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!!

Is that fair to say you shouldn't expect new clothes if you have trained as a doctor and are working flat out as one ?

My daughter is being teased at school for being bright. Last night I told her not to worry because if she keeps on working hard she'll get a good job. You could be a doctor, I told her. Or a vet. You'll have to give up years of your youth to study, but it will be worth it. Ignore them when they call you a boffin (and we'll be moving you from the state sector to a private school that pushes girls to do as well as they can). OK, you won't be going out as much during the week because of the homework, but it's worth the deferred gratitude.

But perhaps don't bother because people will begrudge you a decent salary and you will be taxed to the bone to pay for those who are teasing you now for being a boffin.

Deferred gratification, that should read. Good Lord, who ever expected deferred gratitude!

ah bride1 letting the flaming resume

We struggle by on just under £20,000 a year with two kids to feed and 1 wage so I'm finding it hard to understand why you can't have quite a nice life on that amount. We have a mortgage and bills that are ever increasing too. Sorry, if I'm not being helpful but to be honest this has annoyed me.

Winegoddess I am pleased you came back!

I think the point that some are missing is that £65k is a huge amount and you don't earn that without putting in some effort so the world has gone a bit mad when it doesn't buy you a nice house, a SAHM and a nice holiday.
It's going to get worse and no doubt the bitching on Mumsnet amongst other forums will reflect that.
People have been spoilt over the past 10 years myself included and now it's payback time.

Winegoddess: "It is my honest belief that this is a first class country full of hard working families who are represented and led by 3rd world corrupt and greedy leaders."

You haven't seen 3rd world corrupt and greedy leaders yet! I would urge you to step outside the cosy shores of your temperate isle. So-called 'excesses' like the Millennium Dome or bailing out of bankers (which ultimately benefits taxpayers and keeps your dh in his £65K job) might be follies at some level, don't even scratch the surface of the level of corruption, mismanagement, exploitation and sheer theft you see from leadership in other countries. It is too easy to be Daily Mail.
The problem is that you (probably) live in London. £65K is relatively small beer amongst the professionals who commute into the City. If you live and work with professionals who easily earn 6 figures with dual income, of course you are out-classed in terms of the house you can afford and spending power. This is not greedy and corrupt government. This is just economics.

If your dh can take his 65K job well outside London, power to him. He will afford a lot more in terms of mortgage alone for an equivalent house, perhaps free-ing up at least £1K in disposable income. Earnings is absolute, but spending power is relative. Just find your right level.

She was going to "step outside the cosy shores of your temperate isle" but she got flamed for it

Bailing out the banker will not keep people in jobs, it's throwing good money after bad, we're in this mess because the market was flooded with non existant money after 9/11 ie cheap credit.
Do people really think cutting the interest rates and bailing out the greedy bankers will save us ? Wrong, wrong, wrong, yesterday was a big red flag to the world that the UK is going under.

Katiedd said "I think the point that some are missing is that £65k is a huge amount and you don't earn that without putting in some effort so the world has gone a bit mad when it doesn't buy you a nice house, a SAHM and a nice holiday."

Completely agree. £65k SHOULD buy you quite a nice life but it doesn't, necessarily, because of stupid house prices, mainly. If houses cost 3.5 x the average salary then yes, £65k would buy you a nice life. And also, can I just point out (Quattro usually does this on these threads but hasn't on this one for some reason!)

If you earn £65k you pay £20k a year in tax and national insurance, it IS an economic contribution!

Yes, quite, nmc. Most people in London don't earn 65,000

Of course it is possible to live on this amount and quite comfortably too

Oh, I BET many of the people who posted here and said "It is untold riches" have mortgages of less than a grand a month.

I;m wondering this because whenever there are mortgage threads many, many people have mortgages of £500 a month or less (£100k mortgage at 5%= about £500 a month). If you were to buy now that would be almost impossible. So I think a lot of the people who think it would be a lot of money already have houses, bought them when prices were reasonable and house price to income ratio wasn't so ridiculous and therefore have substantial equity in them now. In those circs a nice life on £65k looks a lot more do able doesn't it?

KatieDD, the fact that practically all our High Street Banks are still operating(though some part nationalised), as compared with the scenario a few weeks ago, is already proof that Gordon Brown's and other countries' central banks' intervention was timely and necessary. The way the banks were falling one-by-one prior to that was unprecedented and calamitous.

No doubt unwise lending and cheap credit by banks brought this about, and banks with the most exposure will suffer. But a global collapse of the banking system, whereby not just the badly affected banks fall, but also relatively benign banks fall, due to interbank-credit freezing and catastrophic loss of confidence, will mean YOU and BUSINESSES (big and small) cannot get their savings out, cannot get credit, cannot do anything. Yes, it will be a bloodbath and many many more people will lose their jobs as even strong companies go bust without credit.

Now that we have crossed that pass, there will in all likelihood be a recession. Some people will lose their jobs, some weak companies will go bust. There will be a contagion sadly. But not a epidemic.

It is not throwing good money after bad. It might even be a very wise investment decision by the government, in the medium to longer term. There will be a recession, but the sky is not falling.

I agree wickedwaterwitch.

We live in a 2 bedroom flat in zone 3 with no outside space which we bought 3 yrs ago. It is worth probably less or the same. The mortgage on that is £1200 a month interest only.

IMO not being able to afford a 4k mortgage is not "not being able to afford to live in this country"..it's "not being able to afford to live in an expensive house in this country"! We live in a small 2 bed flat and our mortgage is £800 which is steep but within our means.

And not being able to send kids to private school is also not "not being able to afford to live in this country",...it's "not being able to send kids to private school in this country"!!

Haven't read all the posts, not had time (who has at 31 pages!!) We earn a combined wage of 52K BUT we have the equivelent of two mortgages as DP pays his ex the same in maintenance as the mortgage amount was. I cannot understand how someone can't manage on 65k, we are not rolling in it but we do alright. OP's mortgage must be obscene not to be able to live on that!

The socialist worked party was demonstrating outside the bank of england last week against the bailout of 'greedy bankers.' Do they not realise that everyone's savings and cash in the banks could have disappeared. The bail out is not funding 'greedy bankers' bonuses'. Sigh.

I just think there is a HUGE difference between not managing to afford to live and not managing to afford the LIFESTYLE you want.

Do you not realise that letting the likes of Northern Rock burn as an example to the other would be a good thing ?
As many have pointed out on here the reason 3 times your £65k salary doesn't buy you a nice 3 bed semi anymore is due to the banks providing cheap credit and then the moment inflation or any other world event pushes the rates up as they envitably do the sky is falling in for people ?
There was a bloody good reason why you were only ever meant to borrow three times your salary and why credit cards are a bad thing, because people need to live within their means. You cannot afford a new car every year and a holiday abroad on £30k a year and yet that is the life people by us having been living for the past 10 years on their 0% credit cards. It's not real money and when the banks want it back they are fucked, they will loose their homes. Unless the government bail them out, which they plan to, so all those lovely new cars and clothes the irresponsible have had will be paid for by YOU.
Anyone reading these threads getting a bit upperity now is going to have their heads spinning when they realise they will be paying the mortgages of people earning a damn sight more money than them, will be paying for all the defaults on credit cards, all the bankruptcy's will paid for from the general public not the banks profits.

Yes fanjo but the point is that most people think you ought to be able to have a decent house (meaning enough bedrooms, not a stupid distance away from where you work, not meaning a mansion) a sahp and the odd holiday on £65k and it aint necessarily so!

I agree in principle KatieDD but the reality is if people no trust the banking system, as was the case 2/3 weeks ago, the whole country collapses.

WWW...yes I agree with that..but that is very different to claiming you "cannot afford to live in this country" as the OP did..I think we are making the same point TBH

I think most people agree that the pay a person/couple receive for working should mean they can afford a house to live in.

That isn't the case in the UK, not if you want to BUY a house to live in. 65k @ 3.5 x income = £227k. In many, many parts of the country that doesn't buy you anything much because of house price inflation running at 144445646y54654654675656 % (ykwim!)