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?

I am in a similar situation but I don’t have money left at the end of the month because I am bad with money and overspend on things all the time. You are probably the same but not being honest with yourself. And I don’t mean designer bags, I mean things like the premium shampoo in the supermarket rather than the cheap one, Frappuccinos from Starbucks, new cheap clothes which aren’t essential, theatre tickets in the mid price range rather than the cheap ones, etc etc. I blame myself for not being more disciplined and if I didn’t have the money, I would cut back more. It is a lack of discipline more than anything else.

Why does this explain why Reform are doing so well in the Polls? To fund the proposals Reform are making the cost of living would rise because there would have to be a huge income tax hike.

Ah ok, you were.

Never mind, you can aspire to being a twat. Keeping trying to be funny.

Sorry to pick on you, but you are the lowest of a crowd of people feeding 3 adults on £50 - £80 p.w. which works out as £7/day = £2.30 pppd = 80p/meal.

I'd seriously like some tips on how to do this. I reckon that we get through 10 litres of milk, 12 eggs, 2 loaves of bread, a pat of butter, 2 boxes of cereal, a box of tea, a small jar of coffee in a week. That's half your budget before I start thinking about food! (Though to be fair it could cover breakfast if we didn't have the luxury of fruit with the cereal).

How many of you is that for @SoMuchBadAdvice?

I wasn't thinking that Reform have a solution (in fact they don't really have any policies), but that the Polls are showing a protest vote against the established 2 parties. I think that people are thinking that we've had the same 2 parties in power for over 100 years, and it doesn't make any difference which one is running things - it's always bad.

3 + a cat

I have so many questions…How do you get through so much tea and coffee? Do you drink a lot? How many cups do you make from each tea bag? Do you only have cereal and toast for breakfast?

Luckily we rarely drink coffee (only me and it’s maybe one every other day). I do batch cook and often make a big stew which can last 2 or 3 days. I am lucky that I have the space to grow our own vegetables, so my freezer is full of runner beans at the moment, we have leeks and broccoli growing too. I only really buy carrots and potatos. None of us drink alcohol. I just meal plan. Most of which I cook from scratch apart from the occasional pasta sauce. We mainly eat soup for lunch (either homemade or Lidl tomato soup). We eat things like stir fry’s, chicken gyros, spag bowl, stews and curries, we probably eat mean 3 or 4 times a week but it’s mainly chicken, rarely buy red meat unless it’s mince or sausages. We occasionally spend a bit more to restock staples (tinned tomatoes, spices etc…) but never spend more than £80 (my food shop this week is £65).

I just checked what salary that UC top up takes you to, and it’s the equivalent of £48.5k p.a. That should be a decent salary on paper, but the cost of things have gone up a lot in the last 2-3 years

Half that income, both working in professions requiring post grad qualifications. Two young teen DDs. State school. Clothes from vinted. No smart phone contracts, no streaming services, No heating on at home all year. Collect wood to have fire when its very cold. Walk or bike to school, minimal use of car. We try to grow as much food as we can. DH and I skip evening meal every day. We are a unit. We talk, laugh a lot and go for great walks. We feel blessed to be able to manage. It helps to accept that we cannot always have what we think we should be able to afford.

I agree with you about take-home pay. As a country we will all start to suffer if people find that work doesn't pay.

It's the kids activities and childcare that does it. My daughter did everything under the sun and you don't realise the cost of it all until it stops!

@thenovice It helps to accept that we cannot always have what we think we should be able to afford.

THIS 100%

Just because you want something doesn't mean it can happen we take home just less than 50k pre tax between us. We can't have everything we want - even if we think we "should" be able to have it, even if my parents in a similar wage bracket were able to. Life is expensive currently and we have lost the art of cutting our cloth.

TY. A few good points there - Alcohol & coffee is going to save a fortune! I went shopping yesterday and rewarded myself for having tracked down and bought Pomegranate Molasses by treating myself to a cup of coffee in a courtyard cafe (£4). I can see why £90k isn't enough!

But seriously - I like the sound of growing vegetables, not just saving money - but eating healthily is a luxury that doesn't cost £. Sadly we don't have a big garden, but last year we grew potatoes, courgettes, and tomatoes in containers (bags). I'm going to work harder at it next year! Thanks for the inspiration.

I recommend it. You have no idea how long you have (sorry to be doom and gloom) and I appreciate my freedom more than money or material things now.

I've had fancy holidays, cars, clothes etc and so I am quite happy with a simple and cheaper life now. I do want to move house at some point for just a swap from small detached to small detached so hopefully won't cost too much.

I do feel for the OP though. I remember being out working and having a mortgage, car loans and feeling money went in and then back out. That was without kids so no childcare bills.

I'm early fifties by the way. Do i worry about money. Yes a bit. Sometimes i think about getting a wee part time job for a bit of cash and also some human interaction but that will be after my dog goes (if at all). Life is too short to spend working to buy bigger cars, holidays etc. That's just my opinion of course.

I'll need to keep a food diary to give you honest, accurate answers, but I think that my crude, inaccurate estimate still makes a valid point - that the necessary basics (bread, milk, butter, tea, coffee ....) make big inroads into a small budget. The answer that I got was illuminating too - to have a low food budget, she has access to things that I can't afford - namely, a large vegetable plot for growing, and a large freezer for storing produce and batch cooking.

The population is 46% C2DE

This is just a general comment and sorry if it does not help the OP. I think the trick in life is to get yourself a bunch of savings. You will find once you have some money in the bank life gets cheaper.

What I mean is I have a food budget but when Tesco say have something I use on special then I buy like 10 of them assuming it's something that keeps of course. It's amazing how much you can save when you have financial freedom to flex and retract as suits yourself. You will make better decisions in general as you won't be fire fighting and making rash decisions when things go wrong.

However I have to say not working also helps with saving money. I have time now to shop around for better savings rates, fix my utilities and compare supermarkets for offers etc. This stuff all takes time and I never did any of it when i was working.

The other thing of course is to get rid of your debt asap and certainly high interest stuff like credit cards.

Money definately makes money. I'm only in this lucky position due to inheritance although I did work hard from age 19 (after uni) to retirement at 52 without a gap as no kids.

I was a high earner at one point married to another high earner and we were always skint because we just spent everything we had on luxuries. If I had my time over I would do it differently when I was younger and had a good income.

Fair enough. I just find it crazy to get through a box of tea bags etc in a week. It would take us about 3 weeks. 2 adults, 2 dc.

For a family of three adults, if you buy the BIG 240 boxes of tea bags - pgtips is £6 at Sainsburys that is 11 and a bit cups of tea every day - if you are going through a box of teabags at that rate I am concerned.

Conversely if you are buying the smaller boxes - again 40 pjtips £1.70 at Sainsburys then that is less than two cups each a day. That does feel stingy to be honest.

Buying in bulk especially for tea @SoMuchBadAdvice would have a huge impact for you - we also use UHT milk for tea, can't taste the difference - and I can buy it at a much better price than fresh milk.

As dismissive as some posters can be, it’s really important for the economy that people earning well feel like it is benefiting them and they have confidence in their jobs and spending otherwise it has a knock on impact on other people and their jobs such as cleaners, kids activities etc. Those are all the things that can go

OP stagecoach will be pretty expensive in and of itself. Activities often really add up and suddenly creep up.

43.9% to be precise but it's only an HRP approximation for age 16-64 and projected on the whole household, the real picture is more complex anyway and depends on Ipsos methodology too eg whether they polled pensioners often classed as E and other variables.

It depends upon the size of the box?

Yes, we do drink a lot of tea, but I was approximating - in truth, we don't make tea with bags, we mainly drink B.O.P. Leaf Tea, 2.5 Kg every 6 months, costing £59.25p, which works out at £2.50/week. I've just worked out that a similar weight of PG Tips would cost £21 & Yorkshire Tea £35.

Sadly, that wouldn't be an option for us now. We are dedicated tea snobs & could never go back to drinking tea dust now that we are used to brewing leaves. It does mean that when visiting friends, we have to say "No" when asked if we would like a cup of tea, which is a shame.

People's diets are so vastly different though, it's nearly impossible to compare. We don't eat eggs, butter, bread for example, don't drink much tea or milk either, can't eat beans always suggested on these threads etc.