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!

Sthe other week I bought potatoes broccoli carrots etc all at Asda for 8p a bag. Used them to make stuff and freeze.

Probably never going to read this on page 24! And someone might have said it. But, you are saying you can't expand your business without a bigger house. But you don't need a bigger house, but more space. So could you rent somewhere or add some kind of outbuilding to your garden? Doesn't sound like you have the spare funds to do either. But if you put together a proper business plan you could get a loan. But only if realistically your business could make more money with more space!

We did an audit on our bills. It costs
30-32k net, to run our household and covers repairs and maintenance. This does not include holidays or big splurges like updating a car or a 10k redecoration, for example.

I don’t think we are frugal.

We don’t have a mortgage though, so you would have to add your 12k on to the above.

The 32k includes everything to run 2 cars and a family of 5 house.

If I were to include holidays and splurges, it is 60k net minimum.

I do think food is one area where you can easily save money if you don’t require very specific items. Despite inflation food in the UK is still much cheaper than most other countries.

If I really, really tried I reckon I could feed my household on about £70 a week, really well. However there would not be much meat or high quality fish, it would be veg, pulses and grains mostly, with some dairy and maybe some turkey and eggs for the animal-product consumers.

One thing I think is wrong and probably misguided is trying to shave 5 quid a month off by cancelling subscriptions. I mean if you have an expensive gym, £80 sky package, magazine subs and insanely expensive kids clubs, then yes, maybe. Other small subs and providing you don’t have more than a handful, unless you are on the breadline, they are neither here nor there. Housing and housing related costs like mortgage or rent, DIY And insurances, transport, utilities, food including eating and drinking out, are the biggies I think.

And also travel to see family and friends, and holidays, plus spending on life events like birthdays, weddings and Christmas/ whatever you celebrate: they are big drains on finances.

Holy fuck that is a lot with no mortgage, But maybe you have higher standards of household maintenance than me - most people do.

I also think £450pcm for a car is insane - that’s nearly 10% of your joint yearly wage going on 1 car finance. I would look at tracking all expenses and look to cut £100 on subscriptions, tv etc. It’s insane how much Netflix, sky, Disney costs add up to and I’ve cut pretty much all out bar Netflix.

I do agree though at one stage £70k would have been an amazing salary and in some areas of the country very much still is. But it doesn’t cover as much as it used to so I do understand your frustration.

If 18-year-old you would have been thrilled to bring in 70k then I'm guessing you're the sole earner and it's not cutting it in your current situation...?

No, her husband and her bring in a joint total of 70K. He earns most of that 70K as she’s only bringing in around NMW.

And yeah it is a bit confusing of Op to say they’d have been thrilled to bring in X amount of money when it’s mainly their partner bringing in that amount. I don’t know, maybe younger then thought differently from me but when I was younger and thought of a dream salary, I imagined me bringing that in myself.

I’d say intelligent conversation is over, but…

Could you do a couple of evening shifts somewhere to get a bit of extra money without the childcare? I actually think with 3 kids you are doing ok. Society has changed over the last few decades and where once people were happy to have enough to pay the bills we now expect so much more. It's hard but congratulate yourselves on managing and keep positive.

I did that too. The Easter special offers stood out to me as quite good for a change, christmas too. The cost of buying fruit and veg has gone up a lot though over the last few years. I reckon it costs me double and I am thrifty. Special offers, yellow stickers if I can use it in time. We do get through a lot of it though.

I used to always have carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and peppers with houmous as a default afterschool kids snack. I’ve cut it down to just carrot sticks and houmous most days as a cucumber and two peppers cost about £2.50 and over a week that adds up.

I never thought I’d find myself dithering over whether I can afford a cucumber or a head of broccoli.

Hahaha, this place is utterly bonkers at times. It’s like living in a different world!

And it’s not clear if by NMW she means £25,000 a year or the minimum wage hourly rate for working 10 to 15 hours a week for a total monthly income of around £700 of which £450 is taken up by the car payment (she says she only needs the big car for work) and £150 or so by the fuel (she says much used for work), for a total actual profit of around £100 a month assuming she hasn’t left out any other expenses.

Either way, from what she says she is making the classic new business owner mistake of not taking all expenses into account in calculating profit.

I think you could look at a few things with the hope of seeing some changes over the next year, if you feel you can survive that long.

1. Review your cars. Do you need 2? Can you spend less than £450 a month? If you got rid of the older one you would save on insurance and maintenance and potentially have a small amount of cash for your savings.
2. Expanding your business. What do you need to do that? Is it a case of more room at home so you need to think about investing in a workroom in the garden or changing how you use the space at home? Or hiring some space? Are you claiming all your business expenses against tax? How will you be able to make the most of your youngest starting school next year? Have those plans ready.
3. Sacrifice any kind of holiday for the next year, save the money to give yourself a small buffer.
4. Find an evening or weekend job to top up with for the next year.
5. Can you declutter and sell anything you don't need, baby stuff etc. this might also give you a bit of cash for savings. I can understand how you feel so pinched for money but you are at a tough stage with 3 small children and a new business, so try and see this as you low point from where you can make things better for the future.

You're obviously overspending somewhere.

It is pretty obvious that coffees at Costa are wasteful. Even if it is only twice a month
Netflix OR Disney but not b oth.
Most of us have to cut back these days.

Why do people keep quoting the original, very long post just to add a single sentence comment to the thread?

MN is already an appallingly bad forum in terms of loading speeds and poorly formatted ads locking things up without the mega-long posts every other page.

Have you looked at a job like lunch monitor at a school. Would be set hours, wouldn't need childcare, and would free your summer up.

Or alternatively, something like a night shift as a carer or petrol station, but I appreciate sleeping might be a nightmare with that option!

Also, have you checked you're claiming all the the benefits/discounts your entitled to?

It's hard bloody work and can cause such stress when money is tight.

Me too🤣🤣🤣🤣

IPTV would save you money

Agree £450 pcm on a car is the outlier here.
If your business is a limited company presumably you can claim this as an expense and all associated running costs would be tax deductible expenses. This includes, fuel if paid by the company, servicing, insurance and maintenance.

I think this is such a great point that will probably go un-noticed or uncommented upon but it really isn't the £10 a month on Disney+ that makes life tight, and those things are often the things that make things being tight a nicer place.

I've been there with the budgeting and scraping through month to month with no spare money, and it's not fun. But since then, the more I've earned, the tighter I've got.

• Shop around for utilities and go with the smallest office.
• Monitor electricity and gas use closely, I've monitored mine and now down to just £2-3 per day. It's amazing how much you can save when you monitor it.
• Vinted not just buying online but selling too, everyone has stuff they've brought they don't use. Get rid.
• Subscriptions it's amazing how quickly Netflix and Amazon Prime, Disney add up a month and they aren't really necessity. The family would most likely enjoy a holiday more.
• The car PCP. A big car doesn't need to be expensive. I brought a car large enough to fit 5 people in secondhand for £9,000. My finance repayments are £164 and I'll actually own it at the end. Unless you make the lump sum payment you'll never own the car. Which you are in no position to do. PCP is entirely pointless.
• Your business whilst it sounds great your going away from home which cost more in childcare, barely making a profit and the reason you need a big car. It's also costing you a lot in fuel going to these events, It doesn't really sound a well thought through venture. I understand that you wanted out of the NHS but you've put yourself in a far worse situation by doing so.
• Shopping go with a list. Stop buying un necessary treats etc. Go to the shop with a list and only get what is the list, buy own brand stuff, shop around in places where things are lower cost. Bulk buy.

It's surprising how much you can save per month.

I’ve nothing helpful to add I’m afraid. Just that you are not alone. There are many similarities between what you wrote and my own household, including income, and children. We only have one car, and we have two dogs and a cat which cost a small fortune (if I’d have known how much everything would change I wouldn’t have got them). My partner hasn’t had a pay increase for 8 years, not even £50 a year. Oil prices have recently come down but they did sky rocket and we have oil for our heating so that was hard. Every time I feel like we are making a step forward something else shitty happens. Example… we had a large credit card debt that I worked really hard trying to pay off for 2 years, I managed to get it down to £2k and then the car needed major work, our oil tank needed replacing as well as a few other things, and now it’s back up at £8k. I feel like we are constantly taking one step forward and 3 back and it’s really wearing on me. We do have a lovely house (so I’m told) but there’s a LOT that needs doing to it and we absolutely cannot afford to pay anyone to do it. I have a brain injury and a heart condition and my partner is the only earner in our household. We dont go on holiday, rarely go on paid days out, we go to free places or have saved to purchase a National Trust membership so we can visit those places, take a picnic and we buy an ice cream from the supermarket on the way home as a treat as that’s more affordable than buying one wherever we are. We don’t go to the cinema, pub, we don’t smoke, rarely have a drink at home, my partner and I are in desperate need of new clothes but no money. The kids wear hand me downs, I pass clothes on to others once mine have outgrown them. I feel like I can’t moan or cry or complain about it because there’s always someone else struggling more and people also assume we have money. I’ve no idea why, other than we have a large house (we sold our old house and moved somewhere cheaper and were able to buy a bigger house). Which I regret now and wish we had a smaller house, tried to sell this one but financially it ended up that it wasn’t going to work. I have some days where I just cry about it and stay up at night worrying… worrying what the kids will need that we can’t afford to buy, or what will go wrong next with the house or car. I do have an app called HyperJar and I send budgets to that each month and separate them into different jars - food, fuel, etc and once it’s gone, it’s gone. There is no back up so I have to be very careful. I do put a little aside each month for the kids Christmas and birthday presents which goes into the HyperJar and I find this very helpful. Every penny we spend is accounted for, I have a spreadsheet and the HyperJar account and I record everything. My children do take part in paid activities but not many, and one is only £2 per child per week. So not expensive really. We get Disney Plus with our bank (my partner sorted that) so we don’t pay for it. We don’t have any other subscription services other than a printer which is about £5 a month. Anyway, nothing helpful to add, just you’re not alone, and I know of a few other friends in a similar situation as well. I also know people who go on holidays with their children to Japan and other such places, as well as friends who say they have no money but are building great structures in their gardens. With all the budgeting and prioritising in the world I could never afford to do either of those things. I’m trying to be grateful but every now and then I have a mini breakdown and cry about it all. I hear you, it’s not easy. It’s shocking how much everything has gone up in price. X