Feeling financially battered and sad. Can anyone make me feel better?

[Killat]

Post-budget, I’m feeling financially battered, sad, and to be honest, quite jealous and bitter. DH and I are hard workers with decent salaries but have barely anything left after the massive mortgage and nursery fees. It’s looking like we can’t afford a second child.

What little, cheap things pick you up? What have you read lately that makes you feel optimistic?

Maybe you could volunteer as a godparent to yet another offspring of a workshy mum?

The economic damage makes it more likely we will rejoin the Single Market and the UK's finances will pick up again.

I’d rather have DC than pay for my SC to take foreign holidays and more extracurriculars. I’m so glad I had DC.

Your focus needs to not be on SC life and what the mother does. You are here now and you met your DH with kids. Things hopefully will pick up for you and your DH.

How many overnight stays does your DH do? Paying £500 a month suggests very few OP.

If you add up the mortgage, childcare and maintenance of £500 it’s about one salary. So they have over 3k a month for bills, food etc. that is enough for a good quality of life. Have you done a spreadsheet op to see where your money is going ? Are you spending more on the house renovations than you realise.
We only have one child and I know people are talking about high cost of nursery fees but as those decrease other costs increase. If you want your child to be able to do activities, maybe music lessons, maybe some school trips etc when older I would definitely consider not having another.

You married a man who already had two children, though.
He should have had them in mind when making plans for more.

A 13k loss, so you're on 68k AFTER tax?

That's a fucking whopping salary, I'm not sure why you are so skint.

Probably not for you at this stage in your life and the budget doesn’t screw us. We don’t have childcare and we are taking pensions soon.

You asked for cheap things we love:

I go to a knitting club once a week - free local village hall. I take milk, someone takes tea etc absolutely no cost and about 30 women and great friends love them and it - free

My husband and I allotment £42 a year and we have 150 square metres a 5 minute walk away. We brought loads of wooden sleepers and collected cardboard and grow our own veg - can be a money pit but actually we love it and even our wooden bench was free and just needs a paint.

Books - I use the library but also Tesco has a free book section I take one pay 50 p and read it and then put it back too and love that.

Our local rugby club is a 5 minute walk - cheap bar and drinks we don’t often go but actually nice to take a book - great views!

Arrow words books from Tesco - love it and playing wordle.

In the summer we pay £5 each and go to the local lido - it’s a 4 hour session and it’s outside. £20 for a morning. Take snacks and kids (adults!) are in and out all morning. Plenty of fresh air and warm sun and again read books

Board games we have a whole cupboard full uni etc

making friendships - it took me until 50 to realise many many people are lovely. It takes time to develop friendships ask people for a walk and coffee etc

Hes not cheap but my dog but walks

The best free thing is my health I don’t take it for granted
and T Chi £6 a lesson but wow love it!!

We live cheap and don’t go on holiday much.

also we don’t want the news but read the week - much less depressing

ask for magazine subscriptions for presents eg husband has just had gardeners world for a year for his birthday!!

radio is free

OP I relate to this. Haven’t read the whole thread - I will - but we have a similar-ish household income to yours, a bit less in fact. Mortgage payments slightly less but we are also supporting a DC through university and have 2 more to go.

In many ways I am aware how fortunate we are compared to so many, but on what was historically viewed as a great household income now doesn’t stretch far. All our bills have gone up by a lot. DH also had a period of redundancy and his earnings haven’t got back to where they were a few years ago.

I also work freelance in an industry that is in crisis - there is simply less work and less money. Combine this with rising costs of everything it’s a challenge. 10 years ago we were very comfortable and now we can’t afford a meal out or a holiday.

Very aware that we are not living in poverty but it still all feels a bit shit, particularly when we seem to be friends with lots of very high earners who all seem to be able to enjoy their lives in ways we just can’t! I will read over the thread for suggestions on how to enjoy the little things…but yeah, it doesn’t feel great.

@shellysee All our bills have gone up by a lot.

Everyone is suffering the same with the huge hikes of bills no matter the wage. To be on higher wages has to help cope with it.

If we contributed equally to costs I’d be bitter that I’m paying for my husbands children while he tells me we can’t afford a second. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t want the kids to know I felt that way, but I’d tell the dh I’m contributing less and saving for a maternity leave.

Sure thing to not have money is to have several kids. Your husband’s ex may find herself in trouble once a ruthless government comes and take the benefits away.

I may be being dense here but topic says feeling battered post budget..... but all the stuff is historic - luz truss mortgage, step children, child... so all the financial hardship is there already. How can yesterday be the issue/ causing all that?
And if you have problems financially how on earth do you decide to drop a day? This is madness... all of it!

A three bed flat rather than a house? A three bed house in a crappy, cheaper area not far from where you both work and the SC? Staying renting for longer to build up more of a deposit and rainy day fund? A two bed house or fake with, yes, multiple sofas / sofa beds?

I have a tent…. a small stove, a bottle of gas and a warm sleeping bag. I like to stay on very quiet sites. That cheers me up and is relatively inexpensive

OP, I’m not really sure how you’re struggling to make ends meet?

Your joint take home pay is £7,300 per month. Mortgage of £1,800 nursery of £800 and CM of £500. Is that right?

So after your major expenses you have £4,200 per month left over for food, utilities, clothes, savings etc? That seems plenty. Certainly not breadline living month to month.

I found myself in a situation where I had 2 babies 12 months apart. DH is self employed so I went back to work as soon as I could. We would have been fine but he wanted to go to back to work, he was genuinely starting to show post natal depression symptoms. Nursery fees destroyed us financially!

First thing to do, which I am sure you have, is use Tax Free Child care, it makes a huge difference.

Second...in the words of Mary Poppins "in every job that must be done, there is an element of fun, and SNAP the jobs a game" For me, that was (is) bargain hunting and tracking savings. I saved us hundreds, which was the difference in having Christmas dinner as guests and having Christmas at home with babies and grandparents as guests. I was (still am) checking Money Saving Expert daily, no purchases are made without cross checking. My shopping list is the same every week, meal plan is a 3 week rotation. (updated every 3 months) It saves money as you know what's coming up so you can bulk buy. We are not regimented at all, we can have off days, etc nothing is too serious. We don't have Sky or similar, far too expensive. Mobiles are SIM only.

I just realised how dull I sound but it works for us to keep going and not fret about bills.

The £500 is to house, clothe and feed them OP.

Out of interest, how much do you think he should be paying? How much does he pay to house, clothe and feed your joint DC?

He doesn’t seem to be paying a lot for his other children.

Divorce is expensive.

More like £6.6k take home assuming student loan repayments and minimal pension contributions. And OP says they’re funding his kids outside of the £500 CM.

" afford a second child" ? On paper nobody can as they NEVER make you a profit ...I can never understand this argument for having/ not having kids. Now here's a thing ...' childcare ' is what parents do, crack on with it then !

So £6,600 take home per month.

Mortgage £1,800, childcare £800, child maintenance £500, extra costs for step children say £500 = £3,600pm.

Which leaves £3,000 per month for bills, food, clothes, travel, anything else.

Even if bills and food come to £1.5k a month, that's still £1.5k left for clothes, savings, house renovations, holidays etc.

Are you budgeting well OP? Properly budgeting - spreadsheet, pen and paper, app - whichever suits you best.

Be proud of what you and DH have achieved in order to have £3k left after housing and childcare costs. You have done really well for yourselves and are setting a great example to your 3 (hopefully 4) children.

Wow, the shit being flung around in this thread O_O

"What little, cheap things pick you up?"

Adult colouring books. You can get them full of swear words if you like, or mandalas, but I prefer the ones that bring out my creativity a bit:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Deco-Fashion-Colouring-Book/dp/178664472X

Mythic World: Colour Timeless Legends (Worlds of Colour) https://amzn.eu/d/bfo80Wu

Color the Classics: The Art Institute of Chicago: 0 (Adult Coloring Books) https://amzn.eu/d/3SyOD2V

I have also begun to build up a big and cheap dvd collection again. It's amazing how much stupid films like Jumanji and Night at The Museum pick your mood up when it's vile. Charity shops (x4 for £1 near me), and ASDA sell secondhand ones from Music Magpie. I gave a bloke £15 to empty his van of 1300 dvds. kept 400 and sold some for £20 and gave away the rest.

Agreed. I think children can be born into imperfect situations, and still have idyllic childhoods and happy, productive lives as adults. Obviously not advocating for having them when one or both parents are drug addicts, or the family is living out of a cardboard box on a street corner. But we were poor growing up - I never felt I was missing out. We went to parks and holidayed in England, at my grandparents. I did lots of art and craft projects with my mum, and we cooked together a lot. It was great! I wouldn't trade my little brother (now a hulking great fireman, with a gorgeous daughter of his own), for anything. Definitely not the memory of more holidays or newer clothes or anything. I think the modern notion that children can only be planned if you have oodles of savings, and a 6 bed house you own outright, is madness.

Oh! I've recently been cheered up by making my own wine. Free to do, if you use foraged blackberries or gleaned apples. I haven't buggered about bottling it - you can keep it "live" and store in the fridge. That way it improves your gut microbiome too, which is also a mood booster. Plus it's fun to make, and oddly satisfying to get something for free, when cost of living keeps going up and up.