To not understand the cost of living crisis?

[tiggerbouncy]

Fully prepared to be told I’m being tone deaf here.

Before I start I want to caveat this and say I live in the North and I am comparing to other Northerners, as I know the South is a bit of a different ball game.

I earn less than the national average salary. I have recently had my biggest ever pay rise which has put me on 25k for 35 hrs a week. My partner is on similar but has a lower hourly wage (works more hours though). In total our household income is approx 45-50k ish?

We own our home (via mortgage) and we paid for the deposit with no family help.

We go on at least one or two foreign holidays a year and frequently enjoy meals out and day trips to different places.

We have two cats (one of whom has needed very expensive vet treatment) and soil them rotten.

A lot of my peers constantly moan that the cost of living being so high is trapping them either at home with parents, renting, not being able to go on holidays etc etc. Basically, I’ve had a few comments recently about our lifestyle being really hard to achieve and how it’s unfair we enjoy so much.

I just think that we have put our money into things we enjoy (ie holidays) and obviously don’t have children. But I genuinely don’t find like difficult? If our washing machine breaks we buy a new one, if the car needs work we pay etc. We both saved from having full time jobs out of sixth form in order to fund out deposit (again, big bonus of being northern I know!) but our mortgage payments are easily manageable etc.

I’m not suggesting that the world has our circumstances, but a lot of my peers either earn more than me or the same and moan they can’t do anything!

AIBU to think it’s about how you prioritise life and that “cost of living” isn’t an excuse for just being poor with money?

Again, I’m not saying that a single mum in London with 5 kids has the same options or anything like that, I’m meaning in our specific situation. Lots of people moan we earn nothing but to me it feels like quite a lot!

I also see loads of people on here moaning their 100k salary doesn’t go far anymore and they’re missing out on things. If I made 100k I’d be planning to retire in about 5 years!!

Snap! I’ve not felt rich for almost 18 years. Once they move out, I’ll be like OP, several holidays per year (can just about manage 1 per year at the moment), eating out at least half the week (as I hate cooking), mortgage will be nearly paid off and so I also hope not to notice the turbulent economy either.

How much was your house. How much deposit did you put down. It's meaningless to say you manage so why can't everybody.

I'd have so much spare money if I didn't have kids.

I have 3 school age children. Every holiday is expensive (we mostly go on UK holidays), accomodation for 5, travel, meals... clothes for 3 children are expensive, birthdays and Christmas are expensive, food for a family of 5 is expensive, music lessons, gymnastics and scouts are expensive, after school clubs are expensive, school residentials (£500 per child) are expensive...

Thousands of pounds. I could stop the music lessons and gymnastics and scouts but my children love them.

So yeah, having children costs thousands a year.

What’s with all the ‘oop north’ chat as though it’s a land that has just been discovered. For those yet to visit us- wear flat shoes when you do, all our streets are cobbled like Corrie- you should know that childcare in t’north, house prices in t’north and food (we even have several branches of Waitrose, our own spendy food spin off called Booths and M&S foods a plenty) pretty much twins with many, many areas in ‘the south’ The OP is literally describing financial life before or without kids, when you’re both earning 🤷‍♀️ It’s kind of irrelevant where they live as a mortgage on a 400k property, for example, is still 400k you have to pay back whether you have 4 bedrooms and a garden or a one bed for that amount and you don’t need 4 bedrooms if you don’t have kids, so live where you like…

Sighs. This 💩shit again.

Why don't you get a hobby? You've clearly got time on your hands.

And can obviously afford one, given how 'comfortable' you are. 🙄

Where do you go on holidays OP?

If you have other childfree friends in the same area struggling OP, could it be that they're either single or have been single for a long time and therefore haven't had the benefit of many yrs of double income and savings that you and your partner have?

Also, it depends when you bought your house, some ppls mortgage payments are very high now.

@tiggerbouncy I agree with you OP that people complaining about not being able to live on colossal £100k salaries are bonkers. It is commendable that you are doing well on the household income you have.

There are a few wealth sinks that people are oblivious to (and I suspect these don't apply to you):

• Having an obnoxiously large car, or a car on one of those weird "PCP" things that you see. Car dealers no longer sell cars; they sell financial products, and its financial institutions that profit. The UK is full of suckers who actually fall for this.

• Eating a lot. Food is expensive, sadly.

• Clothes. No one needs a huge amount of clothing.

• Subscriptions.

My main concern though is your savings and pension (this has probably already been flagged, but it's a long thread). Are you saving into your pension regularly? It should be 3 times your salary by age 40, and 6 times your salary by age 60.

By the way, I voted "YANBU." I am a fan of OP.

If you had DC you wouldn't be so smug.

Do you eat crap food? Have a car? Live in a grim area?

Firstly, most of the people earning 100k are going to be in the South-East.

Secondly, having your household income from two fairly equal earners rather than from one high earner means you pay far less tax than the one high earner would do.

Secondly, things can change suddenly. A few years ago our mortgage rate came to an end around the Truss era. It went up by about £400 a month.

But overall, yes, I also get the impression that my Northern friends are struggling a lot less than my southern friends. That's one of the reasons why Burnham's land tax idea seems so unfair. People are really struggling to pay for their housing in the south, and it'll become so much harder.

Because renting is more expensive than a mortgage.
They're paying out a fair bit more a month on housing than you are which is eating up the amount they would save to gain a deposit.

Not to mention they could have credit card debt, student loans etc, that all adds up.

I’m in Scotland and where I live you would struggle to rent a 1 bed flat for less than £900 a month and to buy a 2 bed cottage flat (four in a block) in a mid range area (teachers, accountants, building surveyors, middle management etc) are offers over £175,000 and because it’s offers over you need to find or be able to mortgage at least another £25,000 on top of that to have any hope of getting it. The last three bed in this area was offers over £225,000. Nursery fees average £80-£91 per day or £1600-£1820 if they attend full days for 20 days a month and then you food and bills on top. Your money can very quickly disappear.

2 income , no kids , living in the north … of course your laughing

Do you have kids? This is a big factor that I’m surprised you fail to mention in your OP.

A very insightful post, particularly the part on being comfortable yet not realising the scope of what will come

Do you not realise the cost of groceries, energy prices and rent takes up most of peoples net pay at the end of the month? And that’s just for basic living. Factor in commuting costs, broadband, phone contracts, fuel, car costs, prescriptions. (Then never mind people who have children and you’re paying X2 for food, childcare for younger ones, school uniform and supplies etc. etc.)

Do you seriously think it’s “easy” to save up to £15K in this economy?

You are deluded.

So where did you both live while saving for the deposit for your house? Some claim they had no help from parents but lived with their parents so they could save the money they would have been spending on rent. So that is help from parents.

I didn’t say it had to be in the most desirable area, but the links that have been shared have high crime and are not great places to live.

I would expect nice to be somewhere I would feel comfortable kids playing out in front of the house and not worrying about coming across broken glass or needles. Where the school options were rated at least good by OFSTED.

My comments on nice have been misunderstood. But there is a big difference between nice and acceptable.

Poor cats.

The reasons people struggle is they have additional outgoings such as:

• childcare - can be 1500 a month
• far better quality of housing
• expensive cars on pcp etc
• gym membership, subscriptions etc
• constantly eating out
• wildly expensive holidays
• owning a dog,(food, insurance, training etc)

We went through a period of relative affluence before covid and people got used to it. That has ended and many are struggling to adapt.

Saving a deposit today means several years living at home, not going anywhere expensive, not eating out, driving a cheap third hand car or taking the bus, and taking a packed lunch to work.
It's difficult but it can be done, even in the south.

Must be nice to live in OP's world.

Or, this is just goady af clickbait.

Yeah a "starting home" here is about £300,000 rent on a three bed house is around £1250 a month, council tax is about £200 and wages are about 25k
After school care would swallow a second wage especially summer holiday clubs as well.
So yeah you are lucky where you are, not all of us are.

Your post sounds like conservative propaganda. The establishment wants to pretend that we're all struggling because we're lazy, bad with money, unable to budget, didn't stick in at school, shouldn't have had so many children, should work harder/more etc etc. People who buy into this way of thinking are basically saying that while prime ministers, royals, CEOs and billionaires are wondering which one of their homes they should weekend in, the rest of us don't deserve anything nice and should be working harder. There are 4 million children living in poverty in the UK and I work in a school where colleagues are forced to use food banks. The very rich want us to believe that we're not living in a late stage capitalist dystopia and if you subscribe to this utter fallacy, I pity your ignorance.