I just don't have enough money

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Me and my husband are really struggling with money at the moment for the first time in our whole lives.

We have been together pretty much all of our adult lives.
We were on one income for nearly 10 years while I was a sahm, in all that time we never once had any worry about paying our bills and even managed to save 15k for a house deposit (first in our whole family to buy a house, took years of hard saving to try to get us out of renting)

Now I have had a job for the past 2 years so our money should have increased but its felt even tighter due to prices of everything increasing, of course our children are getting older too so we are feeding them more and other expenses such as bus fair etc is cropping up.

I started taking in ironing and cleaning as new way of making a bit of money on the side as things are getting tight. I made £85 this month on the side and this is the first time in our entire lives that we have struggled to pay the mortgage.
Thankfully we have always had a couple of hundred in savings which we dipped into for this months mortgage payment.

we shop second hand and cook from scratch, I follow all the tips and tricks to save money (batch cooking, paying in cash etc ) I follow martin Lewis and save save save every penny and its just not enough.

I had to decline 2 party invitations for my children this month because I couldn't justify the cost of 2 cards, 2 sets of bus fair. didn't even think about the fiver to put in the card.

I just don't get it, we both work. I even made some money on the side this month and I had to say no to a child's birthday party for 2 of my children.

we don't even drive so I couldn't even save money that way.

I don't know why I'm posting a moany little rant but I'm so stressed, our savings have been depleted by bills despite us living even more modestly than when we were on 1 income. I just don't fucking get how I can get more money.

OP you’re right that COL is too high and things are incredibly tough in a way they were not 20 or even 5 years ago.

that said, when times are tough- the tough get going. At least one of you should be working full time. One of you could also work on a Saturday or in evenings without your childcare costs increasing.

i think it’s troubling that you are the one taking in laundry etc instead of your DH doing so or finding other types of casual work to fill the gaps. what’s he doing with his time?

They are not choosing to work less hours they are actively looking for extra hours that fit in with their current jobs. Quitting these completely for something new would be worrying as they may not be successful/long-term for any reason.

Once again, the OP was not expecting a magic wand but wanted somewhere to vent (before heading off to work!)

I think people mean different things by actively looking for work'.

OP hasn't said what she or her H are doing.

Anyone actively looking for work, if it's minimum wage, should be taking their CV (ideally which they've had some help with composing, so it's good) to local shops, cafes, pubs, garden centres, etc.

They should also register with a local agency who might find them something.

They should be looking on websites like Indeed, their local council websites (each County has a website with vacancies, which includes assistants for school lunches, as well as admin and cleaning.)

Looking for a job can in fact become a full time occupation if you're really serious about it.

Her H should be considering if his 'skill' is redundant and if he needs to retrain. He could be exploring vocational courses at his local colleges, online courses, apprenticeships for mature students, etc.

The reality is that if you left school with no /few qualifications or additional training, your life prospects are limited. They will be more limited as AI and technology replaces the jobs.

Unskilled jobs don't pay - so you have to put in more hours.

OR you have to ask yourself if you're able to go further, make more of your life, look for training and improve your prospects.

OP chose to take herself out of the job market for a decade and then chose to take a job for 15 hours a week - that’s a luxury that the vast majority of families simply can’t afford.

She could afford it at the time she made that choice. What other families can afford is irrelevant.

In hindsight, it was the wrong choice, but maybe her crystal ball had malfunctioned when she made the decision, and she didn't know that there would be a CoL crisis ten years later, and DH would lose hours/pay.

We also don't know what the OP meant by looking for work; people have made assumptions based on their experiences and local areas. There is a prevailing attitude, not just in MN but also in society in general, that if you want to work full-time, you can. It's as easy as that. You simply decide you will work full time and go and get a job the same week/day/month, and if you don't manage that, it's because you haven't tried hard enough. Ditto weekend/evening jobs, they are ten a penny according to MN. You can just ask for one and you'll be given one.

I posted a screenshot of how many weekend jobs are available in my town on Indeed. 3, not 75 like another poster had in her town, just 3, and not a single one of them would be suitable for OP. Sure, there are more, generally in takeaways, but they almost always pay less than the NMW, cash in hand.

And maybe OP's DH hasn't been applying to the local Maccies or Tesco because they had savings to fall back on, so he's been holding out and applying to entry-level roles that could lead to a career. If that's the case and he lives in an area like mine, I could well imagine that it can take 18 months, even if you apply for every single apprentice engineer, helpdesk agent, or SOC analyst vacancy available, because there are no jobs like that in my town. Literally none, and getting to jobs outside of town is hard, if not impossible, if you don't drive.

The job I've just accepted, for example, is a two-hour commute each way, not because it's miles away, it's not. It's a 15/20 minute drive, but the public transport links, even when they are working, are next to non-existent. Out of the hundreds of jobs I applied for, only two were less than a 90-minute commute. Sometimes, what people mean when they say there are no jobs is that there are no fucking jobs. There might be jobs in your town, but unless the poster lives in your town, that's not going to help them.

@Frequency well, my personal opinion is they could never really afford it based on her husbands earnings and the number of children they chose to have - it was likely just easier short-term due to the costs of childcare.

It’s nothing to do with having a crystal ball - it’s basic common sense that you don’t depend on one income to support your family forevermore.

And if they have been putting off applying for McDonald’s or wherever then honestly, that’s just ridiculous behaviour and I don’t have a great deal of sympathy 🤷‍♀️

Being reliant on public transport is going to make it more difficult with 2nd jobs in the evening, and not every area has ubers or reliable taxi companies, mine doesn't. None of my local McDonald's are accessible by public transport either.

We have no idea what the OPs life was like during her period of being a SAHM, but we do know they were able to save up a deposit whilst renting and overpay their mortgage in the first couple of years. They were also the first in their families to buy a place.

So many jobs are available that aren't on Indeed, that's not really a benchmark. Our local little cafe wouldn't advertise on Indeed...

Absolutely this!
Also "looking for work around family life"

In other words Op won't do shifts, nights or weekends because they don't want to.
Plenty of people just crack on juggling work and family.
Her DH was working 60 hour weeks so she could SAH but that's dried up.
This unfortunately is the reality of putting all the eggs in one basket work wise
Presumably Op is mid 30s and has not developed a career .
There seems as others have said to be a disparity between outgoings posted and why Op is using savings to pay the mortgage.

Outgoings total 1200
Income 1600 plus 800 plus 85 plus approx 200 CB
= 2685
Where is the other 1485 going ?
Even with food at 485 that leaves 1K for everything else.
Op says they dont drive but she is WFH and so just fares for DH, no car loan, insurance, fuel etc
If Op is topping up mortgage then outgoings are 2885
It's not clear what Op is spending on

Hi op

i am a single household but income is the same 2400 plus daughters dla of 540 but that is always seperated.

3 kids
1 infant
2 pre teens

mortgage 750
electric and gas - 120.00
my phone 8.00 a month
monthly food - 400.00 a month
monthtly household non food items 70.00
insurances - 115
travel - 110 roughly
tv and internet all combined subrsciptioms etc - 45.00
taxes / water and other - 190
200 in to savings

So around 1900 outgoings and 100 a week left over

@Frequency Try being a bit more negative perhaps?😂

I just don't get it, we both work.

I don't any couples (who haven't paid their mortgage off) where both people can work part time and make ends meet, so it doesn't take a genius to work out what the problem is.

AI is coming for skilled jobs, not unskilled ones.

AI can’t deliver a pizza to your house, move your furniture or fold your laundry.

AI can and does deliver pizza in some metropolitan areas. It'll spread to other areas rapidly.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36723089

Exactly, it's hardly rocket science.

DH and I both work part-time but we don't have children - that's the kicker. We're only responsible for ourselves!

That’s gonna cost a lot more than a human. It’s money that is the driver here.

The initial outlay will be more, but they will get cheaper over time, as all tech does, and in the long run, they'll save on wages. And you've no chance of them being late back from a delivery because they've nipped home for the loo or popped into the bookies on their way back, and they won't call in sick or need their holidays covered.

It'll be a while before small, independent food companies like local pizza shops can afford to invest in them, but it will happen, and it will be no time at all until Domino's, Pizza Hut, KFC et al are using them.

@courageiscontagious Oh yes it can!
Robots have been delivering orders in Milton Keynes for ages.
Drones are also delivering things.

It's the future.

@courageiscontagiousyou're right. It’s the middle class industries which aren’t recruiting. Not care, not hospitality, not retail. Self service check outs are being removed in many places, real humans are much less costly when you factor in rates of shoplifting from self service.

They aren't actually @Imcomingovertoyourplace

Read today's news?

Tesco has put cameras on self-check out tills.

There are also additional ways to check shopping- by weighing in the items in a trolley and comparing it with what is scanned and ends up being packed.

Waitrose has had cameras for months and months.

To catch people not scanning all their items.
I don't know what a 'middle class industry' is but I assume you mean for professionals.

They are recruiting. People in my family have managerial positions, are recruiting all the time and can't find people of the right calibre.

This will be interesting. Wonder how long these expensive machines will last safely on the streets ...

I expect they said the same about cars all that time ago.

No probably not the same thing at all.
Pretty sure a high profile company tried this years ago and there's a reason it's not commonplace.

And you don't think AI and advanced robotics are advancing at a pace where there will be newer, more efficient models released every year?

Could you take in a lodger?