Living beyond our means.. will it ever end!

[Wharawho]

Aibu, to be completely fed up with living month to month and barely being able to pay for everything?

For context, we're a family of five... me, DH and 3DS.(7, 6 & 3)
Household income of £70k
3 bed semi- mortgaged (nearly £1k a month- this double last feb when the interest rate went up 😞)
2 cars (15yo car paid off and family car on pcp at £450p/m)
For context we need the family car to fit all 3 kids carseats in and I also require a big car for my business. I hate having finance, but we can't work without two cars or even go out as a family if we had one small car! And we definitely don't have the money to buy another outright.

Despite what I think is a reasonable household income, 1 week after being paid, almost every penny is claimed by our household bills and expenses and we spend the rest of the month penny pinching.
We're one big unexpected bill away from not being able to buy the shopping and I'm fed up of it to be honest!
We don't have big expensive holidays or eat out/ have lots of takeaways.
If anything I'd say we live quite modestly... we've lived in the same house for 6 years and still haven't be able to finish renovating it, as we don't have the money!
I haven't had my hair cut for 2 years, as I can't commit that much money to myself... I'm also in desperate need of a new pair of glasses, but I can't afford to buy a new pair ( I have to wear them all the time!)
Days out tend to be outdoor places, with a homemade picnic and maybe an ice cream for the kids!

We buy our clothes from places like Tesco and primark, rarely do me and DH get anything only when we really need something, just the kids and we pass down clothes through our boys as they grow to save on money.
The kids attend swimming lessons once a week, this is their only "luxury" or "extra thing" they do I'm all honesty, and something we prioritise, as we think it's important that they can swim! Even this I price shopped for the cheapest lessons to make sure we pay as little as possible!
We do have the typical Netflix, Disney etc and go for a Costa 2 times each month, but again nothing extravagant... just living and trying enjoy small pleasures and have something to look forward to!

I paid myself today and after all of our bills and food money we literally have £160 to last the month,.. which includes entertaining the kids, buying school clothes/shoes, treats, covering unexpected expenses or car/house repairs!
We don't have enough to save for a rainy day fund and the minute something comes up, any savings we do have are gone and we're back to square 1!
Last month the 15yo car needed new brakes/ discs and a few other bits to pass its mot, setting us back £500.... we paid for it on our monzo flex (we only use this in emergencies when we really can't afford and pay it back ASAP!) but now this has left us short last month and this month paying it back! (As I say... one bill away from despair)

I work for myself, from home and my business requires lots if space (I've converted our garage)... however my business is limited by my space and to grow and make more money I need a bigger work space/ bigger home.... which we can't afford!

How do people afford to go on holidays, have big flash cars and big 4 bed detached houses?!?!
18 year old me would have been thrilled to bring in £70k... but here we are struggling to make it through to the end of each month!

I guess this is just a rant really, as I'm feeling so deflated looking at our bank balance before the month has even started! 😞
Please tell me I'm not the only one experiencing this!

Op, have you ever calculated the actual cost or profit of your business FOR your family? I mean the aspects of your life which you need for the business - the garage, the large car etc ( also the petrol to get to events, the mileage in the car etc). What of those do you actually need for your FAMILY and which things could you get rid of if you didn’t have the business? I think this might be quite enlightening for you to realise how much your business is actually costing your family.

It sounds like after your expenses (car payments, fuel, adhoc childcare) you can't be making much at all. Might be time to accept your business isn't working out?

Please don't give up a job you love to make more money. It's so lovely to hear someone actually love their job! And it's so beautiful that it fits around your children so they get the best of you too.

Re budgeting and money, we are also on a tight budget and I wondered if you might have considered how much more money you would save if you bought the boys school shoes and general clothes on Vinted/ eBay? I have four kids, and I buy a lot of their things secondhand. But especially school shoes, I don't buy them used, I make sure to put on the filter for 'brand new in box' and then just search for the brand/style and size we need. It saves us a fortune. I buy my daughter's secondary school uniform 'new with tags' from marks and Spencers on Vinted too.
Also I occasionally look on Facebook marketplace for 'bundles' of used clothes in the kids sizes and buy those, I donate anything that I don't like but it's a really cosy effective way of getting the essential bits of clothing sorted.

All the best.

OK your updates make me have less sympathy.

You chose a job you love, over money.

That's great. But most people just can't have both. You chose to have less money to have more time with your children. I applaud you for it, honestly, but more often than not something else has to give. That's life.

Illegal suggestion but dodgy firestick, pay £5 a month for mine, save at least £300 a year in subscriptions.

💯 agree. MN can be a very miserable Calvinist place at times.

What did you do in the NHS were you a Nurse?
If so join an agency, you could do a couple of shifts a month in local nursing homes and make a lot of extra money.
Or join a home you like as a bank nurse. One I worked with did and was making over £20 an hour overnight once a week on a 12 hour shift

I think you need to do a breakdown of income and expenses

@Wharawho when my DC were much younger and we needed more income I got a 12 hour contract at a supermarket in addition to my part time job. I did two 6 hour weekend shifts- Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. It meant I missed a little bit of family time but did bring in the extra money we needed. My DH also did extra work in a local pub - adhoc because his regular job involved a lot of travel.
I would really focus on extra work if at all possible to do alongside your business.

70k is not a lot for 2 working adults when there’s 3 DC to pay for.

I think this illustrates the difference in which comments we notice and remember, based on our own circumstances. I thought loads of people would be along to tell her that her income (which is bang on the national average for two people working FT) is ridiculously low, nobody could possibly raise even one child on that, you need to get off your lazy arse and make more money and / or make your DH do so, etc etc.

My daughter and her husband have three children (there'll be 4 in July). Their mortgage isn't as big as yours, but their income is only 42k. He drives an old Polo and the family car, a 7 seater, cost about £2500. Holidays in Devon. £450 a month for a car is a lot of money.

I'd like to also add my voice OP to saying - stick with a job you love that allows you to have all the holidays/ flexibility with your kids. Let's face it- childcare for 3 kids would be a nightmare and what is the point scrabbling for money and all of it going on childcare?

I have earnt less but had more flexibility and all holidays off and I will never regret that. Once they are teens you can always work more again.

Loads of people with three children live on far less than £70K.

On a slightly different note, why are you posting in the middle of the night?

You have 3 young kids, say you couldn't cope with your previous job , are short of cash, but continue posting till 3am.

Assuming you're in the UK<-why?
Do you have insomnia?

If you want to d o more work and earn more money how can you cope on 3 hrs sleep?

my lifestyle / bills / amount of kids sound identical to ops. our income is about 40k between us. i work part time in a supermarket, no family members provide childcare etc. i don’t understand op’s post at all. we’re doing fine, if i had an extra 30k a year we’d be laughing

Yes but they usually live where housing is very cheap either rent or a mortgage (so no the SE of the UK). Or get a lot of UC.

And they don't have a car loan for £450pm and have to repay £350pm for unpaid tax.

Have you done the maths?
Mortgage, bills, council tax, car loan, unpaid tax they're repaying?

Hard to see how £40K covers that.

yeah as i’ve said my bills look almost identical. the only one i dont have is the 350 on tax but i do pay 360 for childcare so as i say, almost identical. i dont understand the post. 70k would be a dream for me

I've always lived on a pretty small salary (self-employed), and my partner doesn't earn much more than minimum wage either, but since we were very young, before we even met, we were both frugal. Being frugal doesn't mean you can't enjoy life; eventually you have no real superficial material wants which is no bad thing....My car for example, was purchased secondhand for 2.5k, 10 years ago, has over 200,000 miles on the clock and is still going strong, but looks pretty tatty which doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Neither of us have ever been in debt, or lumbered with rent or a mortgage from being very careful. We don't have a fortune to spend each month either, but we're not living beyond our means, and have enough in savings to cover unforeseen emergencies.

I’m sure this is true. But this is not what the post is about. The OP is saying that for her it’s a very tight squeeze and she’s ranting about this. Just because “loads of people do it” does not invalidate the OPs feelings and experiences. I personally wouldn’t.

Stop driving nice cars and having all the streaming services. 3 dc is expensive and you need to accept it til they are older.

Could you get a part time job a few evenings (and/or lunchtimes) a week, in a restaurant, McDonalds, bar work, care home, house or office cleaning. A few hours even on minimum wage, say £100 - £200 a week would be very useful if you are so close to disaster, not very exciting but every little helps.

@aphroditeflighty how can you have never been lumbered with rent or a mortgage? Or have I misread and you mean you've paid it off?

In three years your kids will all be older and childcare expenses will be nil.
Your situation will improve.
You are paying off a mortgage so that is an achievement.

In the mean time you could..
Grow your own green vegetables
Take on some shifts of different work during the Winter - NHS, ironing, pruning gardens, casual cleaning with an office cleaning co. pet photography etc etc.