to be fed up about never having any money even though DH earns (just) over £100k?

[MakemineaGandT]

I know it sounds like a lot, but with a big mortgage and all the other usual bills we have very little disposable cash.

We don't have a cleaner or any other kind of help

Neither of us has had any new clothes for at least 18 months

We spend £100 a week on groceries, so hardly extravagant

We haven't been on holiday for 3 years

We do all DIY etc ourselves

We've been out twice this YEAR

I just don't know how we can cut back. It feels as though we are working so hard and yet we are always struggling.

It makes me really annoyed when I see comments (for example on that taxing over £150k thread) about the "super rich") - I guess on paper we look "rich" but it certainly doesn't feel like it!

Janeite, I think that means that you can't comprehend living in an inadequate house in a notsodesirable area and driving a ten yr old ka.

A lot of my friends comment that they are poor. They have more 'assets' than I have. So they may be cash poor but they're not letting go of the house or the car.

Don't understand your logic there. Xenia appears to be saying that if one has £100,000 a year, this is a hardship and one will need to make some cutbacks in order to cope with the miniscule sum.

I meant anyone who earns a lot more than £100k and then loses it can live on that if they cut back. That's all. It would not cover the interest payments I have to make to fund my ex husband's divorce settlement for example but we could sell our home and move into a rented flat and then be able to manage obviously on that. In other words I was saying people can actually live in very little even the average £20k a year wage. It's just getting used to a change that is hard. I could obviously also not fund five children at private school and university. My own needs are quite simple. I read and walk, drink tap water and don't eat out, don't watch TV. I'm personally pretty content with not much but I've worked hard to be able to replicate my childhood and enjoy that the children are in nice private schools and we have a big house.

Haven't read all 20 pages of this thread but basically op, you you are talking boll**ks, we earn £45k PA and survive. Stop wingeing FFS.

makemineagandt

COME BACK AND TELL US HOW MUCH YOUR MORTGAGE IS!!!!

I am in agreement with Xenia here. I have just become a single parent with no income, living off savings until I get a job. It has been an eye opener to me what I dont need to spend. No expensive coffees, lunch is last nights leftovers from dinner, no clothes shopping for me and essentials for the kids. No gym memberships or clubs for the kids. I plan menus and shop on line once a week. I do housework, walk the dogs every day for an hour and muck out 2 horses that I have had for years and cant sell (too old and no one will buy horses at the moment). Fortunately we had savings and no debts of any kind so i reckon I can keep going for quite some time ( I dont qualify for any benefits). Am starting to enjoy a much more simple lifestyle and with the amount of exercise I do have lost loads of weight and sleep like a baby. In the spring I am planning a vegetable patch with a friend who is also a single parent. All the changes i have made were forced upon me but even when I find a job I wont be going back to my old lifestyle

Thank you Xenia. I misunderstood your point.

The reason that I love Xenia's posts is that they are entirely driven towards empowering women to take control of their own lives.

Amen to that.

If you (the OP) seriously cannot live on your DP's salary then you really should get a job and sort out the income levels you need for the lifestyle that you want.

I was entirely non judgemental about the obvious potential this thread has to piss me off, being a 'poorer' family, although doing well under the circumstances. I was totally able to say - I know we can't tax the car but this woman's worries about not having a holiday are just as valid.

DH has been made redundant today after 13 years at one company that has been put into liquidation this afternoon with no warning.

So pants to people who have very little grip on reality and welcome to the world of 'How will we live on £14,000 instead of £35, 000'.

....And yet we are soooooo much better off than so many, can't complain really.

At leasst dh can work, we can help ourselves. Haven't been told not only can't you work we can't cure you and so start counting the weeks/months whatever.

Ho Hum.

Wish I were on £100k though then he wouldn't have to feel so bad. WHY did I change my mind and put Midwifery and not Law on my UCAS form all those years ago. Bugger

Sorry to hear this Treedelivery, it must be really hard for you. Sending you and your H best wishes

Thank you!!! Feel like on of those statistics you hear about on the news.

Oh how awful treedelivery. So much of that about. I was talking to someone this afternoon who is going to have to close down a business.

On Qu's point the whole thread is sexist. If women didn't rely on men for money then they wouldn't get into this position. What is amusing is that when I was about 10 - 12 I wanted to buy an island when I grew up so I remember asking my father what wages you earned in particular jobs and found a book in the library on "What people earn" as I wanted to earn enough to buy an island (and I did eventually buy an island) so I had that incentive to pick well paid work but seeing three of my chidlren at university stage it is so random how some of their friends end up in particular jobs and I sometimes think they just don't nkow that career A means they will always struggle for money and B doesn't and they assume - you get a company car in that job or samples of clothes in that job so i t "a well paid job" whereas in fact those trappings are nothing and what matters is your headline salary when you're 40.

I lost my job in May - I was given a sum of money to compensate but basically we went from having just over £30000 a year to my husband's p/t slary of £9000 a year. We have two children (three if you count an 18 year old at university) a mortgage of around £750 a month and the usual bills. Yes, it's hard, yes we've struggled and yes, we've applied for various benefits. However,the last thing I would do is moan to people about it because I am still aware, that, as long as we are sensible and careful - and I have been looking for work solidly ever since, whilst working p/t in a friends pub, we will manage. It's bloody hard especially now my redundancy has gone, but worse things could happen.

Will these people with silly incomes stop whining, and spend their energies on working out strategies to cope.

Thanks.

Rant over!

Xenia, I think the answer is to have our eggs harvested and then, when fertilised, re-implanted into the womb of a poor but reasonably well-nourished woman.

THen the baby will be given back to the couple and woman's career won't be interrupted and baby will feel more of a joint responsibility, not having come from the wife's body. Sacrafices would be more equal.

This is trite. I know it will never happen. But it is the only solution at the same time.

I think we need an alien slave race then, newsie. That would make women equal then Maybe not the best way forward...

Thenews sometimes that is done. YOu can hire a US surrogate and some people have done exactly that but more importanlty if you're a fit woman like I luckily have been you can be pregnant to 9 months, 40 weeks and still work and then go back to work after - in other words pregnancy does not really have to interrupt work at all unless you choose to allow that to be so you're ill or not fit. I was back at work having taken 2 weeks holiday and also spending lots of time at home and breastfeeding in the night etc too.

...and scroll forward 24 years from when my first daughter was born and I earn more than £100k. In other words as a mother sometimes it's best for the long term interests of your child to work full time in the right sort of job so that you're not reliant on a man for money and when your children are older, as my older ones are you have more spare money.

Well, I am at the £100k mark too and am a SAHM, my DH has just lost his £200k job and we're making massive cut backs.
The truth is we were greedy and made no provisions to cushion such a fall, spending our limit and being foolishly extravagant. I'm not talking psuedo Beckham chavtastic lifestyle but being silly and never looking at the price, shopping in Waitrose etc.
Now I am glad I stay at home but it doesn't really leave any control or power over my situation when the shit hits the fan. I have a small baby and despite loving Xenia and all she stands for (albeit far from my own experience) I just could not stomache full time child care for my children, it's purely selfish as I'm sure they'd thrive elsewhere. My choice was stay at home and bring up my children full time or let someone else see their first steps, hear their first words etc and I chose the former. (This is not a SAHM/WOHM debate and I admit this choice was about me) The choice also involved control over my life (having a job) or over my children, very simplistically and short term, and I chose my children again. Would I miss out on them? NO WAY. Do I wish I could have both? EVERYDAY.

As far as £100K being enough, of course it is, it's priorities that make it tough. Organic meat over lentils, Waitrose vegetables as opposed to green grocers, driving down the road or a five minute walk, five bedrooms instead of four.....

We managed last year on £12,000 as we didn't know we were entitled to working tax credits or anything else. It was hard work, but we did it. What do you think of that MakeMineAGandT? Just out of curiosity? Not trying to be argumentative, but wondered what you actually make of it?

Everyone makes their choices and that's fine as long as men have as much choice to stay home whilst the mother is wrenched from the baby and forced to work long hours like many men are forced to do. It's when men don't get the same choices that it's particularly unfair.

I ceratinly saw the first of lots of things with the five children over the last 24 years. But why would a stay at home mother necessarily see the first steps? It might be Saturday morning with the father or whilst the mother popped out to the loo whilst the baby was in the play pen or whatever. I never felt I missed out. Just felt I had the best of all worlds. And then there's what you bring to your children if you earn £200k and can buy them as they become teenagers very good schooling, the clothes their riends have, nice holidays, no student loans at univesrity. You have to balance the alleged selfishness of staying home with them , shooting your career to pieces and condemning them to a life of relative poverty against the advantages they might have if the mother earns £200k. Not quite so hard a decision if the mother would never earn more than £13k a year as a class room assistant or whatever of course.

As for cut backs just because you earn a lot doesn't mean you have to spend a lot. I just drink tap water which is pretty cheap. We shop on line with Tesco. I remember being castigated on here for buying cheap Tesco chicken each week which I still do and it tastes lovely.

The hard thing is getting used to changes. Just at the point when we might for once have had some spare money I got divorced so never really reached that point, in terms of spare money to save etc or spend so perhaps that was really all to the good.

Xenia stop poking people!!

I know you derive some twisted pleasure from it but it's formulaic and done to death.

Aren't you dizzy from the same circular argument each time you post?

TBH xenia's posts exhaust me when I read them. There are so many factors within them that I disagree with.

Thank goodness for that. I thought it was just me who was sitting here open-mouthed.

I'm not saying that I disagree with her per se but it's always the same message...