To be fed up of being on a good income but always skint?

[Justonemorecurlywurly]

I know I’m going to get flamed, lots of “boo-hoo, poor you”, and that there are people far worse off but -

Our household income (family of 4) is roughly £110-120k. DH earns about £100k of that, I’m self employed and part time so my income fluctuates. I think that’s pretty good money but it feels like we can never afford to do anything.

No holiday for 2 years.
1 car
Very few clothes
Modest house

If after paying bills, we ever buy something non-essential like a meal out, or maybe one or two items of new clothes, birthday present, that’s it, we’re out of money for the month. And we have no savings. It’s ridiculous!

We did try to move a few years back but couldn’t afford it so remortgaged instead to extend the house a little. We got the best deal we could and borrowed only as much as we were comfortable with (even though it meant we couldn’t do as much work as we needed). But unfortunately we made a mistake fixing the new mortgage for only two years and when that time was up, rates had shot to which has made our repayments considerably more expensive which really hasn’t helped.

I’m so fed up of it. I honestly feel like we felt so much better off about 10 years ago when we were earning A LOT less.

Does anyone else feel like this? Is it just that everything is so expensive now??

I know some people will say I should work full time but for reasons I won’t go into, I need to be available for my DC so me being p/t works much better for the whole family.

Not in the South east. £24k quite a reasonable sum for prep school now. Many (and most secondaries) are closer to £30k.

They might be paying them for a decade or so, all simultaneously.

Private education has gotten reeeeally expensive.

I pay £975 rent a month and feel badly done to, depends on area. It shot up by £75 a month last year which has been the largest increase in 5 years

You need to sit down and work out where the money is going - we are on a fraction of your family income. I have to plan meals to keep within a budget. We use blankets wherever possible rather than using the heating. We very rarely eat out or have a takeaway. We have second hand furniture and only have clothes we really need (often second hand). The kids get birthday and Christmas presents but me and my husband just keep something we had to buy that was essential and pretend it is our present so the kids think we have something. We still manage to save enough money to go camping for a couple of nights each year (admittedly, we are lucky that we have camping equipment and can do this). Even if you are in a more expensive area, there are things you can do to keep the cost of things down.
Work out a budget and stick to it based on what you have.

My mortgage is £498 a month - it was £337 when fixed.

I live in a 3 bed semi in a good area in Lincolnshire. Bought the house 12 years ago and deliberately didn't max the budget - instead went to what we could afford on one salary only, and it's turned out to be an incredibly wise decision.

We earn just over £100k between us and could afford a much bigger house, but we still don't want a massive mortgage, so we've stayed put, so our mortgage/bills at under £2k a month and take multiple holidays a year (currently writing this in Japan).

Our friends have larger houses, larger mortgages, and fewer holidays - but they chose what worked for them.

Thank you- unfortunately not close enough to us to make it worthwhile with the kids (once you add a hours train journey, and again the cost of that). We do “movie nights” at home but I do admittedly struggle sometimes with how much we still scrimp every month.

Yeah I really cant stand posts like this. Family of 5, household income of around 70k, 2 kids in paid childcare. We are barely scraping by, your income should be more than enough to live on.

How old are you OP? Just concerning that you have no pension. I'm 52, self employed and pay into a SIPP. I didn't want to be in a vulnerable position and rely on DH's pension.

Well said. Me and Dp earn £32k between us a year. We have one child. We get £103 a month child benefit and nothing else. We have a mortgage so no UC. It is a myth that low pay automatically equals huge top ups.

If you’re paying 270 a month in energy, look for a better deal, that’s ridiculous unless you live in a mansion and have the heating in 24/7.

Are you on a water meter your water seems ridiculously high too! We’re a household of 3 adults and pay less than half what you’re paying.

THIS!

I'm on £50K iplus child support from my ex-husband and I never have anything left at the end of the month. By week three, I'm eking out what's left after rent, bills, pension, some money into the holiday fund, debts (separating and moving house costs a lot of money) and food/petrol costs.

There are lots of places in the UK where people pay a lot less than £900/month for their mortgage. My niece is £450/month for a 4-bed in Scotland. With such a significant range of cost of living in different areas in the UK, without facts of what the OP's incomings and outgoings are no-one can advise anything practical.

you actually need to write down everything you spend over a couple of months. everything. get receipts for everything you purchase and just put them in a plastic wallet. then go through them with a fine tooth comb. you will see where money is being spent. Try not to think about it too much as you need a normal month. But are you going in the petrol station and spending £5 extra on something? This is why you need itemised receipts.

Go through your direct debits and actually check what everything is. Nagged my husband to do his account. He had been paying mobile phone insurance for about 10 years for a phone he no longer had. He just cancelled it and heard nothing from them as they probably knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. Get rid of anything you don't use anymore.
Check your sky/virgin subscription and cancel it. They will move you to a cheaper rate.. We have Sky Stream now and it's such a little box that my husband moves it from downstairs to bedroom at night when he want to watch TV. We have a firestick as well.

Sort out mobile phone contracts. Martin Lewis did a report on it. There is a code you put in to see if you are out of contract. If you are then get a SIM only.

Change utility companies my bill is £180 for new build 3 bed home. We have one electric car and that includes charging that. We now have an EV tariff so put the dishwasher on at midnight and washing to start at 6am.

on the salary you have coming in - say £5000 a month after tax etc, it looks like you have a fair chunk after essential bills. so find out where that is going. it will probably surprise you.

However private education is a choice! Of course it’s going up it’s now subject to VAT!

Come to Scotland! My mortgage is only £270 pcm. The weathers shite tho.

Are you saying living in Scotland is living in the sticks 😂I have relatives Iving in 2 of the major cities,Glasgow & Edinburgh. In facr one couole living in Edinburgh live fairly close to JK Rowling.

They are on a total income both working of around 120,000. They have the equivalent of homes that would cost an absolute fortune in the London Area. There are loads of exemplary private schools (which their children attended) & state schools, especially if living in a good catchment. Both cities mentioned either inner city or on the better suburbs are amazing places to live,at least that's been my impression when visiting.

Is part of the issue needing holidays in school holidays? We are lucky that we can travel at any time and it makes a huge difference.

You have a lot less if one person is on 100k and another is not working, than if you had two people on 50k.
Can you get a job that pays normally?

Personally I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself where the money is going! I earn roughly half what your DH earns and after paying into a very expensive workplace pension I take home around £3300! So your DH should be taking home between 5 & 6k a month.

It’s the fact that we’ve been lied to isn’t it really. Growing up we’re told ‘get a good job, work ‘hard’ and you’ll be able to afford all the nice things in life.

Except it’s bullshit. We earn more than you Op, yes we are comfortable because we live in a cheaper area and we’ve sacrificed over the years to get rid of the mortgage.

But it’s the fact that even 20yrs ago the salaries we are on would have enabled a ridiculous lifestyle. But in reality we have a very similar lifestyle to my working class parents 35yrs ago. But marginally worse because my mum was a SAHM whereas we couldn’t afford to do that now.

It would be good to see a breakdown of OP’s expenses and what their average monthly takehome income is because it does seem surprising they can’t afford holiday or whatever.

However at the same time when you adjust for inflation 40K now is not what it was back in 2010 same as 80k or 120K. So broadly speaking it’s no surprise people feel their money isn’t going as far.

House prices are inflated and wages are criminally low here in the UK imo and benefit top ups are part of the problem.

I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, but this is the same income as me and DH (120k joint). Our housing costs are £500 less than yours but we have wrap-around childcare and some holiday childcare costs to pay. We manage to have 3-4 holidays a year plus save a decent chunk every month. We run 2 cars that are both only a couple of years old.
Your money has to be going somewhere. I'd write out a budget and share it on a site like MSE, and look closely through your bank statements and see where everything is going

Meant to quote this in my reply post further back

Even though you have a very high mortgage, your household income (with no childcare costs) should still mean you are comfortable. Your take home should be at least £6.5k (probably more but your income fluctuates) so unsure where it's going?

@pigtailsandall see quote if you want a better understanding of the lifestyles of many people who have made the move.

I don’t think you’re bragging but the thing is people aren’t always in a steady state. For example, if you’ve had a big financial shock recently like being between jobs, or building work, or a new car, that can take months to recover from, even with a high salary.

a holdiay- maybe they want a holiday they will like, not just any holiday. If op said I havent had a holiday because 2 weeks in the med in August is coming in at £10k for a family of 4 she’d face 40 pages of horrified posters telling her to go 3 star or camp and a what a spoiled brat she is. But it’s ok for OP to feel like she should be able to have that £10k Holiday. Plenty of people do, so surely you can see why someone who knows they are a high earner is a bit fed up that they can’t have WHAT THEY WANT as opposed to what MN tell them they’re allowed to afford?

it isn’t a lack of knowledge or expense tracking, it’s a surprise that so many of these higher earner staples aren’t available to her