What is your household income, how much is benefits, and how are you coping?

[Gabrilla]

Genuinely curious after so many threads on here about benefit changes. Please feel free to name change!

I’ll start:

Salaries for both of us total 90k. Only benefits are £102 month child benefit, though we also get tax-free childcare and 15hrs free at nursery.

Total income is about 6k a month, mortgage and bills 3k, nursery 1k, commuting costs £500, groceries cost £500, husband pays CMS and other bits to his children totalling about £500 leaving us about £500 for everything else.

Feels like we’re constantly penny-pinching.

It’s certainly not a cautionary tale about cost of living.

I’d expect a skilled trades person to be on £60-70k at least. Not that they’d necessarily be declaring that to HMRC!

Hi 👋

They have 9 children between them, it’s cheaper with an above board nanny than a nursery.

Exactly. The houses being bought on my road these days, are either London professionals (like my DH, 6 figure earner), or tradespeople. Tells you how much they must be making! Lots of snobbery around trades still, when actually they probably make more than many people coasting through with their degree.

Ha, we don’t get any either. However, our future is in the hands of us and I guess the employer. We can make choices. We are not directly dependent on the government putting money into our account each month and we don’t have to worry every time a benefit review is announced. I reckon that counts for something.

Until nursery fees were over we had zero spare funds despite good salaries.
You just have to wait it out.

So it’s not really relevant to say a nanny is cheaper than nursery on a thread where the OP has 1 child in nursery? A nanny certainly wouldn’t be cheaper than £1k a month.

If a nanny is caring for 9 children then it’s a childminder, and also not legal.
If they are separate it’s weird you would know how much 3 individual friends pay their nanny and the comparable weekly rate at nursery. Certainly a lot of information to share…

£200 every month on clothes, to go to London twice a week?!!!! Are you buying a new outfit for every day?!!! I’m sorry but you’re being ridiculous. You could spend £200 for the whole year! I’ve got friends who earn over £200k and they don’t spend that much on clothes!!

Your pension contributions would go up, childcare will be reduced when they go to school. Having a child together means you both have to sacrifice things, it shouldn’t just be your salary.

It’s possible to earn more and still be present, for both of you. We made a decision before we had children we would share things equally. We both took time off after the birth, we both have had to negotiate with work in starting early/late finishing early/late, we both spend quality time doing reading, cooking etc. My mum also went back to work later and honestly the few hours after school, between sports clubs and music clubs, aren’t the best quality times at all that I remember.

Wow you might need to look at what you spending op..where you buying food...half your budget and similar out goings and we been saving ...we own our cars out right, do free stuff at weekends, phones are on £6 a month rolling contract, normal tv nothing else...I honestly can't understand why at 90k...you overpaying pension or got a huge debt....I'm finding Tesco is cheapest at the moment with a lidl thrown in...I've no aldi near by

My 3 friends have 9 children between them and employ 3 nannies. Not a childminder! As parents often talk about how expensive childcare is and how they need to balance up working costs, they often speak about this. Not sure why you find that surprising. I also know a woman who has one child and has a part time nanny. Is that ok for you?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/156992108

This is near some of my family. It’s maybe not amazing but honestly it’s a nice enough town in the north east and easy access to
all local services, buses etc. Some parts of the country are a lot cheaper than others

How is it relevant?
OP has 1 child. She pays 1k for nursery, a nanny would quite obviously not be cheaper.

A nanny being cheaper than paying several nursery places isn’t even the same conversation.

76k combined, 1 FT and 1 PT. No childcare fees (DS is in a school pre school so no additional fees). £1400 a month mortgage in the midlands. 10 year old car not on finance. Don't take foreign holidays and UK holidays are in the cheaper school holidays (February half term). No commuting costs as both WFH so no wrap around care for eldest as I work school hours. Save for big jobs such as new ensuite and appliances. Sometimes take 0% finance agreements on smaller purchases such as new flooring. Able to still save money each month for various things. Try and get as many things such as clothing secondhand. Don't buy clothes unless needed, try and keep to a capsule wardrobe as much as possible.

We are in a very fortunate position

No... YOUR children are your luxuries. DHs children came first.
By that I mean you made a choice to have children with him despite him already having high outgoings/ responsibilities. Thats your planning/choices

Life appears to be very different for most of us, disabilities, Single parents, CM payments, caring responsibilities. But all these posts usually focus on what the OPs think they should have given income/ what were programmed to expect. The truth is no one owes it to us and it is what it is. You are with someone who has previous responsibilities and thankfully he's honoring them. Wont last forever.

It’s relevant because YOU said it was laughable to suggest a NANNY to save money on childcare. I said I have friends who employ a nanny and do save money (even when their older children have gone to school). I also said I know a woman who has one child and employs a nanny as it saves her money. That is relevant! Now take your mardy attitude elsewhere.

£5070 a month. Including £170 CB.
bills inc mortgage are £2200. We save £400 a month.
the rest we do as we please. But everything’s going up this month.

When discussing ONE child in nursery. The poster suggested OP get a nanny, which quite obviously would not cost less than £1k a month!
You clearly can’t pay a nanny under £1k for full time.

What your random friends pay isn’t relevant because you can’t employ someone for £800 for full time work.

I can’t be bothered to type out for the third time what I originally said. Your comprehension skills are shocking!

It is usually a specific mix of things that make for a high benefit award though and not just for low pay. Multiple children especially with disabilities, renting in an expensive areas etc.

Where do you get £800 from? Try £1500 per child.

This is such an ill informed opinion. No one capable of working is better off financially not doing so.

Exactly, I said you can’t employ a nanny for less than £1k a month. It would be considerably more.

I’m not the one arguing you can save money on a £1k full time nursery bill by hiring a nanny!

£1500 at nursery! I beg you to brush up on your reading skills. It’s quite embarrassing.

@Gabrilla

I know how disheartening it must feel to be in this situation where it feels like work is not being rewarded.

I genuinely think that the root cause of a lot of our financial stress is broken housing.

Housing costs are eating up so much of our income - working as well as middle class incomes. We have far less disposable income than our EU neighbours and as a result there is less consumption, the economy shrinks, new jobs are not created etc. Housing is creating a huge burden on the economy as a whole.

Only when we make housing affordable again, i.e. <25% of the median single income then can the economy actually start developing again.

This was similar situation in just before the WWI in 1913, but even then housing was more affordable as porportion of median income. It took WWII to start the council housing building trend that bought house prices down and provided affordable accomodation to most people.

We need to build more houses and the government needs to lead the way on this. Only by building more council housing, can it drive developers to compete and build more private housing to sell for cheaper. Right now developers have us in a noose and we have to pay what they want or we have no roof over our heads.

If the government can make head away into solving the housing crisis it will also solve a lot of the cost of living crisis.