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!!

i don't think the OP is paying school fees btw. she couldn't afford to on £65k unless mortgage was v small.

You earn more you spend more, fact! I had more money when I was a student (shopping every week, meals out/ take aways/ last orders at the pub a few times a week) and I used look forward to working so I could buy more clothes.. little did i know! I now earn double what I started on when i left university but have no disposible income after bills/ food

"By CoteDAzur on Thu 06-Nov-08 14:15:32
£3,693.38 is not an enormous amount for a family of 5, two at (expensive?) schools, assuming they also have a largish mortgage on variable rate which has gone up.

Give her a break. "

its a lot of money whatever way up to want to put it.

if the kids are in private school - take them out.

happywomble - yes if the salary was split between the two parents then they would pay less tax. But how could both parents earn £32K each without spending a fair wack on childcare? Shelf stacking in Asda at night isn't going to get you £32K. And then, you know, that childcarer will be paying some of that money that the parent has already been taxed on in income tax. My childcare bill for this month for one child in school (and no school holidays this month) and one child in state school nursery for 3 hours a day, for only 3 days a week is £400+. And when they were both at day nursery....

Now that due to economic conditions, electricity, gas, and mortgage payments have gone up, what exactly is OP supposed to do?

Take kids out of their schools? And send them where, at mid-year? Try to sell the house? How, in current housing crisis?

These are their ongoing expenses. They may be much more than yours, but they are not easy to change. Of course they are going to try to hang in there until conditions improve.

She should be entitled to a moan without being beaten to a pulp, imho.

Have to say, I'm rather pissed off at the shit some people have thrown at the OP. Guess what, some people even earn more than 65k and they don't have to justify it to you by peforming lifesaving surgery or dragging cats out of burning buildings in their lunch-break. That's how the state gets the money to pay for healthcare, education, benefits etc.

I'd also love to find out where some of you get your mortgages from. Ours is 2k a month, and that is not at all uncommon.

I thought this was a troll for sure when I read the thread title and then the OP. I mean, who would be so insensitive to come onto a parenting board where many parents are struggling to make ends meet, bragging about their dh's salary in the thread title and then having the bloody cheek to MOAN about it not being enough in their OP?

I guess that's what really got me. The OP's dh earns 3 times as much as my dh and yet she is MOANING about it!

Crass and vulgar methinks.

"She should be entitled to a moan without being beaten to a pulp, imho" agree - particularly as moaning is free and a time honoured MN tradition (unless you earn more then £50,000 it seems)

If you got onto the housing market anywhere around 6+ years ago then you probably have a house with a smallish mortgage

and lots of us are olde

I don't care what schools her dc's go to or what she spends her money on. It's her bloody insensitivity to MOAN about how bloody poor they are - she wouldn't know poor if it bit in her in the nipple.

(I don't know why anyone would take on a 2k mortgage if they think they can't really afford it - am I really naive? Why not just rent?)

£2000 a month!
We are lucky to have bought our house years ago, so nowhere near that much, even in London.

Cote, I know of a family doing just taht - they have managed to let out their big house in teh country to a company who houses it's execs when they come over and they moved to a small 1960's terrace in not the nicest area. She pulled her dc out of private school and stuck them in teh only not-oversubscribed state school. Not ideal, and a hell of a shock considering the life they once used to live, but the fact is needs must. She is very philosophical and states she is glad she had the opion to so dramatically reduce their outgoings so they can keep their heads above water.

Needs must. And really, because the OP is planning an expensive trip to Egyps I am assuming that by 'not being able to afford to live her' she means ' we have to cut down on those things others see as luxuries'.

It's true Rhubarb - I have friends who moan that they are poor, as well as lovely colleagues who barely earn over the minimum wage but don't moan.

amidaiwish on Thu 06-Nov-08 14:11:23
"kewcumber tell me where you get childcare for £700 for one child?

DD2's nursery costs £1300/month if she had a full time place.. (Twickenham)"

Around here using a nursery rather than a childminder is a luxury that most people can't afford. Plenty of people can't afford childminders either, so they just have to take it in turns with one parent going to work in evenings or weekends. Most of them don't seem to complain a lot though. Don't know anyone who can afford private school fees either. And this is a comfortably off area as far as this town goes. People do have very different expectations.

Other out goings for a doctor:

£2,300 (dermatology) - £26,320 (obstetrics) a year medical indemnity protection (at earning level of £65000 - increases with income)
£390 /year GMC membership
£297 BMA membership
£variable amount - to be member of relevant royal college
£780 - application fee to be allowed to get certificate of training to apply for consultant post
£variable amount (£1500 for me) to take college exams to get to apply for consultant post.
£x for text books and equipment e.g. stethoscope, ophthalmoscope.
£y journal subscription to keep up to date.

It is esp difficult to know you have to penny pinch fr your family in order to splash out on a new textbook which often cost £100s as they are so specialised.

I still think this is a troll. No-one would go on about how much the private schools cost, what expensive holidays they go to, how much their dh earns and then moan about it. Not unless they were deliberately trying to wind people up.

It's trolling season.

nursery is a luxury I can't afford.. but thats a big assumption "so they just have to take it in turns with one parent going to work" ie that there is another parent.

Childcare of some sort is a necessity for me (unless I want to live on benefit), luckily between ma and being fortunate enough to earn more than average Its a necessity I can afford.

(I don't know why anyone would take on a 2k mortgage if they think they can't really afford it - am I really naive? Why not just rent?)

Because renting for any length of time in the UK really really sucks - you have very little in the way of rights and no security of tenure.

That is one of the big reasons people were so desperate to get a "step on the ladder". A lot of people I know stretched themselves further than they should have because they were worried that if they did not, they might be priced out forever. It is a shameful situation when school-leavers and graduates today are facing such a reduced quality of life compared to that of people who were in a position to buy before prices tripled.

But Combustiblelemon - surely anyone earning that amount of money is well aware that they have more than the average person in the UK, and must realise that if they are struggling the rest of us must be sinking.

Therefore it is crass to moan about it.

I think she has a fair point if she really was struggling, but to be talking about a £2000 holiday one day and 'struggling' the next is a bit much

Here are our outgoings per month for a 1 bed flat in Bristol city centre, 2 adults out all day weekdays:

£130 - Council Tax
£750 - Rent
£100 - Car insurance
£60 - 2 mobile phones
£30 - Contents insurance
£60 - Electric
£30 - Water
£160 - Diesel
£10 - TV Licence
£250 - food
£40 - landline and internet (not sky)
£10 - bridge fair
£20 - breakdown cover

£1650. Excludes clothes, meals out, unexpected costs, costs of running a car (MOT, Service etc), pensions, gifts, etc. And I have probably forgotten some things!

Christ know how some people on here manage on a 25k salary (which I make to be £1500 ish a month take home) in London with children I am pretty shocked TBH.

winegoddess

could you cut back on any of the following?:

• TV - scrap cable or satellite
• cars - cut down to 1 car if you have 2?
• food - eat well at home but avoid meals out
• holiday - holiday in UK (self catering but with the odd meal out) - there are lots of more luxurious self catering places these days.

• children's activities - don't know what your children currently do but maybe cut back to things like Beavers/brownies or clubs run by School that aren't too pricey.

If you don't already have National Trust membership might be worth getting - you can then spend school hols taking your children to National Trust gardens instead of forking out for expensive Legoland type places..there is the initial outlay but I've found it worth getting.

In terms of making money could you make a few £s selling your children's outgrown stuff on Ebay?

If your DH works irregular hours I imagine it would be hard to get a job to fit round his shifts unless you can find something well paid to cover the childcare...I think in your position I would try and make economies rather than work while you have a baby.

Well it's easy to think that everyone in the world is like you i.e. living in an expensive area of the SE where most people do professional jobs and where things like expensive holidays are the norm. I think many have been a bit harsh and a lot of you seem incredulous that anyone can lead a different life than their own.

"Because renting for any length of time in the UK really really sucks - you have very little in the way of rights and no security of tenure. "

You have lots of rights as a tenant. We've been renting for 5 years now all in, we can never afford to buy our own. Our contract now is a long-term one. If houses prices come down in the meantime then who knows.

Morningpaper - I guess because for years and years we have been bombarded by the idea (from govt, as well as from the media) that it's imperative to "get on the housing ladder" on the assumption that prices will keep going up and up. No-one anywhere, until the last few months, has made much of a vocal suggestion that actually in a falling market it's not so much a housing ladder as a housing snake, and that buying a house can also be taking a stake in a loss.