To wonder how single people are meant to live nowadays?

[Cadogan66]

Just that really! Life seems impossible these days without a joint income.

At the moment I earn the best wage that I’ve ever had (senior AHP, ~£60k pa) yet making ends meet is harder than ever. I’m usually left with nothing at the end of the month after paying the mortgage/utilities/groceries/insurance etc and am having to dip into credit cards. I by no means live a luxurious life (haven’t been on holiday in years, limited eating out, only buy clothing off Vinted) so it’s just so bloody depressing to feel like I’m effectively working for nothing. I can just about get by and that’s it.

I’ve got a 21yo DD who isn’t cheap to run - she gets minimum student maintenance loan (due to my income being relatively high) and I am therefore expected to help out with her living costs/rent at uni. I don’t begrudge it for a second, she’s a hard worker and does as many hours as possible at her part time job alongside balancing a tough uni course/placements/maintaining a social life but it’s absolutely crippling me. Trying to keep the two of us afloat feels impossible.

Any other single parents feel the same way? 😩

the mortgage maybe over a longer period of time - maybe 35/40 years isn’t uncommon these days, but she probably has a mortgage of about £175,000 to £225,000

The reality is that a lot of people (single or otherwise) simply cannot afford to support their adult children through Uni anymore.

They could fund it by charging more for houses with multiple adults

Of course you have a choice…she needs to get a job

It is possible. I bought a 200k flat in zone 4 within the last 5 years with a 10% deposit. The mortgage is £800.

And you don’t get to keep the child benefit when you earn over 60k when a household with two people up to 60k each do. My DC (single parent) do not cost any less.
A household with two adults each earning half of what I do and keeping the child benefit is literally hundreds of pounds a month better off than I am. It’s not made up by child maintenance as I do not receive any. I still have to pay the same maintenance for DC at university.
What I do always try to remember is that I would far, far rather have my job, though, and the salary that goes with it regardless of tax. It’s just the spiralling cost of everything which sometimes feels like rampant profiteering and it’s a bit depressing to have what should be a reasonable salary going not at all far once all the outgoings are accounted for, and I do not live expensively.

It’s something like 36k to get anything more than the minimum in Scotland and the loan does not even cover halls or rent.

DD works very hard but there’s only so much you can do on an intensive healthcare course with full time blocks of placement. It’s not as if she’s doing a mickey mouse type degree with minimal contact hours.. In order to get 25 hours per week during term time she’d need to give up sleep!

Completely agree!! Iv never earnt more than I earn now yet Iv never been more skint!!

Again, if you would’ve actually read my OP you’d know that DD does have a job and works bloody hard! In term time uni is pretty much all consuming with 9-5 lectures/tutorials/placement, all before coursework & revision on top of this. During the holidays it’s not unusual for her to be working 12 hour days with minimal downtime.

I’m not saying this to be controversial or goady, but do parents typically not save for children’s university from early on in the U.K.? My ex husband is British and when we lived there he seemed perplexed I would want to save from month one. I’m Canadian and we typically start saving very early, even if it’s just $20/$50/$100 a month from birth. Maybe because student loans here have to be repaid in full usually regardless of what salary you end up with?

Op, I agree. It is ridiculously hard. I am a single Mum too. I can't afford to fix anything in my house, can't afford a holiday, can't afford a cinema trip or a nice meal out.

I don't understand why on here, couples can say it us a struggle but if a single Mum says it everyone pipes up.

Yet another post is people all saying how quickly they could save £8K and how many thousands they save each month.

I completely understand your frustration. It is so exhausting.

How much do you pay for nursery costs? I did manage to save for DD monthly but by the time I got to DS, childcare costs were four figures a month. And I did not qualify for any support with that and it was before the free hours you get now. So no.

Totally agree. Liz Truss has a LOT to answer for.

£60k ought to be comfortable.

Household income of just over £62k means minimum loan only. Fir max loan, it has to be below £25k.

Well I m a single mum too. My exh pays zero. I'm on 19k. Imagine my life.
Foodbanks, begging friends for money for milk and bread.
I'm an educated professional...
60k is my dream. Think before you post, OP.
Have you been to a food bank?

I don't sleep at night because we are hungry and I cannot afford heating bills. I live in SE.
It's horrific.

I do think the repayment schedule affects it, yes. As people repay the loan as a proportion of their earnings, it’s seen as a cheap debt. Living costs weren’t as bad as they are now, up until a few years ago when interest rates increased dramatically and rents raised accordingly.

But also as another poster pointed out, in the UK we pay a high proportion of our salaries on housing and childcare. There isn’t much left to put aside for a lot of people.

Being a single person in the UK is now very precarious financially, a very risky situation as one salary can easily be lost through redundancy, ill health etc. Even those who have been able to save (very hard as a single earning household) may not feel able to hand over £££ to their adult children out of fear that money may be needed later in life.

Are you claiming benefits your entitled to?

I'm on just under 31k, rental is going up for sale and rents have risen so much over the past 2 years, I'm really struggling to find something else affordable. I live with my eldest son who is currently unable to work, and whilst he contributes, I still have to sort him to a degree. If I had a partner, it would be easier financially.

But could you buy it now if you had to?
5 years ago is a long time in house prices land.

That sounds incredibly tough. Have you visited CAB to check you’re not entitled to more support? I’m really sorry you’re in that position, I hope things start to look up soon.

£19k is a very low salary (stating the obvious, I know!), especially for someone educated. Could you push for more? We regularly recruit women with administration skills in their early 20s, starting salary is £25k, SE.

Have you looked at NHS jobs? Often good pay progression, opportunities to progress and good pension scheme.

How much is your monthly service charge?

It's particularly difficult now but some of that is temporary. Your daughter won't be at university for much longer. To ease the pressure while she is, you could review your mortgage rate to make sure it is still competitive: the bank rate came down very recently and lenders have been changing their offers.Also, with today's longer maximum terms and flexible upper age limits for paying off a mortgage, you could probably extend the term temporarily to lower the monthly payments. This would give you a welcome breather and when your daughter finishes studying and starts working, you can catch up and start reducing it again.

Even nearly 20 years ago I was paying approx £1,500 pm on rent/bills just outside London (1 bed tiny maisonette) and had a reasonably well paid job self-employed. But after all the petrol, travel, insurances, student loan payments I didn't have anything to save.

The UK is a very expensive place to live and we have little in the way of services to show for it and it's getting worse.

I earn around 40k now as I’ve progressed in my career but I have a much worse quality of life than I did 5-10 years ago.

If you’d asked me 10 years ago what my life would be like if I knuckled down and qualified in a profession, working 40-50 hours per week, I’d imagine myself living in a nice house that I owned and going on holidays every year. My reality is very different as rent increases by a crazy amount (market rate apparently) and I haven’t been on holiday since 2019!

Back in 2019, I could afford a holiday once a year and although I worked full time, I didn’t work particularly hard and my wage was really low. Life was pretty easy back then and I had a lot of hope for the future.

The whole point of retraining and progressing was to give my child a better life and to save up for university for her but because everything has gone up, I can’t afford to do any of that.

I expect I’ll be in the same position as OP in a few years. It’s so shit and leaves me wondering what’s the point in trying? I’m encouraging my child to look at degree apprenticeships but I know they are competitive.