To wonder how people are coping?

[CobbleWobble]

We are very lucky, I know this.

We are "Mumsnet rich" both have professional jobs with good salaries (£170k household income) and yet this last 12 months:

• removed children from private school
• changed how we do the weekly shop to reduce costs
• cut subscriptions (like Disney+ etc)
• reduced what I bought in the back to school shop
• decided against a holiday in October half term
• concerned about our usual Christmas food order

What is going on? I just don't understand why or how prices are rising as they are or how people on less than us are coping!

I'm extremely grateful we have the things to cut that we have but we've also had to remortgage this year which has doubled our mortgage payments and then our utilities have increased and the food shop has just got insane.

We have other things we can cut - a holiday in the UK, Netflix, the monthly takeaway but its just miserable to think we may need to do that just not to be living.

Happy to post spending particulars if people are finding it hard to see where I'm coming from.

So AIBU to think that as a country we cannot go on with prices rising like this? How are others coping?

Yes it's quite mad but I'm sure al you've heard is some stuff about how rich you arey which wasn't really the point you were making.

I don’t understand how you’re paying £3k per year on professional memberships. I’m a qualified professional and my annual membership fee is around £300. I know actuaries, chartered accountants etc pay not dissimilar amounts. Also, these are often paid on your behalf by your employer, aren’t they? If this cost includes CPD training then surely look for less expensive course options and again, does employer not pay?

When you do the self assessment, take a look at claiming tax back from professional memberships. I've just applied for this and you can claim for the last 4 years, you should get a percentage back. You might be able to do home as office too. It'll give you something extra towards Christmas.

gets out world's smallest violin Are you actually joking?!? I manage ok on approx 12k per year. Disabled/ill and on benefits.

Are your Diamond shoes too tight too? Sad times.

@CobbleWobble even on the salary difference / tax breakdown you detailed, there’s a huge chunk of money missing. If your DH is putting large additional amounts (looks like £1k plus) into pension , there’s no need to worry about paying for Xmas food shop!

The pension pot is effectively a ‘savings’ pot so you are tight on daily money because you’re saving more than feels comfortable?! Stop putting so much extra into the pension!

I also don’t eat the childcare sorry. You work 32 hours per week- school time only. And with your salary you’re at a LOSS by using holiday clubs. The huge childcare bill doesn’t make sense on your individual salary.

£170k is way above our household income and we’re not really struggling but we don’t have massive outgoings. Def have a mind to reign in some of the big spends though.

No school fees must be a big chunk saved for you at least.

Your mortgage repayments must be very high.

You have to live to your means if you earn 170k or 70k - I recently did a spreadsheet of income and expenditure and we are fine if we don’t go crazy with concert tickets or massive holidays. Prob were better off a few years ago but we’ve been helping our uni kids out w their rents - now just down to one rent.

Sound very privileged tbh … also 5 kids in this economy 😳😵‍💫🙄

Sorry, but no sympathy. Up until spring 2024, single parents on an income of between 50k & 60k also paid a marginal rate of tax of 62% because single parents child benefit was deducted from £50k. For no other reason than, often through no fault of our own, we were single parents.

I still managed to pay my mortgage and my son's school fees on my own.

I totally get you. We’re on a bit more and find that the money doesn’t go as far. If we had both in private education and had a bigger mortgage we would not have any holidays, no gym memberships, buying the cheapest food, no new clothes, not being able to save etc. It’s a trade off but I don’t think it should be at the income we have. We should be able to have a bigger mortgage but still enjoy travelling and not having to think about what we buy all the time. We have a smaller house than we would like, but at the moment we are choosing to spend money on travelling and not having to think too much on what we spend money on. The majority goes on childcare, (we’ve got one in nursery, and the other ones uses after school clubs and holiday clubs), travelling and food. We have old cars and no loans except the mortgage ( 700 / month) and a small student loan (90/ month). We could cut a lot back to be able to afford a bigger house but I don’t want to at the moment, even though the small house is driving me nuts. I couldn’t imagine not being able to travel and having to scrimp on food. Admittedly I spend a lot buying stuff online that I could be without.. Actually typing this out makes me want to cut that back and put it in to savings instead. It’s all relative though because if you’ve never been able to go on holidays or spend money on possessions without thinking, you will think what I’m saying is madness. But yes, I think the country is in a mess!

Looking at your budget, £900 spare a month to spend on fun stuff sounds alright to me! Your mortgage is huge - five times mine - so I appreciate that is a lot to pay and moving to a smaller place or out of your area would be a lot of upheaval.

🍿

Or a lot of children.

Also @PigletJohn 2k is split between long term savings and the dcs savings. 500 is put in our holiday account. We are going to Iceland next month so we will spend some of that then. It’s just how I make our money work. It all has a job.

Mortgage probably. Often people bought a larger house in a better area than they could afford if interest rates went up.

Also people tend to spend everything they have and not save. (More than one holiday a year, subscriptions)

Additionally people buy stuff that they think is essential but not long ago or to lower incomes are luxuries.

Society has changed so people need to buy more to function. (Smart phone and internet)

I agree with this.

People get carried away with what they think they 'should' be able to afford at a given income level. They look at the people around them and see private school, newish cars, holidays and conflate it into believing they should be able to afford all of it.

The reality is that at OP's household income they can only afford some of it.

IME when children are small are the lean years. There is child care/reduced earnings, a large mortgage. As DCs hit secondary school things feel better. A combination of no longer needing childcare, improving careers and just being used to not being able to afford everything. Then the domestic economy takes another hit during the uni years.

We are now in the post uni years, paying down the mortgage, pushing money into pension, eyeing up retirement.

I never said we weren’t lucky ! But I do realise how money disappears !!

If high earners spend all their money on mortgages, bills and tax who is going to spending money on clothes, meals out, days out etc etc that keeps people in work? It upsets me greatly that the first things to go in these budgets are cleaners, dog walkers, gardeners, beauty and hair appointments, days out etc because that money stops going to small businesses in our communities and is instead siphoned off to large corporations and the government.

I wish people would look to where the real problems are instead of sniping about diamond shoes and food banks - no one in this country should be grateful they don’t have to use a food bank because everyone in this country should be able to afford food.

Agree with this. The government are at fault and have done absolutely nothing to control, or regulate the cost of energy or sort out inflation

I understand that but you’re in a position where you are mortgage free with 5 children. Like who the hell has that

In much of London a 3 bed semi is well over a million! I don’t mean the fancy bits if London, I mean the normal bits not near a tube station! That easily means a £4,000 ish mortgage payment each month. My 2 up, 2 down tiny terraced cottage i. Zone 3 is two grand a month in mortgage, and I’ve got a good amount of equity!

Yes, our mortgage is huge - it wasn't when we bought the house but we had to borrow more to fix a big issue that wasn't picked up on the survey and insurance wouldn't cover, and then the interest rate has more than tripled.

I presume you bought when interest rates were very, very low.
I remember the high rates in the 80s and how it crippled many home owners.
Thus when we bought our home we were very careful to consider that interest rates can change dramatically.

While I do think individuals should take responsibility for their own financial decisions, I do think mortgage advisors, banks etc were not acting in the best interests of their customers allowing people to borrow huge amounts when interest rates were so low. They were obviously going to go back up.

@limescale

i think it’s disgraceful how much they’ll lend.

Like you we purposely didn’t go mad when we bought and whilst our house isn’t stunning it’s ours and affordable and won’t cause stress when we remortgage next year.

Agree. £900 a month spare and 'hang in there'. It's 😂 Yiu can do a lot with £900 a month.

Let blame the government for everything! That’s the answer. God forbid anyone take self-responsibility for their decisions and learn to live within their means.