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.

I sometimes think I live on a different planet to most (probably quite happily).

I life in a low cost/low income area.
Total net pay for 1 full time and 1 part time is £4300.
All bills, food, petrol etc come in at around £2000 so over 2k disposable. Morgage is £467.

We prioritise travelling and save around £900 a month for travel, 'pocket money' of around £800 a month and a few hundred in savings.

We could easily move to a better area and bigger house but would never pick that over the life we have.

Can you answer my other question abut how either or both of you can earn more?

You can't do anything about his other family but you can do something about your own careers.

Yep!

About £180,000 combined. After tax - £100,000, then private pension, NI contributions of £1500 month each as both self employed, leaves us with £5000 a month. Take out our mortgage, council tax, utilities, university support for Dc and we are left with £1500 a month. No benefits, both working 50hrs a week. It is frightening where it goes.

@LilacPeer Wow I didn’t know universal credit was so much , it’s more than your wage ?

Because he's got them 50% of the time so I assume paying for their needs when they are with him

Morgage is £467.

This is another planet.

Most youngish people I know now with mortgages pay at least £1K and sometimes double that.

Rentals where I live are over £1K for a 1 bed flat.

It’s about equal. The problem is we have managed to get our work set up so I do school/nursery drop offs and he does the collections, and most other jobs require 9-5 at least to begin with, so we’d need to pay for more childcare. He could do evening / weekend work but that’d mean seeing SC less.

When the baby is a bit older I’d like to go for promotion but for me that’d mean overnight travel and I really struggle with being apart from her (she’s 1).

Why is the OP not allowed to say she thought her spending power would be higher on her salary?

it's ridiculous

Total household gross pay - 35k.
No benefits.
I’m disabled but not entitled to PIP etc.

Wow, your mortgage is lower than mine was on a bedsit!

Yep. Ten years ago I was paying £900 in rent (which I felt was extortionate then). Now you can't rent anywhere around here for below £1500.

Mortgages aren't much less.

It's absolutely bonkers.

I know, that's why I don't move elsewhere.

We have a nice, relatively new 2 bed new build, bought for 80k, current value around 95k, it really hasn't gone up in value though over the years like other places but I'm not too fussed x

It’s about equal. The problem is we have managed to get our work set up so I do school/nursery drop offs and he does the collections, and most other jobs require 9-5 at least to begin with, so we’d need to pay for more childcare. He could do evening / weekend work but that’d mean seeing SC less.

I'm not sure about your sums here.
If he wanted to earn more- say £20Kpa more- that would easily pay for a nursery start at 8am and a later collection.

The reality is one of you has to earn more or accept the status quo until he is no longer paying CM.

I should hope not when you have the luxury of the state topping you up to complete your biology degree by £1000 a month.

esa and pip.

total about 900 a month.

ten years ago I was in an accident so I use a wheelchair and can only walk a few steps. I was a teacher and kept teaching through Covid until I wound up with a serious mental illness as a result.

now not working nor likely to again.

also divorced as ExH didn’t cope during Covid and got violent and we had to leave (me and kids) with a suitcase each while the police stopped him doing anything stupid.

used the divorce settlement to buy a cheaper house fucking miles from where I lived so I have no friends and had to make new ones.

living off esa and pip and savings. No mortgage. Bills quite high as if I get cold I have fits. One 13 year old car.

both kids now through uni and thankfully (!) due to proof of domestic violence they were able to access full student loan and additional top up funding from their unis.

at some point I will run out of savings and have to move somewhere with really cheap houses so I can live off the money that frees up.

Bloody hell where on earth can you get a 2-bed house for £80K?

We’re the same as you, OP. We bought our first house in 2022 so it was expensive and the interest is high. We’re just chugging away and sucking it up. Our aim is to start to create generational wealth. Buying a nice house was the first step.
The cost of living is very heavy right now. Make cut backs where you can and appreciate what you have for the things you can’t cut back on- for example our energy bill is £300 per month. It’s a lot, but it means our children live in a warm home, which I did not. We spend £600 a month minimum on food. It’s a lot, but our kids get home cooked, low processed healthy food every day which I did not.
I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to change the course of my children’s lives to hopefully be easier than the start I had.
That’s all we want.

90k? 🤣 Dh earns 20k (retail manager) I’m currently on maternity leave getting SMP. Bills come to around 1.5k a month, only benefits we are entitled to is child benefit (we have a 7 week old) planning on applying for UC when my maternity pay ends but not entitled to anything right now. We private rent also

Outside London.

£36k & £26k, = £4200 pcm, 104.20 CB,

Bills £1900k per month
CM £220 per month

however I do have some debts so maybe take another £300 off that so about £1800 a month to live on, responsible for 1DS

As one whose circumstances aren't too far from yours, I would agree that the housing costs are a different planet! Especially if you bought a few years back, which we did. I don't think everyone necessarily realises how expensive housing is in some areas of the UK, if you're a new-ish buyer or having to privately rent. it's very uneven.

@CoralOP I sometimes think I live on a different planet to most (probably quite happily).
Morgage is £467.

Well yeah you do live on a different planet to most young people. You’re not even getting an 80k mortgage at 467 a month these days, so the vast majority of people buying their first home are paying around 3 times that!

But also not in Essex or Hertfordshire or Kent or Surrey Or Hampshire or Sussex or most of Suffolk ?! 🤣

Not just London.

Even part of the Midlands, Yorkshire, parts of the NE won't provide a house fr that figure.