To feel fed up about us struggling on DH low salary

[HumphreysGang]

Does anyone else have a DH who earns as little as £56,500 salary?
My DH does and it is so difficult to survive financially on his low salary in the SE.
I am surrounded by friends whose husbands all earn well in excess of £100,000+ a year. The difference in lifestyle, including affordability of house size, extensions, cars, holidays, etc. is huge. They are all living the dream and we are struggling to death.
Just wondering if anyone else has a husband on this level of low salary?
And yes I work. 30 hours a week. My money pays for extras. His is the main income to cover the major costs (except it doesn't and we are permanently in the red).
He'll never earn more as he's at top of his salary point.
Nor will I due to our SEN DC and their needs which have severely thwarted my previous plans for career progression.

The entitlement is unreal. And 56k is not low anyway. Go earn more than him, I guess?

This has got to be a wind up, but I’ll bite…

The money you earn is fine, but you seen to be comparing yourself to richer friends, which isn’t healthy.

If you can’t increase your incomes you must lower your costs.

It’s not really fair of you to put all
the earning pressure on your husband when you work 30 hours, SEN children or not, unless he’s sabotaged a more lucrative career or something.

If the rich friends are always jetting off to the Alps or Mykonos or fine dining places, and you’re invited but can’t go, perhaps you need to step away. If they’re just ordinary people you get on with and have a pleasant time with, you’ll have to control your jealousy.

OP lives in an expensive part of the country. I imagine their salaries in Blackpool or Stoke on Trent would be really good and they would have a bigger house and more disposable income.

As it is, their combined salaries is not massive for the area.

OP, do you have the potential to earn more than your DH? If so, what about him going part time and looking after DC whilst you build your career?

Could DH take on some studying to gain extra qualifications to help his career progression/change industry?

I think whatever happens, comparing yourself will only make you more unhappy - though it’s hard not to do this when friends all seem to be so much better off.

Me too.
What an awful way to live and view the world.

Move.

The SE is the issue not the salary itself, look at what he'd get further north and look at what's available. Personally the SEN provision in Scotland seems much better than in England so worth thinking of that and property is much cheaper.

Your income is thwarted as much by sending children as your husband. The frustration of the reduced warning potential with SEN children is so difficult and you have my empathy and sympathy there.

Appreciate you're in the South East. We live on the edge of a town that's in a very expensive part of England. DH retired a couple of years ago and was earning less than that, I only worked 12 hours per week. We paid the bills, had holidays, fun.

We did have a very right spell when DD was little, that's why I started work doing more hours then and DH took a part-time bar job on top of his full-time job. One thing don't compare yourselvs to others, all our friends have a higher income, we enjoy life just as much.

Hahahahahaha

Needed a good laugh this morning OP. Thanks!;

How much do you earn?
do you budget?
why doesn’t your wage also pay the bills and any left over is for extras?
could you earn more / get a second job?

my dh earns 60k. I earn 26k. We pay all bills and extras. Apart from big spend month (like December) where we may have to take out of savings. Most months we save between 250-1k. We do everything we want in that too.

My DH earns £150k yes

You work nearly full time and only pay for extras? Why dont you try and get a job thats better paid? Your husband earns a decent amount.

It really boggles my brain when people on here say they are struggling and their household intake is a little less than 100k. I am a teaching assistant and I earn hardly anything, my husband is a driving instructor. He does ok for himself, earns around £30,000+ (his choice.) and could earn more. We don't struggle, we are comfortable. We don't live beyond our means and we certainly don't compare ourselves to others.

I opened this thread expecting to find a situation like we lived through a few years back where our family of 4 only had husbands £22k SE income to live off and he refused to quit pursuing his business idea in order to take up a higher paying job.

If it's such a low salary to you, then decide to become the primary earner, make more money than him, and he takes on the career restrictions that the SEN child brings to your family.

It's what I did.

Op you do realise your husbands salary would be classed good for most people. It's way above the national average salary.
Both me and my husband have good jobs (I work in public sector) and am top of my grade after 20 years there and earn £45k. Id be pleased to earn as much as your husband. Surely you can afford to live but must can't have luxury holidays!

Not all the SE is expensive. See Medway, or parts of Essex, for example. Perhaps the OP could move to a cheaper area?

Does anyone else have a DH who earns as little as £56,500 salary

No. You’re the only one. All other husbands earn more.

Get a grip.

I thought OP was going to say £25k or just over, around NMW

I understand that this salary in the SE isn’t heaps but you frame this as being fed up with your husband’s earnings. What about your earnings? You work nearly enough FT so why don’t you find a better paid job? Why is that a demand on him? At 30h you could certainly find a job that pays better. You say he’s at the top of his salary point and that you won’t find a better job - if those are truly your circumstances then why are you channeling this disappointment at him?

Give your head a wobble. Loads of people earn way less than that and are thriving, even in the south east. You probably need to sit down with a old fashioned pen and paper, work out outgoings and incomings and see where you can make budget changes.

Nice that all your friends are doing comparatively well but remember "the bigger they are the harder they fall".

We never had flash stuff or posh cars but we always paid our mortgage and our kids always had holidays and we retired in our mid 50s. Sort your priorities out.

How much do you earn? If pro rata you earn less or the same as him than you have no right to complaint.

That's a senior NHS managers pay.
Or a senior teachers pay.
Are you sure your friends are actually being honest with you?

As you’re getting some harsh replies (including my own initial one) is there some caveat that you omitted from your op, which would help people see your side more? (Because as it stands, it wasn’t a pleasant op from your dhs pov). Something like he wouldn’t do a good job of parenting your dc, so you have no choice but to have assigned your roles this way round. Maybe? Something else?

I live in the South East, it's an expensive area
Dp earns £32k, I work full time minimum wage both our wages combined just about make your dps salary
We struggle a bit but could cut back in some areas if we had to.

Honestly comparing yourself to others won't help
Your doing much better financially than a lot of people

If the money means that much to you encourage your dp to retrain in one of those 100k plus jobs or you train in it and dp does the majority childcare

Talk about a glass half empty….

How much do you earn?

My husband earns a similar amount, I earn £30k (28 hours a week) and we have a very comfortable lifestyle with holidays, two cars (bought outright), detached house etc.

We have one child.

We do live in the North West though.

My DH earns a bit less than this and is probably at the top of his earning capacity.

However we have a very comfortable life that includes an annual holiday budget of about £15k because:

• I decided I didn’t want to rely on a man for finances so I’m the breadwinner
• We chose to live in the North where it’s cheaper
• We chose not to have children to allow us to maintain a lifestyle of our choosing.

if you made different choices, it’s not surprising you got a different outcome