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!!

Winegoddess don't go because of this.

I think your comment about being yourself meaning you upset so many people without intent is important. On somewhere like Mumsnet, people will say what they think of what you've posted, in a way that would never happen in real life.

So if it means you develop more self-awareness about what you say and do, that's a good thing. None of us know you here, so it doesn't matter, you made a mistake, move on from it, and you've realised that in a situation where people are on different incomes, moaning about your substantial income not being enough is going to irritate some people.

But if posting as yourself and getting the natural reactions you wouldn't get in real life means you become more aware of other people's reactions to things you might say, that's no bad thing imo.

Don't go winegoddess.

This tends to happen to everyone once. No big deal.

See moves to fast. A doctor, yes that to my mind is very deserving.
However, I know I am not the judge in this

So, winegoddess, please don't go. MN has members from all walks of life, the majority of which earn less. Money is always a topic to ruffle the feathers.

Scrap the expensive holiday and go somewhere cheaper.

Look at your outgoings.

Sell on eBay and car boot sales

Become a childminder.

There are no easy ways of raising more money, if there were we would all be better off!

WG you will find people to talk to (but I would advise against it as you will have no real life to speak of ) You didn't mean to offend and sometimes things can get taken the wrong way on here.

Actuallyl womble, I am in the southeast and we don't qualify for any tax credits, childcare costs etc. But we survive!

For the real high earners, you have to be here in the evening, they rarely come online during working hours....

Money saving tip - give up the wine.

why dont you add my mess, my hubby earns a reasonable amount, and we dont cope well with it.
we first brought our 2 bed home in 1988, and now over the years have got a family home, with huge mortgage, four kids, etc etc.
i have juggled a selection of part time jobs over the years , some times two part time jobs, four kids and running a home.
hubby earns a decent amount of money, but still things are not good.

our heating bills up, mortage is due for a change and will surely go up, and teenagers cost a fortune to feed.
and the kids want the normal things of life, and I want them to have the things I couldnt have, like tap lessons , music , and swimming lessons.
SO, yeah we are bad with money, but enrichment of life is important too.

some people say that you shouldnt have kids if you cant afford it, and perhaps thats why the birth rates are dropping in this country. I didnt listen to any idea about that, 3 of my children were planned, one was a surprise.

some people are still paying off uni debts in there 30's and trying to support families , once you reach your 50's sometimes you are needed as a career for elderly parents and pay for them..........there are many factors in life that require a great deal of money, and so leads to debt, even when you earn a large salary...........and its not all due to stupidity with money.
It to do with the stress and strains of normal life.

you cant budget for everything, when my mil was ill we spent a great deal of money on hospital car parks, every night for a year.
Some of us had to stop going to work at times when we had to sit next to her waiting for the worst.

Part time work doenst pay out such occasions does it?

unexpected child care fees arrived at this time as well, as someone had to look after the children.
So this is the way to fall in to debt.
life isnt simple or easy, and its soo easy to scorn others without thinking .

Also where I live in SE £65k is apparently below the average wage...

If you earn 65K and live in an area where the average income is 25k you will feel wealthy, whereas if you earn 65k in some parts of the south east you don't feel particularly prosperous.

saw the thread title and was ready to come in guns blazing. Having to go about the 120th post I see that the OP is

a) new
b) has apologised
c) is now in shock at the responses

OP - stick around - this is a supportive place, but as others have said talking about expensive holidays (which you have now admitted you're going into debt to go on - never a good idea IMO) and high wages is almost certainly going to cause a ruck on MN at any time - but particularly in the current economic climate.

I also got blasted on my first ever thread on MN - I didn't name change though - I was too brazen for that

Gosh winegoddess - what a baptism of fire. Dont take all the angry, outraged comments to heart. I'm quite new here too, but it seems from the amount of responses your thread is getting lots of mnetters quite like feeling outraged!

(I would do a winky face here, but dont know how!)

Yes, don't go on holiday - it's a luxury that you will have to do without.

WG you need to look at all your outgoings and see what you could possibly cut. Things that are unneeded for instances holidays to Egypt, over spending on clothes things like that and just work out how much of your outgoings a month have to go out
Mortgage
Food
Gas
Electric
are the main ones then things like
Phone bills etc

Also have you thought about doing Homework things like Avon or Phoenix cards? They are also a great way to make an extra income.

Hey winegoddess, come back, I am curious to know where the majority of the income goes. Do you have a large mortgage?

My father is a doctor and my mother a receptionist at his surgery (but trained as a nurse) maybe you could save money that way??

It's a good wage and sounds quite a lot, but I'm very conscious that actually families with two wages probably work out to be better off than those on one wage of the same. DP and I get a little over £50,000 betweeen us, less than OP's husband, and it sounds good. As we bought a little house in a then cheaper area which has experienced little gentrification 10 years ago, we have a relatively tiny mortgage especially by London standards. We still qualify for the lowest rate of child tax credit at about £10 a week.

DC2 is due in January and once I go back to work we will be struggling though, because of childcare costs for 2 under 3, and long term I hope to move right out of London where I hope we'll be better off even on less take home pay.

brow not brown.

williamsmummy - sorry but is it more important to be happy with less activities and a smaller house, or unhappy with lots of hobbies and a huge house?

It is only easy to fall into debt if you believe you are entitled to 'enrichment' such as ballet, horseriding, a big house, foreign holidays etc.

There is so much I would liek to have to enrich my life, but I cannot afford it.

But at least I don't winge about it being unfair! I just do without and do the best with what I have. And we are happy! (and poor)

We are in london, in a reasonably nice two bed flat. I am a sahm to two preschoolers. DP earns £22'000 and gets a 10% bonus (not this year though sadly, damn financial crisis) We receive £240 tax credits and just over £100 in child benefit. We just about manage. The closest we've had to a holiday has been a weekend in Sheffield at my mums, but we are happy enough.

haunting hippoo

"Actuallyl womble, I am in the southeast and we don't qualify for any tax credits, childcare costs etc. But we survive!"

What point are you trying to make by the above? I also live in SE and survive without tax credits or childcare costs.

Are you criticising me for supporting OP?!

Had a bit of a rocky MN start myself. Please do stick arround.
*happywomble" took the word right out of my mouth, well, fingers. How far your money goes does depend on where you live.

Oh, I namechanged, but only after I'd kept the original name for a few months and I've never hidden who I was before.

When we had a recent cash flow issue, mumsnetter suggested I go to the Motley Fool website and see if I could get a better deal on gas and electricity. I did, and I have saved a good few hundred pounds by using their online forms, changing from electricity suppliers!

every little helps!

Thing is many people have very worthwile jobs but get paid much much less....it's life...
tbh, as with mortgages....we must have been really lucky...ours finished it's fixed term this year and we had to remortgage and we were really lucky that we were able to get a mortgage that we didn't have to pay any fees on and that is only ever so slightly more then our previous one.

I think most people will be in the position of tightening their belts this year...and I suppose that is why you are getting a hard time...

We all pay more then we did...but most people don't have as high an income in the first place...

Many people maybe would love to live in a better area, a bigger house, have super holidays, afford the life they like to have....for most people this is a distant dream though....

Am sure there was a thread about saving money tips not long ago.

I feel a bit sorry for OP.I know her DH earns loads and she is going to Egypt and whatever else..but I guess people live to their means dont they..so you earn lots, get a big house, blah blah..but if your mortgage goes up dramatically and everything else goes up (as it is for everyone at the moment) then you are as screwed as the next person who might earn less..(unless you sell your big house etc, but thats easier said than done at the mo)

And she does say she wants to get a job, which is quite hard when you have to fit it around kids sometimes..(I find it hard with mine anyway, but easier as I had the job before I had the kids so could negotiate..not as easy if you are looking for a new job I guess..)

Thats the answer though OP BTW..Get a job..care work..you can do it at nights/evenings and weekends when DH is home thus not incurring child care costs..also is very humbling..(which some of the other posters seem to think you need )

Ducks below parapet