To wonder how many of us are just permanently broke?

[daisiechains]

Not a begging thread in any way but … sigh. Salary goes in and pretty much shoots back out again leaving me with virtually nothing for the month.

YABU - no, I’m doing fine
YANBU - yep, me too!

I think the ‘basic outgoings’ of housing, energy, council tax, childcare etc seem to consume a larger and larger share of people’s income each year.

My nursery bill has gone up by £250/m.

Email from water company to say that’s going up by ~£20 a month from April.

Energy costs went up about £50/m

Mortgage will come off fixed rate next year, that increase will be huge.

And - because tax thresholds are frozen, people having student loans etc - you might have to earn double the amount of the increase to fund it.

We are far from being rich, but thankfully have enough left after bills to not have to stress about every penny (I'm naturally quite frugal from growing up in poverty so am careful and mindful with money). The price though is DH is away a lot with as work and I work full time whilst looking after DC alone during the week (as lots do i know). If he left his current job and found something office hours closer to home we'd probably still be okay financially but would definitely have to scale back.

Yanbu girl, 15 pounds to last us til next Monday and the car needs petrol 😪

Plus I forgot to get dd her breakfast sausage rolls so that's an extra 1.20, which is nothing but this week is everything

Not asking for charity! Just explaining x

I hear you OP. I earn a lot, budget obsessively, and still have no money. I have no idea how normal salary people manage. A high mortgage /big house and childcare costs wipe out our income each month.

We're not poor - but we have no spare cash.

YANBU. I have £102 to last to payday on 28th now that the monthly bills have gone out, which is irritating but fairly usual. I'm a single parent with 2 little ones. I guess it would be worse if they were older and asking for things.

Yeah, SMP soon dunno really what we are supposed to do!