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.

You still have £500.00 after bills?
That's a lot of money, our monthly float is about £280.00 & we don't live like penniless hermits.
(2 working adults & 1 7yr old child)

£8k take home between us. Only major bill is our rent which is £2k a month, would like to buy but houses prices here, SE, high and it feels less likely to happen as time goes on.

How old is your DC now?

Surely it won't be 4 years until school?

Do any free hours apply to you at any point?

DH kids aren't a luxury. Paying a premium to be close to them isn't a luxury. It's just being a decent parent.

We were in this situation @Gabrilla a few years ago. Similar joint salary, live in SE, 2 kids (not 4!). All my wage went on nursery, my husband paid mortgage, bills, food. No clothes, no holidays (unless his parents took us away), no savings. I went to work so that I could stay in work and help us to be in a better financial situation once nursery fees ended.

Now both kids are in school, our salaries have more than doubled (a privilege of our career paths), and we can afford holidays, new stuff etc. We don’t have to worry and budget about food so much. Our mortgage did increase by about £1000 when we had to remortgage recently - something that would have been totally inconceivable before but now is annoying (sorry, sounds flippant, not the right word). Things will get easier as the children get older and although life is not easy or luxurious, you are in a good position.

@Gabrilla I've never had my hair dyed in a salon . Because it's too expensive.

And yes - it's got to be a joke that with your household income you're allowed to claim child benefit. Bloody ridiculous.

I think this is a really interesting post, demonstrating a big problem that we have, namely that a large income doesn’t lead to a great lifestyle any more.

The old deal was that if you worked hard you’d be rewarded with a good life. Now you can have a household income of £90k, topped up with another couple of grand in child benefit, and because of the CoL you still have to scrabble around each month. No room to save, no money for a rainy day.

Increasingly the only way to achieve financial security is to inherit substantial wealth. Otherwise you will be scrabbling around forever. Only the highest earning few will achieve security through income/work.

And of course it will be worse for our kids, many of whom will be paying 9% additional tax forever in the form of student loan repayments.

No wonder people are losing hope or opting out.

We are on about 23k combined and struggling all of the time.
It's so depressing, I'm miserable from it. Of course we get some UC but it never stretches far enough. The whole house needs new carpets (to the point it's completely worn down to tracks) but at £500 a room it's just so unaffordable.

DH wage is around £34k. I get carer's allowance of just over £80 a week for DS (now an adult so his PIP etc goes directly to him) and earn about £6k a year doing admin from home while he's at his SEN college. We get child benefit for our youngest DD.

Our outgoings are lowish and mortgage is around £600 month (our second biggest bill is gas/electric at £300 but DS is severely physically disabled so has electric everything). We seem to manage ok day to day but don't have loads of savings and I don't have a personal pension.

A household income of £160k is not the top 1% of households.

You are wrong.

I guess it’s all relative, but I grew up in poverty with a single mother who didn’t work and relied on benefits in the 90s. Assumed with a degree and professional jobs, on 90k household income, I’d be richer than needing to buy clothes second hand, box-dying my hair, forgoing holidays and panicking about car bills like she had to

There's something in this. My parents lived on 1 income which was considerably less than mine, and despite having to support 4 people on it, they ran 2 cars, we had foreign holidays, days out, ate at restaurants regularly etc. I could only dream of that and I've a household of 1. Something has gone wrong somewhere.

No wonder people are losing hope.

Exactly

£153K combined.
We are ancient though!

I grew up in a council house with 2 siblings and a single mother, who worked part time. We were poor, real poverty not relative poverty.

I find that it’s actually made me more aware and grateful for what we have. We’re fortunate to afford to live where we do, we’re fortunate that we can put good food on the table, and we’re fortunate to be able to have surplus and unnecessary bills without ending up at £0.

£500 is a lot to have left after everything has been paid and the kids have been fed. Sounds like neither of us had that growing up.

I think we’re better off seeing that, than feeling hard done to that we don’t have more.

A ‘ better lifestyle’ ??
Mmm.. getting hair dyed and having holidays, is the stuff dreams are made of, for many I’m afraid!!

Your car is SEVEN years old. That’s not old!

Household income varies as we are both self-employed so depends how much we decide to pay ourselves in a given month - on average probably about £7k take home.

mortgage is £490
food £800-1000
cleaner £120
no kids, no benefits

Take home averages £1300. BILLS ( C TAX , Water, electricity gas) roughly 230 car insurance/petrol 300 ( use for work) Food £250.

Nothing wrong with a box dye 😊

your outgoings are too high

we have around 43000 income per year, no benefits, not much outgoings and have around 1600 per month disposable income

I feel like I very much bought into the Blair promise that going to uni and working hard would mean a better life.

Our house is a wreck which hasn’t been decorated for thirty years and I’m embarrassed to have friends round. Thought we’d have the time and money to renovate and we just haven’t, despite being here years now. Growing up my mum had a council house (still has) and it’s much better, decoratively, than ours. So whilst it’s great that we own it, we don’t have any more stability, have more worries, and actually a less pleasant house than I had as a child in poverty.

your outgoings are too high

I would love a smaller mortgage but can't help when I was born...

Min £58k Max £80k (freelance dependent)
£1200 Child Benefit
Coping OK but no abroad holidays and a truly ancient car. Once debt is cleared will be in a better position.

Not looking for sympathy, but I’d have expected a better lifestyle on 90k.

Should have thought about that before you started popping out kids and taking money from the state.

I'm poor by MN standards, but being ancient I am more comfortable than many. Income is quite low, but so are outgoings.

4 bed detached house in a nice area, mortgage free
Decent car less than 2 years old, completely paid for
Adult DD who is a student but very independent
No debt
Low energy bills as we have had solar panels for 13 years and they have paid for themselves.

Biggest monthly outgoing is council tax which is currently £264 a month, but going up next month.

household income around 95k - 2 adults only so no benefits. we’re very comfortable but frugal, not frivolous. Overpaying mortgage significantly to be mortgage free before 40. No plans for kids. Have 3 or 4 holidays a year.

At the end of the day, you've choose to marry someone with children from a previous relationship, no good complaining about it now because you haven't got a "higher quality of life" most others would of looked the other way and found someone in a similar position in life as themselves when dating, not someone who has allready got children as everyone knows that brings a massive financial burden to any relationship which the other partner like yourself just has to put up with.