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.

Have you thought about taking in ironing?

How about a lodger?

£98k household income. No benefits

I do agree to an extent OP , our income is around 160k . But with a mortgage of over 3k per month, over 800 going out in CMS and still having to have enough room in houses and cars for the step kids we don’t have loads of disposable income anymore. When I was younger I’d think this was ‘rich’ but it isn’t when you have a large family and the cost of things now. We do also have to watch spending a lot closer than we used to. I think everyone does because whatever your lifestyle is , it costs more now than it ever did!

Yes but then you married a man who already had children to support, had your own child, bought a house, car, etc. Choices.

"I suppose people would assume we are doing well financially because of our salaries."

You are doing well. You can afford to live with the choices you have made, some of which are quite expensive choices.

@SleeplessInWherever Ours are £3k - £1200 of that is rent (Cheshire) but the rest for the house make up another £300 maximum.

If your entire household bills reach £300 maximum then you’re in the minority I would say.
Council tax and water alone for me pushes £300 and will go up by a combined £50 next month. Plus all the other bills on top.

I actually feel quite sad for people like that. Tomorrow they could be hit by a bus or an aneurysm or a death and be a bit 'too sad to work' too. Pathetic isn't it?

The nursery and CMS are not forever OP hopefully you will feel the benefit then

At which point you'll have £1,500 disposable income per month - that's very fortunate indeed in my view. Yeah, right now you're not living it up the way a combined £90k salary household 'should', but in a few years you'll be able to access a lot more luxuries than many.

Many of us on half your household income have no such prospects.

This... yet your partner felt well enough off to start a second family.....

Its the childcare costs that are crippling- and at least they are relatively short term I guess?

Yeah that’s fair, I’ve just checked and our council tax, Sky, water and gas/electric are £329. There’s other stuff like Netflix etc but that’s luxury. So is Sky really.

But anyways - if you’re paying £1800 on a mortgage and have another £1200 in household bills on top of that, you’re either heating a mansion or you’ve got other bills.

Which to be clear, is fair enough. We cut our own cloths and make our own financial choices, but I also don’t believe you can spend all your money on choices you’ve made, and then whinge about it.

Yes but now you have four children to support and house....

Why don't you get benefits for your son if you're only on 10k?

No room for a lodger 😂

I’m in London and have about £8k a month of direct debits at the moment.

~£3k in mortgage
~£4k in childcare
~£1k in household bills inc council tax, energy, water, internet, insurances etc

Our household income looks very high but our outgoings are astronomical.

I thought we would buy a bigger house at some point but even less the childcare costs at this level, the mortgage would just be too ridiculously huge.

In terms of benefits received - just the 15 hours.

Of course you did - you presumably didn’t have children, didn’t own a property and were living in a houseshare or the like. Plus you were living off loans from the taxpayer, which require paying back.

It’s a bit crass complaining that making choices to own an expensive house and have multiple children and have other nice things is expensive. There was nothing stopping you being single, living in a house share in a cheaper area, not having children and instead having money for haircuts and holidays.

You can’t have everything.

Single parent to 3.

Salary £1350 (Monthly)
CMS £648 (Monthly)
Child Benefit £238 (4 Weekly)
Universal Credit £1610 (Monthly)

Rent is £1300

You're in the top 1% of earners in the country and it sounds like you're spending within those means - large mortgage, large family, cars for children.
People spending to the limit of their income are indeed noticing that costs have gone up.
I would argue that people earning so much should have created a big financial 'just in case' buffer so that they could absorb the rising COL costs.

55K total household income, partner disabled but not enough to qualify for benefits he’s self employed and PT plus house husbandry. Mortgage 800, food, energy, car etc same as everyone. Used to foster but they’re all grown up now, support some of them when we can (deposits, first month rent, those sorts of things). We get by but it would be great if I could get back to relative wage value of about 10 years ago before stagnation and inflation bulges.

Our mortgage increased by 1k overnight when our term ran out. We didn’t see such a huge increase coming when we moved into the house, we did have a buffer and still do so and I’m starting a higher paid job soon. We are lucky but as the OP originally said - I did think I’d ’feel Rich’ when I was younger at this point!

£160k household income with two kids is about the top 10% of households.

Kindly, I’d delete this post. Wanting a ‘better quality of life’ on 90k is ridiculous. If you want a ‘better quality of life (whatever that means) then make changes, move, smaller mortgage etc. You are better off than most people in the uk. It’s not about your QOL, it’s about your choices

We have 4, I have 2, he has 2 :)

I agree on paper it should be loads , but it doesn’t feel like loads anymore and I guess that is what the OP was about

Household about 56k plus 170 CB.

Mortgage 2100
CT 250
Car etc 200
Energy bills about 250
Food 100 - 300 depending on if we are being careful.

We really, really struggle.

Apparently I'm not allowed on legacy benefits, the DWP operative laughed at me for even asking. I rang CA for a household support grant they have all gone. They went through my benefits and no entitlement to anymore. I'm not having more than one child have a SCI I can't cope with more than one by myself. Im 44 unfortunately I couldn't wait till back at work. As have no idea if I will be able to. It 12pm already the spine migraine has started, feet are going numb.