBleep]

I know there are some industries/roles where the money is good, ie tech and finance, but roles in the civil service, public sector, marketing and creative industries are absolutely woeful. I was thinking about moving (as haven't had a payrise in three years) but there are hardly any jobs in my sector worth applying for, and I can see from Linkedin that they've all had hundreds of applicants anyway. The average salary is abour £30K but that'll be bumped up by including London salaries - which actually don't go far as London is insanely expensive. £30K (roughly £2K a month after tax) doesn't go far at all either in the rest of the South East - especially as the cost of living is still continuing to soar. Everything is expensive - went into Superdrug yesterday to get some toiletries for my teens and was shocked at how expensive cleansers etc are now (just as a random example), and food seems to go up every week. How are people managing?

Am I wrong? Maybe Mumsnet has given me a weird lens on this as there seem to be a lot of very well paid people on here!

Perhaps that's the point a few other posters have made that some people ARE feeling it less if their housing cost haven't gone up as much? So there may be other increased costs, but they'r enot as noticeable. Certainly, we were coping quite well with the increased costs with relatively small amounts of cut backs, until the mortgage went up as well. that was the point at which we really found that we had to tighten belts significantly.

Clearly I need more caffeine today.

This is my position too. I am on what many would consider a reasonable salary (45K, which I top up with freelance work). But I still have to think about every penny I spend. I love eating out but that's expensive so we don't go anywhere fancy or very often, love clothes - get everything off Vinted and don't buy new, I don't go out much or spend loads on socialising, and I have to save carefully for holidays for me and the kids (that's what I use my freelance money for). I pay into a private pension as well as my work one, and have done for years, and that's really all I can afford in terms of savings. I feel like I am irresponsible with money because, try as I might to be frugal, I spend all my wages every month! There's always something I need to do - fix the car, fix the roof (some of it fell down in the storm), fix the boiler etc etc. There's loads I'd like to do to improve the house but simply can't afford. Honestly, I don't know how people do it!

The stuff that is used to measure inflation - which was always said to be flat before Covid - doesn't include housing, energy or travel so in fact loads of things have been getting significantly more expensive for years ahead of the cost-of-living crisis, while wages have stagnated. In my sector, they've been the same since the late 90s.

The high street has been struggling - even with online sales. Lots of the big retailers making 'economies' and there will be job losses this year. I think people are cutting back on spending. Takeaways, nail salons, tattoos and gyms are probably the main things people DO spend money on!

The majority of the population aren't facing those jumps, is a big part of the reason. It's only private renters and those who have remortgaged and/or bought their first property recently. Of course there are knock on effects we all feel, but speaking as someone who took a 7 year fix in 2021, it makes a huge difference when your mortgage doesn't reflect rate rises.

Also snapshots of people's spending behaviour can be deceptive. Sometimes, people who are consuming might still be belt tightening while they do it. People who are out and about can still be choosing cheaper options.

We earn a LOT (over £200k pre tax) but our mortgage, childcare fees are very high indeed and we pay for private therapy for a SEN child. We’d never dream of a skiing holiday or a week in Greece etc as £5k+ is too much for us to burn on one trip. Things like paying to go to the zoo, or coffee ought also don’t happen, but that’s not our idea of fun anyway. We drive an ancient Seat and also never buy clothes. We’re pretty satisfied though. You’d have thought earning what we do we’d have a nice lifestyle, but it’s not what you earn as much as what assets you have inherited and whether you have a SEN child or need to rely on full time private childcare. Lots of inherited wealth around us, and that’s not taxed nearly as heavily as earned income so our neighbours earning less than us are much richer.

It’s not a case of blaming them. It’s a case of blaming our braindead, corrupt, incompetent establishment government.

This.

Someone has got to be benefitting in the difference between the high costs being charged and the low wages that are paid to those doing the work to provide that service.

I used to live on a street with a mix of housing association and private properties.

The tenants who had been there 30 years were paying about £400.

To rent one from a private landlord was about £4,000.

To buy one, you were looking at about £1m.

Now what was quite nice was that this meant quite a mix of people - but those who had been there longest were often single occupiers who had working class occupations, on these very low rents. Then there was the ‘newer’ tenants / buyers who were senior professionals raising families in them and shelling out many thousand a month to be there.

These kinds of extremes seem quite common between generations in London!

I'm interested in people saying childcare costs are high. I was under the impression you now get 15 hours free if you work for kids from 9 months of age and get 30 hours from aged three. I know you may have pay some top up but when my kids were young we only got 15 hours free and it was from aged three so surely you are better off now than a few years ago regarding childcare costs.

Mine are school aged, but I think it's because the 'free' hours aren't actually free because the government doesn't pay enough to cover the actual costs, and not everywhere offers them anyway.

There's also the issue of wraparound and holiday care for DC who are too old for the free hours. That's dearer than it was.

a) 15 hours from 9 months doesn’t start till September. It’s currently 15 hours from age 2.

b) it’s often nowhere near 15 hours. So at one local nursery the standard fee is £2,300 but £1,970 after 15 hours are applied. So only 15% of the cost.

c) the costs have all gone up like crazy to cover the shortfall the funding leaves plus higher employment costs.

d) Not all nurseries are offering the additional 15 hours.

There's definitely some crazy extremes out there my friend who's house has three stories and three bedrooms and rents from housing association was moaning her rent went up to 600 pound. I got out my phone and showed her how much a similar house would cost on Rightmove in this area (not even anywhere near London) yeah 1600 a whole grand more. She never moaned since 😂

Yes, and also I think that a lot of the time the additional costs have gone up. I know that what we paid for DS in private nursery 2 days a week seems to be a lot less than what people are paying for the same now, even if they are able to benefit from some of the free hours.

I'd also argue that without those free hours, childcare was just completely and totally exorbitant so I hope that some people really are benefiting! It is tricky though as a lot of the time those hours are term time only, school hours only, which makes working really difficult. DS' BF's mum had this problem - she could get the free hours which was great, but she had to still pick up at 3pm and find holiday care and it was a nightmare for her.

It's rough, isn't it? I work in marketing and will be be lucky to ever make more than £35k, and my job is so stressful and demanding. I also have a Master's degree. I often wonder how I ended up here. There are few jobs available in my region and most salaries are around £25k. It's awful.

Just leaving this here.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5198602-national-minimum-wage-increase

Nurseries (rightly, funding is a pittance) just put up their hourly prices for the hours over and above the funded ones. So the difference for many who got funding at 2 instead of 3 is minimal. It worked out well for someone like me who only worked 21 hours a week when DS was 3 to 4 but full timers were stung.

As for the rest - it's the housing costs that are the killer. And I don't understand people like a PP's coworker who comment their mortgage is £400 a month so why is someone else paying £1000pcm. It's not rent. Everyone has a different loan amount and term as well as interest rate. I could pay £400 a month if I only had £65k left over 25 years at 5.3%.

National Minimum Wage going up may cause issues for employers, but £24K is a pittance to actually try and live on. So there's a massive problem when full-time work simply isn't paying a liveable salary. Of COURSE working 40 hours a week should give you enough to live on. The problem is that large companies prioritise profits and shareholders and 'delivering' for them, and smaller companies can't afford to pay staff that because of competition from all the multi-nationals. Hard to see how this can be resolved.

Capitalism failed in 2008.

Since then, perhaps even before, most countries are insolvent. If you knew of a business that could only pay its running costs by endless borrowing, you would say it was bankrupt and should be closed down. Well, that's what has happened to most Western Countries. Unsustainable debt, falling tax revenues and a stagnant or contracting economy

I think there are only two options.

Worldwide write off of all national debt. This can only work if EVERY country, literally EVERY one, were in unanimous agreement. Followed by global refinancing. The public would have to accept that the write off ONLY applies to nation debt, not personal. This would allow broke countries like the UK to invest billions on capital projects, invest in business, provide funding for

Another solution could be the establishment of a new currency, not underpinned by debt.

How you could do either is beyond me.

We had 14 years of a Tory government supressing living standards for ordinary people whilst increasing the wealth of the 1%. That is why things feel so painful for the rest of us

Rent
Childcare

Hugely expensive and keep a check on what people can spend in the wider economy.

As well as shareholders, so many companies are owned by private equity now, profit is maximised while costs including salaries driven down. And lots of retail businesses have high rents which drive their prices up while the corporate landlords make big profits.
Assets and non-earned wealth are taxed much less than income but any attempt at even minor changes to this results in an outcry from the wealthy including media owners.

America has higher salaries but it is by no means a perfect place to live! The following reasons:

• they get barely any time off work
• aggressive/over competitive work expectations
• crap maternity and paternity provisions
• poor public transport/over reliance on cars
• reliance on private insurance for healthcare. You can pay a 5 grand co-pay to have a baby.
• huge health issues - obesity, drug epidemic.
• lack of access to abortions
• guns & gun crime

- issues with wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes

• they have donald trump as president

Countries like Australia are also incredibly expensive. DSil emigrated there and has a highly paid job & has the same trouble affording housing as she had in London. Food there is more expensive.

Are taxes THAT much higher here though…I feel like it’s much of a muchness when you consider we don’t pay council tax or water rates.

My DC’s former childminder rented a 3 bed house via the council and paid a few hundred pounds a month. The privately rented houses on either side of her were £1900 - £2500 PCM. She also complained about her rent despite the fact it was minuscule compared to her neighbours and the fact the council took a while to upgrade her kitchen😂 This was in London.

Tbh I never really worked out how she qualified for council housing but I don’t k know how it works. She owned a holiday home abroad and her DH worked full time (for the council!).