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!!

It is 45 after tax Chegirl.

Just read back through the thread MorningPaper. Our mortgage is ok for us- we can afford it, our home would cost a lot more to rent and we're not in negative equity. A lot of people are though. If you bought in the last two or three years there's a good chance, unless you bought a wreck a property in need of modernisation like ours. I can sand and strip walls and grout and everything .

Renting longterm is pouring away cash whilst leaving very little to save for a bigger deposit for many people. If you're spending 12-1500 a month on rent then stretching to 2k a month and owning is the only way some people can get onto the ladder.

No darling. A LOT of us on Mumsnet struggle month after month and we rightly get offended if someone whose salary we can only dream about, comes on to moan that it isn't enough.

It makes us feel worthless.

But the OPs problems, it seems, are not all about money. So I sympathise with whatever she's going through.

I think this is an intersting thread. It shows that people on what many (including Gordon Brown) consider to be wealthy are actually really struggling.

However, I must also admit, that if the worst you are faced with is going out to get a job, then hey join the club. Worse things could happen.

If that's average, then this thread makes me feel even more worthless.

Thanks.

Well I think everyone has missed the point.

THe OP says Am I being unreasonable For my husband to earn £65,000 per annum and we still can't afford to live in this bloody country!!

She was not saying oh poor me I am starving. Wasn't she saying how ridiculous it is that they earn that much and they still struggle.

My DH earns 30,000 and I earn 2000 a year. This gives us 2200 a month including child benefit. A few years ago that woul d have made us comfortable. But I just feel shit because our rent and council tax is 750 that is before any other bills. We work bloody hard have half a day week we can have as a family. Shop at lidl, can't afford clothes. Can't afford dinner money for 4 kids £240 a term!! It's just shite that we have worked for ages towards earning what we thought was a decent wage (started on 15k combined) and we are left with 0 at the end of the day.

I don't give a rats arse what anyone else earns. Don't even care if people chose to be on benefits. It's just a bit crap when you seem to be going backwards when the price of everything is so high.

There is, of course, a very simple solution to the problem of high school fees.........

'It shows that people on what many (including Gordon Brown) consider to be wealthy are actually really struggling.'

Really struggling?!

People like this wouldn't know the meaning of the term.

Struggling because you can't go on holiday? Try not being able to turn on the heat.

I'm very sad at the idea of you feeling worthless, rhuby. You shouldn't, you know. Worth is not about salary (and £65 grand is way over an average salary anyway as you and many others have noted).

Pramspotter doesn't get the basic gist of a free market economy - high-earners aren't screwed by tax at all; they get taxed 40% of what they earn over a threshold that the average earner never reaches. 60% of lots is lots. Whereas for basic rate tax payers - ie most people - they end up with 78% of not much which is - erm - not much. Foreign companies like the UK better than much of Europe because the low-paid really are the low-paid and they can make a fat profit off them.

Earning £65K might mean the OP's OH is a doctor or a really senior head teacher. Or just somebody who messes around with other people's money and does bugger-all of any use. Judging how much someone merits a holiday, or anything else, on the basis of how much they earn is really stupd.

Oh and they earn 65 K but we come out with not that much less considered. Very aspirational

I don't see why you should feel worthless. I can see that one might feel poor. But that need not equate to worthless.

Oh rhubarb you are so wise - money doesn't buy you happiness!

It seems that for some people, the more they have, the more they "need", when actually they could live happily on far less.

I completely understand that truly struggling is deciding between heat or food, and often going without enough of either.

Finding that bills are soaring whilst income is static/at risk is something we all have in common at the moment though.

It is not average nationally.

Where does the OP live, sorry I may have missed it. In London as a household income you would be ok but after tax and higher living and childcare costs you would not have more actual income than someone earning half of that in the country!! Renting still more expensive than buying here.

If anyone does really know a private school with fees of £8,000 per annum I'd be really grateful if you'd let me know. The school my son wants to go to next September for A levels is £8,000 PER TERM! I'd love him to be able to go to a state school but we are UK residents living abroad (temporarily for DH's work)planning to return next year and are being told we will not get him a place in a state school and will have to pay. This is despite us being UK residents, keeping a house in the UK, paying council tax and all other bills plus tax and NI. My DH earns a good salary here but will earn far less in the UK and therefore we cannot afford to pay £24,000 per annum for school fees which is ridiculous as like someone said, that is apparently the average wage. Like the OP, we technically can't afford to live in the UK!

sitting back with a coffee waiting to be flamed...

'Oh rhubarb you are so wise - money doesn't buy you happiness!'

Anyone who thinks that, gimme some of yours, I'll show you you happy it can make you. Just follow my example .

yesmynameisigglepiggle on Thu 06-Nov-08 15:06:38

"I don't give a rats arse what anyone else earns. Don't even care if people chose to be on benefits. It's just a bit crap when you seem to be going backwards when the price of everything is so high. "

Yes, but that seems to assume that we must always be moving forwards in terms of financial status. A quick look at the history of the last 150 years shows that the economy doesn't work like that; it is a constant alternation of booms and recessions. If people do not have enough to eat healthily, keep warm, afford medical treatment etc then there is something not right in society and we should indeed complain.

But the mere fact that we are not all as well off as we were 5 years ago does not prove that there is anything wrong with the country. It's just a recession; they happen to all countries.

I'm going to come out in defence of OP. I'm a long-time lurker who felt so strongly about the aggressive responses she was getting to go to the trouble of registering purely so that I could post.

We live in an expensive town in the SE on a similar salary. DH WOH & I'm SAHM with 3 children, 3 bedroom house, only 1 car (gave up second one so I could SAH), buy pretty much all clothes on ebay, state schools and no holiday for 6 years since dd1 born. We can barely make ends meet. She's not a troll or making it up.

I know from previous posts that anyone who is specific about income gets a flaming from those who see it as a massive amount. However, cost of living varies so much in this country that what appears to be a high salary for some areas does not go far in others. Where I live it would be impossible to buy a 1 bedroom flat for less that £150 000 and moving for us is not practical as DHs business is here and if we moved away we would lose the income we have. Remember 1 person earning the whole salary also pays a lot more tax that 2 individuals earning it together.

I agree with you yesmynameis, she says up front what a good salary £65k is and actually I don't think it's unreasonable to think that if you earn £65k, you should be able to afford a holiday.

overseas on Thu 06-Nov-08 15:12:01
"I'd love him to be able to go to a state school but we are UK residents living abroad (temporarily for DH's work)planning to return next year and are being told we will not get him a place in a state school and will have to pay. This is despite us being UK residents, keeping a house in the UK, paying council tax and all other bills plus tax and NI. My DH earns a good salary here but will earn far less in the UK and therefore we cannot afford to pay £24,000 per annum for school fees which is ridiculous as like someone said, that is apparently the average wage. Like the OP, we technically can't afford to live in the UK! "

Once you have moved to a UK address, the local education authority are legally obliged to educate your son. Which means they have to find a place for him in a state school. It may not be a school you want, and it may be at an inconvenient distance, but once you are resident in the country, they cannot deny him an education. Don't let people bully you!

mumoverseas where in the UK do you want to send him. Can it be a day school? I am guessing not!

Well said puddingeater. Also the OP didn't said "woe is me we are so hard up", she simply said as my DH earns £65k surely we should be able to expect a little more from life! That is not an unreasonable thing to ask IMO and some responses on here have been terrible.

sadly Cory, that appears not to be the case as we have already been told by two schools/6th form colleges that because we/my DS has not been in the UK the previous three years we have to pay. I think you are correct with regards to education UP to 16 but not higher/further education where different rules seem to apply. Have had this confirmed by several other expats but of course are arguing it. ANY state school would be good, don't care where it is. Sorry for brief hijack!

Expat, I know people who earn around the same as the OP's DH, who are genuinely unhappy that they cannot afford a car, or clothes, or household stuff, or beauty treatments, etc as flash as their friends.

They moan that they are poor.

They are NOT. But they are not happy.