Where is all the money going??

[Fragmentedbrain]

I've never been great at budgeting but my tastes are pretty normal, my husband and I both work full time, no kids, no mortgage.

I just accidentally went into my overdraft for the first time in 25 years (when I was a student).

Wtf is happening! I'm not sure I can handle this next phase in General Decay of Everyone's Quality of Life.

I would get a side gig but (a) tax really erodes much of the benefit and (b) AI seems to be taking the bottom out of much of the freelancing world.

I live in Scotland, already pay loads more than I would in England in income tax and terrified they're going to put it up again just before Christmas.

It may be time to look at transferring utility companies, renegotiating/moving the mortgage? Same for mobile phone contracts? Most of these are sky rocketed (doubled) in terms of monthly payments in the last couple of years. We now do an audit every two-three years (the period of successive fixed mortgage periods). It’s amazing how we fail to notice that the spotify sub has doubled yet we’re not using it, or the £4.99 sub to ITVX that we took out because it’s only a fiver has been added to with Disney, ACORN TV on prime etc because there was a series we wanted to watch and we thought we’d just take the sub out for one month…

I don’t think anyone who can save £20k per year is a low earner or living in poverty…
clearly the cost of living increases affect everyone and I appreciate the challenges faced by people on low incomes, but the op isn’t one of these people.

Honestly if you're putting £1666 per month into savings no wonder you are running short, could you reduce to 1200 or even 1000 and accept a later retirement (I assume you're doing one of those FIRE schemes)
How are you pension contributions, could you reduce them slightly instead and change the balance of cash before/after state retirement age?
I think ultimately it depends on your balance of lifestyle now Vs retirement.

Oh really? everyone disatisfied with the quality of living in this country must be a farage fan?

Yupp

At least you don't have to pay prescription charges that cost more than you can get the actual medication online for.

And you're not still paying off studuent loans 25y later.

Honestly, sit down with a monthly budget calculator (there are some really good ones available online). Plug in all your necessary expenses like mortgage/rent, council tax, food, fuel, gas electric, phone Bill and then see what you should have left over.

You might end up horrified about how much you spend on online stuff you don’t need. I know I was.

After divorcing my ex, I actually find I’ve got more money as I’m not chasing a dopamine hit to deal with how miserable the marriage was. So as someone who went from two incomes to one I’ve not seen a decline in my lifestyle. I just now spend my money on stuff that I actually need rather than crap. Plus getting a bit more savvy with switching deals.

Shop around for the best deal on broadband, SIM deals, gas and electricity suppliers.

With the cap going up, it may be worthwhile fixing your tariff for energy. You may find that a side hustle is not needed when you actually look at where you are spending your money.

obviously you haven't read what I wrote, too wrapped up in your despise of people who can make savings

Oh it’s one of those goady posts

Strike what I said. You’re just a fud.

Oh come on you are not struggling because ayae we pay slightly more tax in Scotland at all. It's just another anti SNP thread

OP will soon be back to tell us she’s a net contributor/met someone at the bus stop who told her how much better she is on benefits/ met someone else who told how easy it is to claim pip/ works very very very hard and has an extremely worthy job in the NHS/knows for a fact that her neighbour is abusing the benefit system…etc etc.

Unless you are earning more every year, your quality of life will decrease with inflation.

I think that’s the problem a lot of people are facing - they can’t increase their salary enough to match the increase in their bills.

My nursery went up by ~£200 which means I need to earn an extra ~£4.5k just to pay the difference (!).

???
I don’t despise anyone who can make savings….not sure how you inferred that from my post.

It's not even £150, its only £114, or £32 for a 3 monthly cert.

Its a great point that paying more tax in Scotland costs than the one off fee in England. Why does no one seem to mention this or speak about it?

Shot all your guns in the first few posts OP. You really need to do better.

Well what are you spending your money on???

You have no mortgage and you are both working???

To be fair it's a bit of a nonsense thread when you are maxxng out ISA allowances.

If you are doing g this then the reality is that you have 20k spare and possibly 40k if your husband is doing the same.

You aren't in any crisis regarding your overdraft

Visited recently France/Germany Austria, shocking how much. cheaper food is and I am talking about the really good quality food.
I am in France at the moment and I can tell you that really good quality food is not cheap. I have paid €1.50 for a cucumber, €5 for a kg of local tomatoes, €3.99 for a small locally grown watermelon, €8 for a piece of blue cheese.
Wine is cheap but nothing else is.

Oh bollocks it's all going on tax - you might pay a bit more than than someone on the same salary in England but if you're going into your overdraft when you have no mortgage or children then you're just financially irresponsible!

I live in France and this is absolutely true. Food is not cheaper here than the UK (wine is though 😂).

Look at boosting your pension contributions if you are employed or set up AVCs it reduces my scottish tax bill so I don't go over some of the newer brackets. I still pay more tax then English colleagues and I'm still a net contributor to tax collection but it's less painful.

Other then that it's budgeting actually look at what your spending is line by line over the month and see what can be reigned in or cut. Its easy foe things to amount by subscriptions going up by a few pounds or bills etc. Look around and get deals.

I reigned in our food shop by doing it online and every 9 days and reducing top up shops by freezing bread and milk.

I’m glad others are saying food in the UK is cheaper! I am frequently in France and Ireland and grocery shopping there is considerably more expensive than the U.K.

Because apparently there's other benefits to living in Scotland besides free prescriptions......aside from not paying uni tuition fees (which I appreciate are a lot but not everyone has kids going to uni!), I'm not sure what. Oh wait, a free eye test every 2 years......

I understand OP, I'm kind of in the same boat, no mortgage, no kids, 2 adults working, etc but you aren't safe from the Cost Of Living Crisis either.

While it has taken you longer to notice as you were in a position to absorb the increase it has finally caught up with you.

Just be greatful you can feed yourself and heat your home as many people are beyong struggling, they are suffering immensely.

@Fragmentedbrain have you sat down and gone through bank statements, opened a spreadsheet and starting actually categorising your spend and income, that is the only way you are going to be able to see what you are spending too much money on and where you can cut back. If you are trying to max out your ISA allowance, then surely you've got a good chunk of extra income not going to necessities and you may need to reduce how much you're saving if you can't cut spend elsewhere

If you have worked out what income/spend looks like, could you post on here what that looks like so people could give advice on where and how you could potential cut back?