I just don't have enough money

[36912aceg]

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.

Cost of living has gone up and it’s hard! But I don’t know any parents with kids that don’t work full time! I think this is your answer, you need to increase your income and easiest way to do this is to work full time hours and / or apply for higher paid jobs. Look at free collage courses which you could do in the evening after work / when the kids go to bed it will be hard work but if you really want to increase your income and change your lifestyle this would massively help get yourself a higher paid job! It’s hard at there but only you can change this situation which depends how badly you want too!

It does not make you eligible for council tax reduction.
I receive uc top ups to my full time salary and I don’t get any discount other than the standard 25% single person one.
you have to be totally out of work to get a reduction on council tax, appreciate this could be different around the country, but it’s certainly not the case where I am.

AI will be a threat to anything other than manual stuff I guess, not including manufacturing where clearly robots do build cars etc, but things like electricians, plasterers, builders.
although I’d hesitate before I referred to any one doing those jobs as unskilled. On the contrary, I think they’re highly skilled professions.

so your outgoings are roughly 1250and income roughly 2400 so you are spending over £1000 on food/general expenses. That’s a lot I’d start monitoring your spending I use aspending app to monitor.
Do you get child benefit? That’s another few hundred.
Do you get UC?
Child care costs - you may be entitled to top up so it may benefit for you to increase your hours. Go on turn to us website and check .
Or you could do evening/weekend work? Or your dh could get a second job?

How much do you each earn a month?

How much is outstanding on the mortgage?

What is your mortgage payment?

Do you have debt or credit cards?

So that's £2400 in and £1230 in outgoings - £1170 can't be food shopping and husbands travel?

I think you need to be honest with your self or get a spending app because your income is double your outgoings and I am assuming you'll get child benefit for the kids which is £43.30 a week from 2 kids

I think something I mentioned earlier is does OP have access to all the bank accounts- does it come out of a joint pot or is he bunging her £800 and then keeping the rest for himself - because if that’s not the case it’s a simple matter of going through the bank statement highlighting the listed bills off in yellow and look what the unhighlighted bills actually are .

doesnt mean to say it’s not tight because clearly he’s bringing home less than a minimum full time wage at various times and she’s only part time - so something is askew there - I am wondering if hes actually having an awful lot of weeks where he’s only getting £300 take home and OP isn’t getting a full picture - because on paper it should be tight but doable

Sorry to hear, it's so hard nowadays.
Is your DH good at any DIY jobs that he could earn extra money doing. Are you claiming every benefit that you are entitled to.

It will become the norm.

You sound a bit out of touch , it's becoming more and more common for robots and drones to deliver all kinds of things.

That’s really tough OP really feel for you. Well done on your own home & you say it’s more expensive to rent in your area so you made a good investment, you say you overpaid your mortgage you could ring up lender and ask if overpayments could be used for next month mortgage due to current short work hours. They are obliged to help you. It may be possible to extend the term and have lower monthly payments I know it’s not ideal but just a thought.
also could you do childminding after school or before school of taking your own kids at all ? Or babysitting ?

agree, those delivery robots have been a thing in the us for ages.
Even my bog standard, suburban garden centre has had robot waiter things for over a year! (UK)

My sons gone thru 3 shoe sizes since starting reception in September, never mind the clothes!!!

I'm sure it's easy enough to let £1,000 slip through your fingers.

A job opportunity ar our local Tesco appeared and 3 days later the advert was gone.

Times have changed.

Income has gone down and you’ve maintained your lifestyle (you said that in another post). That’s your issue, you need to adjust your outgoings and/or get a different job, sources of income. There’s a lot of ways to do that.

I do think it’s area dependent- we’re in very rural Cumbria and they’re absolutely not a thing here!

We don't have them either yet, and I'm not rural. We've only just gotten Uber this year, but I do not doubt that drones and robots will be delivering to us soon. It's area dependent at the moment because it is being tested in metropolitan areas and highly populated areas that have higher delivery rates than towns and rural areas, but it will spread.

Why isn’t ur dh getting a part time job if he’s only working 3 days ? Even if it’s in a restaurant, takeaway, supermarket. It’s something instead of waiting around for a new job

We still don’t have Uber! Our nearest chain restaurant or shop is 45 minutes away 🙈

Why isn’t OP getting a part-time job considering she only works half the hours her DH does?

You'll get it eventually. We got Uber by accident. An Uber driver dropped off from an airport run and decided to stick around for the day because business in the city was slow.

We only have 2 taxi firms, one is a chain and extortionately expensive, and the other is unreliable due to overbooking and needs to be booked days in advance (weeks if you want a weekend booking) so naturally, the one single Uber driver in town made a killing. He told his Uber driver mates about it, and lo and behold, we finally have Uber.

If I had to guess I’d say this is down to taking on a mortgage that, whilst on paper you “earned enough to borrow,” was actually unaffordable in the long run. Hence why when interest rates or whatever went up you ended up in a situation where you are now struggling and can’t afford things like a birthday card.

Can I just add, as a motivation for you when you’re feeling down, just think how incredibly noticeable it’s going to feel when you both find more hours elsewhere. It will be life changing. Sometimes you’ve gotta go through the bad stuff to appreciate the good. I hope you both find better hours elsewhere asap x

Interestingly @36912aceg has side stepped that question many times when it has been suggested.

Have you applied for Universal credit??

Apologies if someone else had said this, but have you looked into Universal credit as a top-up? It sounds like you're on a low income right now, and that's what it's there for. Not saying that's how it should be, but sadly it is.