To wonder how other families get to the end of the month?

[gundigirl]

DH and I are both middle earners, with a combined income of around £90k. We have one DD in state school – no fees, but she does a few clubs and after-school activities, which add up.
With the rising cost of living, I’ve had to take on a side hustle. I actually enjoy it, but still – without that extra income, I wouldn't have been able to cover recent repair bills, for example.
I honestly don’t understand how other families (especially those with two or more DC, or just one working parent) make it to the end of the month. I’ve never felt more financially squeezed.
I’m not exactly a super-saver – I like the odd hair appointment – but I do try to save or invest a bit each month when I can.
What am I missing?

How much support?

7 DC with 3 at uni so supporting them. 60k combined income and we are fine🤷‍♂️

I totally get it. Salaries like yours seem big but outgoings are likely to be bigger ie bigger house so bigger mortgage, higher council tax, higher utility bills etc. We are on a higher income that OP’s - we live comfortably but have to watch our spending. We don’t go on proper holidays every year for example but our DCs’ go on school trips including trips abroad. Our biggest outgoing is mortgage - over £1500. I need to go to the office 40% of time - my travel is £55 a day! I do econsomise and travel off peak or use weekly tickets where possible. Food bill is huge - two growing boys who eat a lot (mainly meat!) and grow out of clothes quickly. We pay a lot for various insurances products (life, critical illness, etc) which can be classed as luxury but for me is a necessity in case one of us can’t contribute financially anymore. We have car loans (not lease rentals) and my husband’s car is relatively expensive sports car - a luxury.

I know we could budget better but feel
that both being in professional /specialist roles we should not have to.

90k ? Wow that's another planet.

Single parent here, 19k a year. We live on food banks and alot of free food from olio. I'm a teacher, I also work nights in a care home.
Try shopping solely in lidl for a month. Use their app. So cheap. Go to u9uf local goodbank.

Your post is absolutely baffling OP. We have a combined income of £40k, a mortgage and bills that exceeds yours (£1700), two kids doing shedloads of clubs, and somehow manage to survive. Seriously, give your head a wobble.

@gundigirl I agree with others, a clearer breakdown would be helpful.

But based on what you have shared, my thoughts are:

• £180 pw on food for two adults and one small child (primary I assume hence wraparound care) is a lot. I spend about £150 pw on four adults and I am lavish (berries rather than apples, free-range chicken); so I am sure you can look carefully at that and cut down – drop down a range from branded to best own brand; eat less meat; eat cheaper fruit and more veg
• Thousands on a car repair bill IMHO means it's time to ditch the car. We have driven plenty of older cars and I have never spent more than about £1k on any repair. I do a high mileage and spend about £1k a year on services, new tyres and repairs. Could you look at buying a £3-4k car as an economy measure?
• Mortgage and bills at £1.5k sounds Ok for your income.
• £100 on the gym is a lot. You say it's your only hobby – but you could do the same hobby for a lot less. Council gym with pool would be £30-40 IME.
• You don't put a figure on your DC's clubs but there could maybe be savings there.
• Phones not mentioned but a cheaper handset and a SIM-only deal can save money

All of the above presupposes you want to save some money on your expenses. You can continue to send £100 pm at the gym of course – but you should know that that figure could easily be halved. Probably with little or no loss of enjoyment.

I enjoy these threads because I find hearing about others spending, incomes and expectations really interesting. The cost of everything has gone up, but so have our expectations.

Five clubs for a child and a £100 a month gym membership are things we wouldn’t have expected in my family growing up in the 90s, but seem normal now. Then think of all the tech that we all now expect to have (phones, tablets, etc).

I can’t compare my situation to yours, DH and I don’t have kids and have paid our mortgage off, so our outgoings are just a few bills and then whatever we want to spend on ourselves.

Honestly, I don’t see where your money is going! Our mortgage + bills is very similar and we are on 65k.
How much is wraparound care?
That seems like an expensive food shop for 3 people? Ours is 100 per week for 4. Switch to Aldi or Lidl!
Stagecoach is quite expensive for the quality. You could probably get a cheaper local dance and drama class that wasn’t a franchise where the teaching was at least as good.
Join a less fancy gym?
We don’t go on holiday really, not abroad anyway. I guess that’s a big difference.

You have to be overspending. We have a 16 month old. Our household income is 64k before tax. I save around 500-700£ a month, and my partner saves £100-200.

If you want answers OP, instead of wondering why it’s tight when others manage better than less, yiu need to give some more info.

If one of you is £60k and one of you is £30k then that’s around £5k a month take home? Bills and mortgage £1,500 food £775, cars say £500 average running costs? (Not big bills every month). That leaves more than £2k for clubs and wraparound care, savings, holidays, presents etc.

is the wrap around care expensive? Are the clubs crazy expensive?

She’s not acting skint! She came here for support!

What's a hair appointment ? Can't remember the last time I could afford one !

I am a bit baffled as well as our combined income is less than yours, I have two DC and manage to save between £500- £800 per month . My food bill.is less, £150 per week probably. I hear Stagecoach is very expensive, is there an alternative ? You probably need to go through your bank statements properly and do a budget if you want to get to the bottom of this. You may be paying for subscriptions you don't use or spending more than you realise on utilities. Have you checked whether you could be getting a better deal on utilities and insurance recently? I do this periodically.
Running two cars is costly depending on how far you are going in them . Do either of you have the option to work from home?
Do you plan your food shop or just buy what you fancy? If you plan your meals out you're less likely to splurge on food that may end up wasted, and as a PP said look at cheaper brands. Do you always go abroad on holiday , you could do the occasional UK break to save on flights etc.

We're middle earners and London based so not cheap.

2 toddlers. Paying some childcare costs.

We put away £2K in savings most months.

Reduce your outgoings.

We earn roughly the same, 3 teens and 1 dog
Mortgage/bills - £1000pm
Food - £800pm
Cars x2 - £200pm (very little driving needed as we both wfh)

We then have about £1,500 a month as spending money for the family and £2,000pm into a savings account.

I thought I was quite rich!

I have found many people have higher expectations than me I was from a mend and make do background with parents starting from very very low beginnings and saving for each household item
We had our babies just before the massive crash.
And cut our cloth accordingly .

Around me were NCT mums saying they have to go back to work because they wanted an extension or special kind of hot water tap and hair appts ,nails , package holidays to Bermuda.
All an anathema to me .

I’m very similar to you but paying a bit towards nursery fees, I eat out or healthy convenience food so often as I just can’t cope with chopping and cooking too often with my toddler around and I’m well aware this is where my money goes but I’m just in survival mode!

Why is your mortgage so cheap for a four bed house!

But surely you must get universal credit too up and maybe child maintenance too?

Im a family of 5 living off 33k and we dont struggle.we do without a car. I do a budget every month and save for everything monthly. Ive got about ten different accounts to divide income every month into each category then take from each

I'm absolutely not going to plead poverty at all- we're comfortable on about £100k between us (although we are in London so higher mortgage for a smaller space), but in the last few months we've really noticed a lot more month at the end of the money (and yes we shop in Lidl, no expensive habits really, no debt- although we do spend a fair bit on various sports participation). DC's 2 night school residential is £320 which blew my mind.

If we had a higher mortgage, one in childcare FT (although wraparound is 200/month!) and some consumer debt it would get tricky quite quickly. We're public sector and the pension contributions make a big difference to our takehome as well (yes very fortunate to have them).

I think maybe part of it is feeling like on that income you ought to be able to go for a pub lunch occasionally or a coffee should be affordable a few times a week. But instead you have to think about budgets constantly. I know I hoped doing better than my parents financially might free me up from constant thinking about money. Wrong!

This thread has made me feel a bit flat at first, but I get we all have different circumstance. I used to be in a high earning household and then we separated.I used to think we were struggling for money but in reality we just couldn’t do all the extravagant things we wanted to. I now look back and realise how privileged we were but also that most of it is just stuff. It’s not essential to living.

I pay 19k a year just in rent in the south east, only doable because of a universal credit top up and child maintenance. I’m a single parent to two primary age children. My earnings are limited as a sole parent who does all the childcare. My kids have never been on a proper holiday. But I feel happier than I’ve ever been. The secret is my expectations these days are low, so anything extra is a bonus!

I think we have such a misconception that our kids need all these paid for clubs and holidays. Loads of toys and scheduled activities.

At the end of the day the more money you earn the more money you naturally spend on outgoings. I think we all strive to make our lives a comfortable as possible. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all that OP would feel that she should be living a more comfortable life on what the majority of people on here think is a high household income. I used to feel the same.

I was expecting your mortgage and bills to be at least £2.5k per month. There will be money you’re both mindlessly spending.

Don't be daft. A teacher and you work nights in a care home and you don't even earn NMW? Plus the UC you'd be entitled to on that income?

They'll likely get just about all their CB unless one of them is very PT NMW as you don't lose all of it until you exceed £80k after pension contributions, which would leave very little for the lower earner to be bringing in to get to the £90k. Also, they can't both be in a higher tax bracket because basic maths.

But if its the OP who's the higher earner and has a side hustle then, in true MN tradition, her PT low earning cocklodging DH needs to step up and bring in more money so they can continue to spend without thought and have money left over to save.

But the OPs update just confirms that there's a lot of nice to haves in their normal monthly essentials and the answer to her question about how other families get to the end of the month is that they don't have DCs with five hobbies, £100 pm gym memberships and £180 pw grocery bills.