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.

The OP doesn’t pay 1.5k at nursery though so it doesn’t matter if your friend did?

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

She can’t save on her £1k nursery bill by employing a full time nanny.

Are you a rock in a wig?? You’re just repeating random tidbits not relevant to what the OP has posted.

Guaranteed pension income between us is 35k PA retired but too young to claim state pension yet. DH does some freelance work as well so hard to quantify, a month a year and around 5k, guaranteed interest 5k, zero mortgage. Investments vary, last year we made just over 40k which was better than usual. Zero benefits.

90k is a good sum to support a family. ONE family. The trouble is, these days, it has to contribute to two families as many men, having left one wife and child/ren, decide they want a second family (often second wife’s first) but lo and behold the money doesn’t stretch.

I can’t help thinking that divorce and second homes and families is a big reason why decent incomes don’t feel how they ‘should’.

66k between us and then £102 a month CB.
About 4300

Rent and bills are £1225
Food shopping for 3 - around 250-300 a month
Petrol - about 180 for both cars, partner works 3.5 miles away but office based and I work hybrid about 11miles away 3x a week
Extra curricular for DD 100 a month
Car loan - both cars around 300
Gym for me - 27.50
Adhoc bills for DP.

I would say around 2000 disposable income between us.
I have just paid off my credit card so no debt ( other than car ) for me and dp has some debt however he pays it out of his 1000 disposable plus savings.

Live a comfortable life

How are people’s food shopping bills so low?! I’m feeding me, DP and DD. I cook from scratch and don’t use jarred sauces etc. I do buy organic fruit and veg, and free range meat etc but it’s not THAT much more expensive. Yet people here are spending £300 a month – that does us a fortnight, if that!

Don't know why you're getting a hard time OP. Housing costs are outrageous, that's why a 90k household salary feels tight. Plus childcare for a few years and I can totally see why you don't feel flush.

Agreed but it’d be unusual for one to out earn both of us unless they had their own business.

incorrect. There is no legal limit on the number of children a nanny can look after.

Most of them do have their own businesses. We employed a young plumber recently, he's doing very nicely on what he was charging I can assure you. To my mind there's no point (from an earnings point of view) in going to uni unless you are heading for a well paid career like finance or tech.

Incorrect. If it’s one family still a nanny and no legal limit on the number.

Ours is about £150k per annum - all from wages. 2 adults and 1DC late teens (who’s working but we still financially support them).

We overpay the mortgage aiming to get rid of it quickly but manage to save about £1k per month as well.

Nursery years are the hard ones op - make sure you have a plan to put that money to good use (eg pensions or overpaying the mortgage) as it’s easy to just spend it and increase your standard of living.

The post wasn’t about one family. I said if the nanny was minding all 9 children, who were across 3 families it wouldn’t be a legal nanny set up.

I agree with you. Splitting up is often bad for the children and it’s bad for both of the adults - usually the mum has her career impacted and usually the dad has none of the governmental help but still has to house the children and pay for things over CMS. When you consider everything, DH’s children probably cost us well over £1500 a month and we have zero financial support from the government for them.

Anyone who goes into a relationship with someone who has children should have their eyes fully open. Even if someone seems fully solvent, you can’t predict the future and children are a huge and permanent expense.

FWIW DH’s wife left him and had more children before we did, but I get your gist.

My income is £800 each month from UC. I am not coping and it sounds like I will be expected to cope on even less.

90 k is double the average household income ... Mumsnet are living on a distant , separate planet ( somewhere in Chelsea or South West London ) ... And mostly working in finance and top-end law - This thread has become ridiculous and uttery depressing

What rock do you live under? If you have two kids and earn 100 001 -125 k you are better off working less, or tipppng it into a pension, and most mums want to see their kids…and the jobs where you earn that are not 9-5pm!

if you are in receipt of means tested benefits and get your rent paid - you are best to stay not working.

if you have a little private pension and are just over the threshold - you lose out on a whole host of benefits.

there are many situations where it doesn’t pay to work.

its very different when you are a very high earner, as I am, as I tip into being able to afford all the care and medical bills that I need to, where the thresholds are not going to affect me at all.

Joint income of about 75k pre tax, no benefits other than CB at 100.
bills and mortgage total about £2000 per month, groceries about £500-£600.
hair, nails, luxuries etc probably another £100 per month. Teenager driving lessons and private meds around £250, sports £100.
dog Walker and cleaner another £150 ish
all of our remaining surplus goes on debt repayments from work done to the house. When that’s paid off we will feel much better off, but at the moment it’s just a slog.
on paper looks like we should be well off but the reality feels very different. And yes we could get rid of the cleaner dog Walker and other luxuries but we don’t go out and I work 6 days a week, so…

Single just over 25k says it all really

my dear 1942 , 100 k is not a
"high earner " ... it's a bloody oligarch standard of living ... Why are people so de-politicised , dim and unaware of basic facts , cut off from society and community ?????????? ... Are we living in Russia that people are so disconected and unable to think for themselves due to brainwashing ?
e.g 6% of pupils are privately educated , and only 10% of taxpayers are in the Upper Tax Bracket ( ie earning over £60 000)

Income 98k plus some child benefit for 1.
Disparity between us in earnings means take-home is a lot lower than 2 people on 49k each
Mortgage 1500 (tiny house, bought late in life)
Bills and insurances around 1k
Food around 800

We feel fairly comfortable, as our income used to be a lot lower.
1 short haul holiday a year, run a car, go to theatre/concerts a few times a year.
Would have expected a more lavish lifestyle with our income though, and be able to save a lot more than we do, and I really wish I could justify a cleaner.

100 k is no where near oligarch, not if you live in London and have kids….. its £2600 for day care a mth where I live…..that is before mortgage, bills, food, travel…..

of course 100k is a lot in other parts of the country where day care and housing is not as expensive.

its the people earning that are paying most of the tax - but not benefitting from it! Of course there are some benefits….but you lose what you need…..

its the consequence of a low income high tax country.

You don’t have much money because you have two sets of children to fund. People that have second families can’t really complain. Maybe he should have just focused on being a good father and financially supporting his first children.

I really REALLY don’t think 100k is anywhere close to oligarch standards of living 😂 you’d have to add a few more ‘0s’

Very , very few people earn £100 000 ... this is fantasy land , and the people on numpsnet complaining they are poor should be ashamed of their stupidity , ignorance and Marie-Antoinette arrogance . . . .. £100 000 makes one EXTREMELY wealthy , even in London :

" .... Nine in 10 Britons earning £100,000 or more a year before deductions do not view themselves as wealthy, despite being in the top 4 per cent of earners, new data claims."

thisismoney.co.uk : . . .How much money makes you wealthy? Only one in 10 earning £100k-plus a year think they're well-off !