To think that life is too expensive?

[Gffbjjgfddbjkkm]

Feel so frustrated.

I work full-time teaching in one of the most expensive schools in the world. DH works full time too. We each earn about £40k.

I'm having to take on a weekend job, just to be able to scrape by to afford to send DS to university next year. Who wants to work seven days a week?!

Would love a really decent holiday, but can't afford that.

I'm sick of working so hard work with nothing but financial stress. Neither of us is likely to inherit much, if anything.

How on earth did you manage to get two kids through private school.on 80k?! It costs 20k per year to put one through a bog standard one where I live, and that's obviously after you've paid tax on your earnings so you'd need to earn a min of 45k just for that for two!

OP life is expensive, and shit a lot of the time

You need to go for promotion. Look for another job.

You have an income of £80k (!) , almost twice my income and yet I manage. I'm a single mum so I pay my mortgage (Hampshire), everything out of my salary, I'm taking my ds to Greece after his exams, and saving for his university in 2026.

Look carefully at your outgoings. You will be able to economise somewhere.

My toiletries are supermarket basics, I cook from scratch and spend £50-£60 a week for two (plus school dinners). Car is a 7yo secondhand hatch. I'll keep it another 5 years. Phone is a s/h iphone7 on PAYG. TV is freeview.

We don't eat out, socialising is at home/friends, exercise is ParkRun & cycling. Clothes are tidy and professional but some are 20 years old. Nothing goes to waste.

It can be done !!

Well, I can pretty much guess where you are to between two towns, both beginning with the same letter, so you might want to ask MN to edit your initial post to avoid being outed.

Unfortunately you are living in an expensive area and at an expensive stage in life. Could you consider taking a live-in role at your school? Schools like yours are big organisations and there may also be additional work you could do, if you take a deep breath and speak confidentially to the bursar.

I would personally rather work for a week or two during the summer than at each weekend. If you are an experienced teacher then a local playscheme or tuition camp would snap you up. If you are used to teaching then you will find the work relatively easy and a week will fly past.

Hope things improve.

What clubs and activities do your children do?
If your eldest is has a job he is old enough to pay towards any hobbies he wants to do.
Your other child - what activities are they doing? Are they something they actually have a passion for? Do they really need to be doing them.

This 👆 Sit down with a cup of tea and get your bank statement up. Go through every single outgoing. What is necessary? Mortgage, bills and food are absolutely necessary. Anything after that, question if you actually needed it. I know it's hard but sometimes you have to be ruthless if you want your money to last. I'm going through the same thing myself to counteract the rising cost of living. I expect a lot of us are.

Is your son applying for student finance? It shouldn't be the responsibility of parents to put a child through university. I think those days are gone. Tuition fees are so expensive now and a lot of parents put themselves under pressure to fund it. Sorry I don't have any other answers for you. It's tough out there and cutbacks are slowly becoming the norm.

Are all the clubs and activities essential? Where are you shopping?

80k seems like a huge income to me.

Okay so you’re quite new to the profession. I know a teacher in a private school in the SE who is on considerably more than £40k, but he’s 10+ years into his career. So your pay will go up in the coming years, especially if you take on additional responsibilities.

On your income with your low mortgage and no childcare you should be able to manage , to save rather than buy the car on credit card

so you need to look much more closely to find out what you are doing wrong

it may just be that you fritter - lots of little things like regular takeaways and a bad amazon habit

or it may be you have sone expensive habits that mean you have chosen to spend your money and now wonder why you don’t have any left - spending a few hundred on beauty each month or expensive golf clubs

People hate on Dave Ramsey, but I swear the baby steps and the zero-based budget - it works.

You have a tiny mortgage. You should have lots of spare money

You earn waaaayyyyy more than me op i live comfortably on a lot less.
You need to find out where its all going.

You're on £80k. We earn a lot less and regularly go on holiday. We're going to America in August. You could get a, week or 2 in Spain for a few hundred. If you can't manage on that amount, you're doing something wrong.

The cost of everything is now is ridiculous.
We went on a short break last year. This year I looked and same holiday, dates pretty much the same and it’s nearly £400 more. 🤷🏼‍♀️
All bills have increased, and whilst some only a small amount, on top of everything it makes a big difference. When you look at all the necessary expense such as food, bills, then extras that crop up such as car services, MOT or something breaks and needs repairing or replacing it often leaves me wondering where the ‘fun money’ is supposed to be.

Wages haven’t risen much in the last few years and that on top of the cost of everything has made it a bit shit for a lot of people, especially if the costs you have can’t be reduced or cancelled.

As pp have said I would be looking at all your monthly outgoings & seeing where you spend your money over and above the usual mortgage, utilities etc. Maybe some of your bills are approaching a date they can be re-negotiated?

This is normal life for most of us I think.

She’s a teacher though?!

Having not much left on a mortgage is not the same as having low monthly payments. It just means they've been paying it off for a long time.

Something seems off - ok I’m single but that means all the bills are mine
i am paying the same mortgage amount plus student loan plus credit card, all the usual bills on a single income of 27k

It sounds like you both retrained at the same time with school age children - presumably that meant a drop in income for both of you at the same time with the plan that longer term it would be a wage increase?

I'm guessing the retraining period and newly qualified years are where quite a bit of the debt originates from as well?

What was the plan originally to manage this period/ car repayments etc?

Is it possible to walk/bike rather than use school buses? How many cars are you running? What are the costs of mobile phone contracts for the four of you? I'd be looking at lifestyle tweaks first before taking on extra work if you are already feeling the pressure. In my experience the extra cash doesn't make much of a difference after you've been taxed on it and had to account for the 'lack of time' related costs etc e.g. more preprepared food/ takeaways, more fuel because of extra trips or lack of time to walk places, more spent on after school childcare.

That isn't how mortgages work? That is what is left to pay off, I don't think the OP has mentioned what her actual monthly mortgage payment is.

Are you both fairly early in your careers i.e. is there scope for promotions/progression going forward? £40k is not a high full time salary these days unfortunately. In Scotland I think I'm right in saying that teachers start on about £40k once fully qualified.

But you have a small mortgage so it's not clear why with an £80k household income your credit card debt is so high. It would be worth going through your outgoings carefully as that level of income/mortgage I would have thought you'd be able to enjoy a holiday.

2 sets of school fees is upwards of £40k at the minute. I'm assuming you're talking a few years ago? Even 5 years ago, 2 sets of fees would have been £10k less.

Are you in Godalming by any chance OP… I know many Charterhouse staff who are not having a good time right now!! It just doesn’t make sense to me, multi million pound business, you’d think their staff would be ok!

Easier said than done but really couldn’t you go to any other school in a cheaper area? Hard to uproot the kids, I wouldn’t want to. But not sure what else to suggest.

So you’re actually only a few years post qualification and have very little left on your mortgage? When I was four years post qualification I didn’t even own a house. I think you’re doing pretty well but I appreciate it must feel tough in the thick of it.

our friends who are teachers tutor : going rate in London is £50/hr for experienced teachers but one friend is a maths teacher and picks up £80/hr. His tutoring pays for all their holidays and extras. I’ve personally shelled out £3k in the last year on teachers who tutor privately for a dc with additional needs.

good luck 🤞🏼

I'd also be looking closely at all my spending and moneysavingexpert tips to see how I could get it down. On a very similar income and mortgage we were not struggling. I really think there are things you can do.

Can you remortgage to a lower rate?
Can you swap your cc debt to zero interest and pay it off aggressively?
Can you swap energy supplier?
When did you last shop around for insurance? They sneak it higher every year, maybe that could come down.
Any unused subscriptions?
How much are you spending on food?
Could you walk/cycle/car share?

Things add up quickly. Is there any "small" daily or weekly thing sucking out a surprising amount of money? Or habit, like buying loads of clothes or something?