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.

Meanwhile on planet Earth, most people would agree a household income of 5x the minimum wage is actually quite a lot. I don’t see how this helps the OP. They’re managing their money badly and just validating them feeling hard done by isn’t going to help anyone.

Me too OP. Everytime I get a raise or change jobs, the world goes crazy and my money goes nowhere! Full time, good job, yet have to watch what I spend and it does not get us any treat. Nothing. It is frustrating. I count ourselves lucky, we can afford roof, clothes and food. But that is quite it, to be honest.

Sounds tough @Justonemorecurlywurly

From what you have shared, your wage is unreliable and a relatively small contribution to the family pot, however, sounds like you do a lot of the child care.

How old are your DC? Do you need to be around at certain times of the day? Would you be able to increase your hours?

Could maximizing your household earning potential be an option? We prioritized my DH's career, he got promotions/ changed companies, he now earns a lot. I was part time for about 3 years, then went back to full time. It was hard but our financial position 10 years ago sounded similar to yours and now, financially, we are more comfortable.

You won’t need as much when you retire though - your outgoings will be a fraction of what they are now once your mortgage is paid off and the kids have left home.

Your mortgage is such a big chunk of salary.

Mine is similar but it's a lot cheaper than rent....

Your household income is in the highest 10% of the country.

How have you worked that out @Wonderwoman333?

Yanbu but this is Mumsnet, where a household income of 6 figures = eleventy squillion pounds.

And people think it's normal to have £500 or less mortgages.

This is ridiculous OP. You are just really bad with money.

A few years ago our income was half yours and we had a better quality of life than you do. And a mortgage only £650 a month less than yours. And we had two kids and ran two cars.

You are wasting an awful lot of money somewhere.

Everything is definitely more expensive now, but i agree with others that it's worth going through every single transaction and see what you're actually spending it on. Similar to calorie counting, lots of people are surprised to see how the small amounts add up, and what direct debits are still coming out even though you don't really need them anymore. Going by the sums whilst you won't be swimming in money there should be a bit more in the tank than you're getting.

Whichever way its perceived, it doesn't change the fact that the household income is at least £6k pm and bills are around £2.5k, leaving at least £3.5k for food, transport and everything else, so the OPs assertion that they can't afford anything beyond the basics doesn't add up.

Do you have access to all money? Is it all transparent? Is there a chance DH gambles?

Yes, this really doesn’t make sense.

You need to be brutally honest with where your money is going OP. There’s around £3k a month here that you seem unaware of how you are spending it.

Why can't you work more? That is surely the obvious answer?

I kinda feel like your husband has taken the strain here. You're also depending on him to fund your retirement because you have nothing to contribute there either.

You really need to have a budget, income vs expenditure to understand where it's all going and if you can make cut backs.
For context we earn similar, we take home just shy of 7k per month, all our outgoings including, mortage, childcare, food, fuel, bills, everything comes to 4.2k, we have enough left for savings, days out, kid activities. We have 1 big foreign holiday or 2 smaller foreign holidays per year, we are comfortable. I think you need to revisit your finances.

OP has answered this.

Oh yes apologies.

This!

Why are people playing along with this fairy tale that a family with £120k income are always skint, can’t afford a week’s caravan in Barmouth once a year and only go out once a year? You are all mad! Do you think families with a joint income of £60k all die from lack of food and heating?

This poster is either a troll laughing at how far they can dupe credulous MNetters who enjoy pretending their top ten percent high earning households are the ones struggling in modern Britain, or her husband is blowing their money on cocaine and prostitutes.

These comments are so irritating

You are essentially living on one salary. I do think in the south now that is very difficult to do. You will be worse off than a family with two people earning 50-60k as your husband will pay a lot of tax.

Even so, your budget doesn't really add up. Are you paying for cars on leases? Longer term you'd be better off trying to save up and buy a second hand car outright and keep it for longer, instead of constantly replacing new leased cars every 3 or 4 years.

Do you have debt repayments?

We need a full break down OP.

We’re skint and have joint household earnings of 90k, so I’m not in the ‘anyone who earns over 50k is rich’ category, but we also have childcare costs.

Also - start your own pension or you are actually f*cked if anything happens with your DH.

Do you have anything like car payments? What are you driving?

We earn between us slightly less than you. If i didn't watch the bank/budget consistently I could see that we would always be over spending. We don't have any car payments or childcare. I know it must be tough for everyone at the moment.

If you earn over £72k pa you’re in top 10%

Also op, do either of you spend on personal care? I had a friend who could have written this thread - in fact a lot of what their money was going on was her getting her hair done every 8 weeks, nails regularly, eyebrows, the works, plus pricey gym memberships.

I think a lot of people can't handle the maths of inflation and what it does to the relative spending power of a salary. The median salary in London is 48k now. That's the median.... so as many people earn more as earn less - bear in mind within that are loads of low paid retail workers and younger workers who are just starting out. If you stripped all those living wage workers the median is probably much higher. If you're 40 or so and in the south east, a lot of households will have two earners, often one on 100k plus AND another on 50-60k. A head of department in a london secondary can be on almost 60k now.