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 is your mortgage? And what do household bills cover - just the essentials or do they include subscription services such as Sky/Netflix etc?

And "running two cars" can mean a lot of things. If you have two newish cars because you are in PCP schemes, (which really lock you in), as opposed to smallish 5 year old cars bought outright second hand, then that can make a big difference to your finances.

Usually said by someone getting £30k worth of government benefits in the form of free housing, free council tax, free childcare, free school meals, free dental care, free prescriptions, free opticians PLUS what they earn.

You must have a tiny mortgage? You have a monthly income of £3k and about a third of that goes on food and the gym.

What are you spending on mortgage, bills, holiday spending, clubs, birthdays, clothes, days out.

I just can’t seem to get spending to a reasonbable level.

These threads are so pointless - surely people earning this kind of money have the intelligence to sit down and work out exactly what they're spending? What's the point in asking complete strangers!?

For example, my income is less than one third of yours yet I can save nearly £1000pm. Does that help you in any way?

Give over. Most on benefits aren't entitled to all those things. Even the childcare help from UC depends on you paying it first.

OP prepare for a battering. Apparently on MN you can’t be struggling unless you earn below 15k. The point is that the ones on about 40k-50k are the ones who don’t qualify for any top ups from universal credit and in the last 2 years likely had a massive mortgage increase and bills increase.

For us, our mortgage increased a year ago from 900 pm to 1400 pm. All bills have gone up massively so yes I am having to sell stuff and and may also need some kind of side job to keep afloat.

I agree with the forensic look at budgeting and cutting back on subscriptions etc. but it is really shit that compared to 2 years ago we are so much worse off!! For the same amount of work if not more…

How much is your mortgage?

Mine went up to £1400 and we are struggling. This is not a huge house btw. 800sq ft in outskirts of London. Can’t move due to living where we grew up and being near family support.

I think you probably perceive you should be better off but a pre tax of 90k per year is no longer a guarantee of a very comfortable lifestyle. I’ve got friends on universal credit who can afford things we can’t but then our net income is not massively different from there’s (from all sources - UC, income, maintenance, passport benefits) Our net perhaps £8-900 higher but they bought their house years ago and have very low mortgages plus got and still get regular cash gifts from family that equates to the difference in our net income, so with a much lower mortgage and family help that they can afford a nice holiday. I was once a single parent on benefits living in a council house, not in debt and money to save, I was fairly frugal but we are now and don’t have any money to save

OP, we’re the same earn similar go you guys and it’s a joke. If we want treats as in a coffee or takeaway it breaks us, we have to use our credit card just to do basic l things, saving is a struggle. I was asked to go for a coffee with a friend the other day and had to say no, next time think I’ll just use my credit card so. I can go, it’s depressing.

Yes it might be in London and surrounding south. 90k doesn’t get a lot

Who are the people getting their nails and hair done, eating out, deliveroo and takeaways, coffees etc? Who can afford to throw money around like this?

Why are there so many threads like this?
We earn a lot less than you, yet we save £1500 a month.
Learn to budget.

Jointly, we earn about 60k ish and we live rather comfortably. Couple of abroad holidays, couple UK. You are doing something wrong here.

So it will be the mortgage🤷‍♀️.

Agreed 👆

We were on a combined income around £100k but now have dropped to a single income of £60k without drop in standard of living. It took us both 10 years to qualify in our professions and during this time we had a combined income of £26k and that's where our life habits formed.
When we started earning better we kept our lifestyle broadly the same and we saved hard so that when we bought our first house we had a good deposit. We continued that through the first few years of not having kids so that now our mortgage payments are a lot less than they could be. Our mortgage is now £700 a month on a £500k house.
We spend £80-100 on food a week for family of 3 + newborn. My daughter has a lot of food allergies so we buy whole foods only which keeps the costs down. We use a variety of supermarkets to make the most of nectar or clubcard prices as well as using Aldi for other stuff.
We keep on top of savings accounts which means we getting a decent amount of interest.
We have 2 cars but one is only used for 3000 miles a year and is a very basic car inherited from a grandparent that stopped driving. The other car we paid cash for so we don't have monthly payments for that
We buy basic smart phones outright so our mobile phone bill is £10 a month for both phones!
We don't buy clothes regularly and when we do we look for quality so they don't need replacing frequency. My main coat was purchased in 2006!!
Furniture is one thing we do spend a lot on but we treat them as one off purchases that hopefully will never need replacing.
Our summer holiday cost us about £500! When we started looking we look at renting a house but that would have been £1200, we decided we didn't want to spend that so we went camping instead which cost us £250. We spent another £250 on activities and days out. Our daughter had a ball and asked if we can go back next year.

For us the way we live is through habit! Start by making small changes and then make some more.

So the combined income is around £5,800 a month (assuming 5% pension contributions and 1257L tax codes). We have around £5000 a month coming in.

I'm amazed you can't make this last to the end of the month but without a full breakdown of mortgage/household costs, cost of cars, holidays etc, it is going to be hard to get a proper answer.

However, you have stated food bill of £180 per week. There are three of us, DH and 21yr old DS and I spend around £70 a week on food and that's without scrimping or looking at the cost of items. I cook from scratch every night. We probably have 2-3 takeaways a month and eat out once a month. We have one foreign holiday a year and multiple weekends away. DH has golf membership. I get my nails done every 2-3 weeks and a haircut 2-3 times a year.

DH has a company car but we have my car and a campervan to keep on the road.

OK, so we are probably further down the line in terms of the size of our mortgage but we put lots into savings each month.

@gundigirl you need to put everything into a spreadsheet and work out where you can save money. You're overspending somewhere.

I’m on 28k and don’t qualify for any top ups as no children and have had a mortgage big increase
50k would be a dream

were not,80k up north,our mortgage nearly doubled so that was a loss of £500 a month,weekly shop has gone from £140 ish to £200 week,utilities are around £400 a month now,they will go up again in April no doubt,school dinners you name it has all gone up,seems pointless working.

How people are only spending £70 a week on food is beyond me,that would literally get a basket in aldi.

For us, our mortgage increased a year ago from 900 pm to 1400 pm. All bills have gone up massively so yes I am having to sell stuff and and may also need some kind of side job to keep afloat.

I'm surprised everyone else is feeling so comfortable - we're okay but very aware of money and cutting back for a bit - we go out a lot less and try and keep food bills down but shrikflation a real pain.

Our mortgage went up last year - but we felt it less as we'd been overpaying - and the amount it went up was less than the over pay - but everything else insurance - dental and no NHS for DH and I - cats, house/contents - utlities have gone up even when rate we used has dropped slightly.

We go out much less and when we do it's more expensive and service is often poorer. We do manage to put some saving away - so unexpected expenses can be covered. There more doing without or making last longer going on and has been for a while.

My budget is £60 a week and that fills 2 of the Aldi reusable bags to overflowing

There was a programme on radio 4 and it’s only about 30% are actually struggling, if we didn’t have maintenance costs or had a lower mortgage we’d potentially have an extra 1k a month to spend/save/not be in debt by. There will be plenty of people who don’t have those specific circumstances we have on the same earnings who are living life very comfortably

I don’t understand why op didn’t contextualise her post by giving us an idea of her outgoings.

Otherwise, i think it comes across as goady to post that you can’t survive on 90k when most people have far less.

£90k is about the combined salaries of 2 senior health care professionals or two teachers. It doesn't afford a luxury lifestyle at all. I suspect that you think you are "rich" and are spending accordingly.

OP, sit down with a spreadsheet and work out exactly where the money is being spent, it's kind of concerning that you don't know this.
Some costs are unavoidable but can still be tweaked.

Things that we learned early on is that "posh" financed cars are a huge money pit. I have just bought a 5 year old BMW that I paid £14k cash for. It's beautiful and would have cost closer to £40k new. I could have afforded a much more expensive car but this one does the job.
Gym membership costs me £31 a month (including swimming), my friends is £380 a month, our exercises burn the same calories whether they are done in a council owned sports centre or a luxury gym with premier league footballers as members😄.
Food is something I don't compromise on, I buy everything fresh and cook from scratch. Even so I spend around £160 on 3 adults men, myself, a dog and a cat, so £80 a month less than you.
You really do need to get organised, make meal plans and lists for shopping. The "cherry pick" App is really good for this.
When I reviewed my finances I found I was spending around £100 a week meeting my friends in restaurants for lunch. So I switched to meeting them for coffee or just going for a walk with them instead. It's saved about £300 a month.
We have regular holidays and weekends away in nice hotels but we use sites like "secret escapes" to find a good deal.
I wouldn't say we are mean, but on a similar income to yourselves, DH and I turned our finances around and have a very comfortable sum in the bank now.
My final bit of advice would be that however hard it seems, make sure that you are saving and paying into a pension.

You can do this! You clearly work hard at your job, put the same effort into working your finances.