For my husband to earn £65,000 per annum and we still can't afford to live in this bloody country!!

[winegoddess]

Mortgage has gone up, electric has gone up, 5 mouths to feed, 3 children to clothe etc etc and month after month is a bloody struggle. Am fed up with straping money together when my husband earns a good wage and we should be able to get by! I now need to search for a way of 'me' bringing in some money but with a young baby at home and 2 others at school i am at a loss as to how! Please give me some job ideas or ways to make money!!

oh gosh - how could I have forgotten weaning, and smacking/child discipline, oh and P&T parking, and party bags, and how much TV your child watches..........

Winegoddess - Come back, you made a fatal error of assuming everyone on here is loaded. easy mistake to make with the amount of Nannies/holidays/Boden talk!

i got flamed good and proper my first AIBU, probably because I was.

It's good for the soul, makes you think outside of your bubble.

But don't take it personally

My mortgage has gone up £450 this month, utilities just gone up £30 permonth and my council tax bill is £260 per month (for reaons I'm looking into). Whatever my take home pay is - thats a lot of money to find when I don't have any left at the end of the month normally.

Of course I'm cutting everything non-essential out, and I'm an accoutant and I saw it coming so have had a while toplan and hope to get my mortggae down a bit over the next month or two.

But where-ever you start from trying to save £500+ A MONTH is very painful.

But why is a holiday less decent if it costs less money? Why are experiences valued according to how much they cost?

Working hard is again relative.

sorry that was to angels, not to you Kewcumber. I think we are all going to be finding the next few years quite a hard adjustment.

My DP earns more than £65k - so fucking what ? It's all relative. He is a contracter so we could lose the money at any point and be on £0k. We live in a poxy 3 bed semi, run 2 ageing cars and have had a couple of nice holidays. Does that make us criminals ? Am in a pissy mood today and this thread has really fucking annoyed me. 4/5 bed house and private education ? You must be joking...
Rant over - as you were ladies...

Me and my dh earn between us around perhaps £15K less than you and your DH, Winegoddess.
But we have high childcare costs as we both work full time and have no family to help us, we rarely have a night out (no baby sitters!) don't drink much and spend maybe £500 a year on a holiday to Spain which isn't a holiday as it a visit to see my relatives (I'm half spanish).
Yet we manage.
So I honestly can't for the life of me understand why you can't either!
BTW you can have a fantastic holiday for less money than you would pay for your Egypt one - e.g. the one holiday abroad that DH and I had that wasn't visiting my dad we went to Rome. It costed us £300 for a week and it was absolutely fantastic! We got cheap flights and rented a small apartment and spent the entire time looking at the many places of interest. How about looking for something like that?

For me a holiday does not have to be expensive BUT I personally like to go somewhere with guaranted sun for at least 1 week a year.

but loadsamoney you've got Loadsamoney so we're not buying it!

Loadsmoney - has'nt got loads if she pays full time childcare.

yes, of course it is....and Doctors (as OP's dh do work hard....assuming he is a medical doctors....but that is what I am assuming right now....although, have made this assumption elsewhere before and that persons dh was a Dr. but not of medicine, lol) do work hard....shitty shifts, etc....

However, 65 K is kinda a decent wage....and many people who work as hard (lets say nurses, for instance) will only be able to dream of that kind of return for their hard work....

and of course , isn't OP's dh lucky he was academically able to even become a doctor.....not everyone is lucky like that....simple....doesn't mean those people work less hard or are less deserving though....all down to luck (having the intelligence, for instance) , opportunity and all that...

I can see the OP's point but I disagree that it is hard to "live" on that amount. You can "live" easily on half that amount but if your expectations are of a certain standard of living then the current financial situation may make it impossible to achieve your standard of living.

It is very hard to adjust your expectations. DH and I earn great salraies on paper but in RL they allow us few extravagances at the mo. We have a (vital) nanny that takes up £24k a year, a mortgage that takes up £18k a year, council tax and utilities take up £18k, other bills and the car which take another £8k a year. So just to pay our bills each year takes £68k a year and thats before food, clothes and any treats. We live in central London and money goes nowhere near as far as people imagine.

FWIW it totally depends on the area.

Similar income. Live in an area that is actually more expensive than London, have to for DH's job. Cost of living has gone up and up. Big mortage, not a big house, no car, no hol this year etc. All income eaten by cost of living, bills, mortgage etc. No debts apart from mortgage. We are not bad with money. I economise, there are lentils on the stove as we speak. I cancelled Sky TV recently. DS has 2 nursery sessions a week which comes out the housekeeping money...so we're eating less meat, not buying wine etc. So we're feeling the pinch, are you all going to tell me that I'm crazy because we need to economise?

think noonki was taking the piss then, angel....

I dont think it matters a fig if her DH works hard for the money or not, i just would like to know where all that money goes!!! Have they children in private school maybe?

Really?

Otter...but you are economizing and not talking about taking expensive Holidays at the same time as monaing about your incomoe and livingstandard....

Exasperatted Mummy, look at my last post, it illustrates clearly how you can end up spending more money than the OP's DH without any gid luxuries like holidays, Sky TV etc etc.

I thought doctors earned £100k a year, not £65k????

Anyway, come back winegoddess, I like your honesty

I thought that too FeelingLucky but daren't mention it; I didn't want to offend the OP anymore. I'm such as wuss aren't I?

FL...depends on what kinda a doctor etc....I mean, if he is only starting out then he wouldn't get 100K yet....I thought that is what GP's earn?

rather naive to think all Drs earn a 6 figure salary!

at the moment, me and dh are asset rich and cash poor! we have a large house, lovley cars, however - we have had to make a HUGE investment in our business, we need, in this climate to make sure that we are ahead of the game, we also have employees who we HAVE to pay.

for the first time in years we have no holidays booked, am thanking fuck that school fees are now over (dd16)it is becoming almost a personal challange to see how much i can save every week at the supermarket etc

i.m in no way moaning, this is a wonderful country to live in, most of us are in the same boat financially atm.

i suppose what i'm saying is that i feel bloody sorry for anyone who has debts they can't pay, having money worries is nearly as miserable and debilitating as having health worries.

Fair enough fairlady, but I think I was trying to illustrate that depending on where you live the salary mentioned is hardly private schools, 5-6 bedroom houses etc.