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.

Agreed. There's something they are spending money on that she knows will be instantly obvious to those on this thread as the reason £1500-£2000 is seemingly disappearing on the regular.

I suspect it's 'lifestyle creep'. People think that with a salary over £100k they 'ought' to be able to afford certain status symbols - things like gym memberships, cars on expensive monthly lease deals, regular hair cut/colours at upwards of £100 a time, expensive hobbies for the kids, pricey renovations with high end furnishing choices, more expensive clothes, regular meals out. Holidays.

The reality is that while £100k is decent it's not worth what it was, and while some of the treats above will be affordable, they won't all be. The reality is most people making financially sensible choices are always making small invisible sacrifices eg yes they drive the posh car but they keep their furniture for years and don't redecorate with trends. Or maybe they like to immaculately turned out in nice clothes with regularly styled hair but to afford it the kids only do cheaper activities like scouts/brownies rather than horseriding and ballet lessons.

The people struggling are usually the people trying to have all of it.

But she didn’t ask for advice, she just wanted to moan because what would have typically been an extravagant salary is now barely providing a standard of living that you’d expect from earning that much money.

I think anyone on here who earns less would agree that if they got a pay rise to these kinds of salaries they’d expect to be able to run the nice cars, have a detached house and have expensive hobbies for their kids plus a holiday. But the reality is that it just doesn’t cover all those things anymore and it’s okay for the op to be pissed about that.

Even with the bills you mentioned and high mortgage payment - dh take horn and your £700 your wage a month means you still have Around £2k a month unspent

that’s the figure no one of us can work out why you at struggling /not saving /having a holiday

thats £24k a year. Where does it go @Justonemorecurlywurly

not being goady etx op - I truly don’t get where the money is going and seems neither do you

House renovations are always a money pit. Most people underestimate the costs and inevitably, you always want the nicer and more expensive options. Unfortunately, these overspends tend to be in the thousands.

But she didn’t ask for advice, she just wanted to moan because what would have typically been an extravagant salary is now barely providing a standard of living that you’d expect from earning that much money.

That’s because OP and her husband are a bit shit with money. Having £1.5 - £2K disposable every month helps to provide a decent standard of living, yet OP doesn’t seem to know where this is going, or does know and doesn’t want to tell us.

This. Absolutely 100% this. It’s even closer when you factor in no child benefit / help with childcare etc etc. Government have us all squabbling over who is rich when actually real wages have fallen considerably for most of us. I earn more than you OP and can totally relate to what you are saying.

OP I totally I get you! We got so sick of it that we did something quite drastic. We sold our big 4 bed house with a huge mortgage and house debt and purchased a 3 bed ugly terrace house in a different location! We did this 5 years ago before the mortgage rates were hiked up. We paid off all our debts and are now mortgage free in our mid 30s. The sacrifice has been that our house is a LOT smaller and we had to rebuild our lives in a new location but we have made it a nice cosy home for us all (3 kids - DH has added an extra bedroom) and we have a big garden for them. It’s not the picture perfect detached home but it’s completely ours and the freedom that we feel far outweighs that kurb appeal/keeping up with the Jones feeling. We can now afford 2 hols per year, can save for a rainy day and enjoy the meals out without guilt. I feel very fortunate that we took that leap and it worked out for us. Would you consider doing something a bit different to the norm?

Maybe you need to do a full budget reset because by the numbers you've given in this thread on the lower estimate of £110k take home you should have around £3000 left every month after your main bills. I'd be so curious to look at your statement and budget.
We live very comfortably on less than a third of what you have, even go abroad every year.

Our household income isn't far off that and I feel very fortunate. We've always lived modestly and got lucky with promotions and payrises in a short space of time, so I feel rich most of the time on that income!

We live in a cheap house so our mortgage is less than half of yours, we drive two "bangers" owned outright and our gas/electric/water bills are about £170 combined, council tax about £180. Our children do cheap activities (football/rugby/brownies) and we don't ever go out for food. We do supermarket type takeaways and maybe one meal on our anniversary. We save anything we can for holidays.

No point asking - the OP won't be back, certainly not with details of their budget. They are spending willy-nilly and they know it.

Government have us all squabbling over who is rich when actually real wages have fallen considerably for most of us

Two decades ago we'd be in the m/c area with big house with DH job - we're in ex council house - and it's great but not the same . Generation below starting to get same jobs struggling to get any house.

Yet I keep reading in press house Bank of England worried about wage inflaction especially with no/limited worker productivity increases. At same time DH work place is doing what many have been doing last few years getting rid of staff and expecting same amount of work from rest - and while our parents got overtime pay in their work neither DH nor I have in it's just expected. Also read our high energy prices could be reason productivity remains so low.

Also keep reading they may switch to taxing assets - so that could be another bill as we manged though huge scarifice to actually buy a house.

I do also agree with previous poster it's likely lifestyle creep - the income doesn't give the lifestyle wanted so like most others in UK it's a case of priotising what's important. It's been a steady creep this way but it's where we are.

We have a similar income and sized mortgage and have 1 child in private school, put over £1000 in savings per month and have a couple of holidays a year, a week somewhere European and 1 trip to see family in the uk. We aren’t massively frugal with food etc and so something has got to be making a huge dent in your income that you aren’t mentioning? I genuinely feel well off. I grew up with the much less though.

I'm absolutely with you, OP. Our household is in the same income bracket and I'm having similar thoughts. I don't consider myself struggling at all and I don't need help budgeting, but if someone told me 5 years ago that we'd be on this income and not living a life in luxury I wouldn't have believed them. Between having bought our first house in Surrey 5 years ago (325k, cheap for the area for a 3 bed) and having a now 2-year old with 3 days of nursery fees I feel like our lifestyle is way worse than it was in the past at lower incomes. We do go abroad about once a year because my family is there so it's a priority and beyond that we don't really do any holidays. It's not about money management but about how the economic climate has really changed drastically and it sucks for everyone. I seriously feel for anyone in lower brackets with high living costs and childcare fees because it must be so so hard. It shouldn't take a high income to live what in the past was a pretty normal lifestyle. I have a friend in London who can no longer afford to rent at all despite full time work and is looking for opportunities to house or pet sit to solve it!

We're a family of 4 in West London.
I've been signed off sick for almost 15 months. I left a job Jan 27th 2024 due to ill mental and physical health. Last year was a hideous one.
My DP earns a little over £2300 a month.
Most of the bills come out of his account.
He gives me £600. That is pretty much our monthly food shop but I still need to take care of that money as best I can.
He thinks I should be able to still have some of it 2-3 weeks later.
I get approx £130 UC monthly.
£170 child ben.

We just about manage. We have to.
We accept help from our parents of we need to i.e if an unexpected bill pops up.

We rarely eat out.
My DP and I haven't been out on a date for years.

I'm feeling well enough now to work part time but I can't do just any job and going head on into full time work is a massive step and could affect my health in a short space of time. I can't have that.

For years I have done an annual income, expenses list (since 1989) every January. Over the years I always seem to miss out a lot of expenses so have decided the only figure that really counts is if there are any savings left after tax at end of year - comparing year before to the latest one.

Would 2 full time workers on minimum wage actually get UC? Seems unlikely tbh.

Maybe not, but so what? They'd still get child benefit and tax-free childcare, and in any event a household income of £48k. So my point still stands that a household income £100k is less than double that in take-home terms (because of higher rate tax). A decent enough salary of course (and the OP's family shouldn't be struggling!) but not the untold riches many posters here would claim. That's all I'm trying to say.

They'd qualify for £896.50 of UC per month.

That's based upon two people working 35 hours per week for minimum wage, with two kids aged 10 & 8 and £1200 per month of rent.

That's the equivalent of earning an extra £18k on PAYE as a 40% taxpayer.

The take-home pay for minimum wage is £19,520.

So household income is:

£19,520 x2 = £39,040.
UC + child benefit = £13,010

Take-home = £52,050.

That compares quite favourably with the OP's situation.

Her husband has a take-home of £68,557 from his £100k wage.

The OP earns so little, that she probably doesn't pay tax.

So... The OP's family only has a take-home income that's around 50% higher than two people earning minimum wage.

Can all the people who are bashing the OP see what the problem is now?

I forgot to add the screenshots.

My living situation more closely resembles the OPs than your example. My husband is the main earner, I am trying to be self employed but making very little money while I have caring responsibilities. We have a mortgage, not renting.

We get one minimum wage, UC and CB combined are an extra £375 a month. So our take home is about £27,000.

We aren't entitled to free prescriptions, dental or anything like that. We don't use childcare, we get no other discounts or help.

Not so close when you compare like for like.

Have you looked at your tax allowances?
DH and I earn a joint of about 95k - him 55k full time and me 40k part time as we have primary age children.
Our mortgage is similar to yours at about 250k, counciltax £350 a month, car repayments about 350 a month, car insurance 650 a year, all bills look similar, we probably spend more than you on food as due to have 2 coeliac and 1 dairy intolerant in our house, we struggle to shop in budget supermarkets as they have limited free from food.

But - we will have around 4 holidays this year - 1 summer holidays and few mini breaks. We eat out with friends, an odd take away. We pay for after school clubs, variety of extracurriculars such as dance and swimming lessons. Our bills look similar, our total gross income is lower, but I'm wondering if our net income is higher - between DH and I, our net income after tax and pension is about 5k per month. I presume your DH pays a lot of tax, so his net income doesn't really reflect his salary? Things are definitely tighter/more expensive than a few years ago, but I think your main issue is the salary imbalance. 2 of you each earning 50-60k would likely leave you better off than 1 earning 100k and 1 earning 20k

Try writing out all of your monthly expenditure, and see where most of this is going. Bills go up every year and it is easy to be paying double what you did last year. You might need to change some providers and go on new rates/make changes.
Earning higher salaries also means paying more tax, so in the end you’re not necessarily off much better.
my advice would be to have a joint account for bills and monthly outgoings, a percentage to be transferred to a savings account by standing order, and whatever is left is up to you and DH to spend.

Oh so not 2 people on minimum wage then Take away the rent and kids and what do the couple actually get? I looked at the online calculator for it and it said a big fat zero.

It’s not comparable this this family then, is it?

Can all the people who are bashing the OP see what the problem is now

The OP has a mortgage and pays little in childcare, so would get little/no help whatever they earned.

But that's irrelevant either way as the OPs problem is that they have at least £2k pm after bills, food, travel etc, unaccounted for, which doesn't stack up with 'can't afford to save, go on holiday or buy/do anything nice and even something like a single family meal out or modest emergency wipes us out for that month'.