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!

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

I get absolutely fed up with hearing about women should be doing this, men are bleep bleep, women should be earning this etc etc. Its utter rubbish. Well, imo, it is.

Yes..its always the same message....men are bleep and women should be this, that and everything else.

Perhaps it is the hormonal aspect of childbirth/nursing a baby then...

I probably could have gone back to work immediately if my biological baby had been carried and delivered by another woman.

But long term plans, delayed gratification, and pure, mere logic, were swept aside by a tidal wave of maternal desire to be with my child.

I am a mere human being. Only a few links further up the chain from an orang utan. Evolution and biology 'tricked' me into wanting to be with my child.

Or did they? Will I lie on my death bed and regret that I cared for my children when they were young?

I don't think so, but now that they're older and leaky breasts etc are such a distant memory, I would like a career and a decent salary again.......

Found this thread really interesting.

I understand how ridiculous it may sound (the original post)and can understand how it gets some peoples backs up but I have to admit I agree with the OP.

I am constantly broke, I mean - searching the back of the couch for loose change kind of broke, I'm fed up with constantly never having any money and would of thought (up to this week, before reading this) that we were on an okish-it-will-get-better-in-time income. Compared to some on here I should be counting my lucky stars for our earnings, I feel quite ridiculous really.

We are definately not on 100k btw.

I agree with OP cos I'm skint too and probably shouldnt be.

We built a house the past year and being our first year with a mortgage/ being a relatively "young" couple (starting off career wise) thought that was why.

Reading on here though really got me thinking and its probably really because I'm quite rubbish with money. What has been listed here as luxuries, I would see as necessitys.

I'm ashamed to be honest but either lack the intelligance/ experience or basic cop on to handle my money better.

Its so easy to make foolish decisions regards finances. Thats why I can see OP's point.

I have to openly admit to being one of those who became too stupid/ greedy etc.. during the boom.

I don't really know how I can do any better though - because things need to be paid. End of.

necessities

i am not going to judge the OP as they do say you live by your means whether that is 20k or 100k. But i would love to earn 100k!!! I am on maternity leave with my second ds who is only 5 months and am getting the amazing smp a week!!! Yesterday my husband who is on a very low wage any way Went into work to be told that the pub is shutting and he is redundant as of now!!! No redundancy pay or even wages for next week!!! It is 4 weeks till xmas and i have not got one present for my 3 yr old yet!!! So i hope it has put things into perspective as it did me and it has showed me how much i used to take for granted!!! Sorry just needed to speak to speak to people about it as have had a really lousy day!!!!

SOme of us couldn't afford to live on SMP so really only have 6 weeks maternity leave - you get 90% of pay for 6 weeks whether you're on $200k or £20k. It's a luxury surely if you're rich enough to stay home after that.

But when we had the first child and were not that well off the cost of the child care was 50% of mine and 50% of their father's net salary - we earned the same that year - £7,500 in 1984. But it was an investment to go back to work for me as I was in a job which was likely to ensure I earned £100k a year in the next 30 - 40- years of career after that. I never felt I missed out. I certainly found having 3 children under 4 and working full time was hard particularly expressing breast milk but I did feel I had loads and loads of bonding time with the gorgeous babies as I tried not to work long hours and fed just before work, as soon as I was in and sadly bcause they all slept so badly for years very often in the night too.

As for economies - I remember in 1984 thre woudl never have been a time when we felt we could afford say orange juice - just far too expensive a product to buy. We woudl cycle a lot to save money and every one of the baby equipment and clothes was either given to us by kindly old women at church jumble sales (my children's father was very popular with them so they saved the best stuff back for us) or from the local paper second hand (no ebay in those days) or from oxfam. Certainly never had or wanted a "nursery". A changing table was the floor etc etc. Peopel have just got so dreadfully materialistic and don't nee half the things they think they do. For example hair conditioner - never would have contemplated buying it, far too expensive etc. You can cut back and pare things back if you really want to but it's much more fun as a woman to go out there and earn a fortune as you have more fun doing that than scrimping and saving.

"Peopel have just got so dreadfully materialistic and don't nee half the things they think they do."

This is so true and I have to admit to being one of these people!!. I see foundation (make up!) as a complete necessity and not a luxury when really and truely it quite clearly isnt (then I do have a duty not to go bout scaring small children by not wearing it)

My priorities really, really need to make a dramitic turnaround. I've been completely frivilous really. I havent been shrewd enough.

It may sound a cop out but they say its peoplle of my generation (20's) who havent lived through a depression (as adults) that this is hitting hard, in the sense we have all been so spoilt and to a point, carefree with money that its now a shock to the system to start tightening the belts like our parents had to do in the 80s. I dont know if its true of not but found it a valid point.

ang22 - I'm terribly sorry to hear that!, I hope your ok x

Well, I am a SAHM and I love it. I've done the working mum thing and it really sucked. I like running the house and supporting the kids and supporting DH in his career. Me being at home full time means that DH can focus on his career that little bit more and thus earn more money. We earn 10K a year more on one salary than we did on 2 - we could both only commit 50% to our careers and it felt like we were on some sort of awful treadmill.

We don't earn megabucks, but we are comfortable. If we wanted a fancy car, swish holidays, meals out every week then I'd have to go back to work. But the loss to the quality of our day to day life wouldn't be worth any amount of cash.

So yes, I rely on a man for money, and TBH it's the best decision I ever made.

If it all went tits up I could support myself and the kids, and I do have my own pension provision...but right now I love not having the stress of juggling a career and family life. And my husband loves the fact that he doesn't have to stress/worry about the kids being cared for/bills being sorted/dinners being cooked.

It might sound stepford but it works for us.

Xenia I find your comments very bitter and scary. I was brought up never to rely on a man and I still can't despite having a wonderful DH who would more than willingly keep me if I wanted. But I have struggled for much of my life and marriage with an inablility to just let go, relax and enjoy my babies, without worrying where the next penny was coming from, ( even when DH is earning quite nicely!!). This all comes from having a very ambitious mother, like yourself. I hope your children are spared the feelings that I have had, and realise that there is more to life than just being rich.

i was brought up to stick at school be financially solvent by poor parents in s council scheme

i actually think it is a pragmatic robust ethos for either gender.to be self reliant

My children are pretty laid back I think. There are 5 of them and they're all pretty different from each other. But I do think like ScottishM that I want them to be able to support themselves and make wise career choices they don't later regret.

On the high spending issue I think people my age (46) had parents who had lived through the second world war and rationing. I read a book by someone writing about family life in about 1958 recently and that was how my parents lives were. In that book visitors were coming who were American and the lady didn't think she really could afford coffee for them and they had to have tea as it was cheaper and if you had parents who came from those difficult times in the war then that influences you i think but my own children 24/22/20 etc they haven't had quite the same although even the older ones say the twins have things easier because the twins hvae new not second hand clothes. The older ones never ever had a new schooll blazer for example whereas the twins have had simply bceause we had less money then than now but I don't see it harmed the older children having second hand school uniform.

And my daughter and her boyfriend had a takeaway tonight (they have very little money) and I who has more had the remains of yesterday's chicken. Is that the difference bteween 40 adn 20 somethings?

I think you are missing the point whispy, by trying to prove how much you do. You will always lose that argument compared to someone who, for example, works full time and has 5 children.
wifeandmotherof4 made similar points to you about enjoying staying at home, but phrased them in a far less intolerant way, and comes across far better. If you make sweeping statements (the latest one being that xenia's views are "rubbish"), you are always going to put peoples backs up.

sometimes if people could steer clear of the herd mentality "xenia baad" and consider some of her points

• good to be financially solvent
• aim to be self reliant
• must one adhere to good wifey/homemaker role
• does being a mum necessarily mean doing bulk domestic chores

you know what for me xenia brings a balance to all the bleating precious moments mamas i wouldn't let my children be raised by wolves at nursery etc

god yes. I think people often forget that xenias views have been forged in a situation that most of her critics haven't had to face, ie being solely responsible for a famille nombreuse.

I think Xenia sometimes has a way of putting her point across that puts other people's backs up too because she demonstrates an almost evangelical zeal for being self-reliant, something I am coming to understand may have come from her atrocious-sounding divorce situation (apologies if I have that wrong).
But her zeal gives the impression that she has no understanding of why any woman would ever do anything differently from her, and that her way is best and she appears to want to convert everyone to her way.

It works for Xenia, and that is great for Xenia - but it isn't going to work for everyone. A bit more tolerance on all sides for other peoples' situations would be more useful, perhaps.

I may be wrong, but I think she sometimes enjoys saying things that she knows will set the chickens squawking....relaxation after a hard day? (sorry if I am wrong about that xenia!)

Love the line about it being possible to live on 100K if you make a few economies.

hell we tolerate the zeal with which other's opine they wouldn't let strangers raise their children/wouldn't use formula as it is made form chemical soup yadda yadda

such extreme unpleasant views are frequently touted on MN with very little naming and shaming and hand wringing "oh what are we going to do about xenia"

SM.... I always think of Xenia like Luke Skywalker, bringing balance to the force!
PS. I hope I conveyed that I made choices about what I assumed not what is right in practice(missing first steps etc, as both older dss took them for my Mum not me!!!).

ScottishMummy - good post

I am not very interested in what people say or think about me but I am interested in women making good career choices and doing work they enjoy which if it also earns them a fortune so much the better as we still have a very long way to go when it is as likely a woman earns more than a man as the other way round, as likely the cabinet/board of BP, judiciary, senior civil service is 70% female as 70% male etc.

I don't have a moral position or person view against dependence. In personal relationships there's nothing wrong with depending on each other for particular things but it's just a shame that so many women give up everything for a man, whether that's not taking that wonderful job in London in their 20s and staying in something rotten in Hull because they fell in love or giving up their career because the man won't stay home with the babies or doing most of the housework - always the woman making sacrifice after sacrifice and jeopardising things long term for herself when as with 50% or is it 40% of relationships it goes wrong and very rarely the man who finds himself unable to get any sort of job except cleaning or class room assistant in his 40s when the wife goes off with someone 20 years younger and moves to Thailand to avoid paying maintenance.

So fine if people are dependent and love each other and give up things for their partner (far too many people are very selfish in relationships) but do make sure it's not one sided - that if you've compromised your career he has too, that if you do all the toilet cleaning he does all the washing, get the balance right. When sharing out jobs at home may be you do the tax returns and pension planning and he scrubs the floors.

Genuinely it would be hard to live on £100k without economies in our case because of teh divorce. If you're paying interest on over £1m of divorce debt (which perhaps proves women should marry much richer men and never work of course so they never have to pay loads of money to a man.....I am an example of how not to do it may way...laughing as I type) and school fees then you need more than £100k.

When we used to have very high tax rates of up to 80% and more in the 1970s for higher earners you also had child tax allowances and MIRAS witout a cap so I could set all the £80k+ interest I pay against tax and for five children would have had 5 child tax allowances go get tax down. If labour want 45% + tax rates and it will be over that as they are removing personal allowances and increased upper rate marginal NI 0.5% so that's 46.1% even not allowing for loss the personal allowances, then they should be retruning the 100% deductions for interest on home loans etc but they won't as these are stealth tax and the politics of envy.

The return of Old Labour, the thin end of the wedge.

nighbynight...I'm not trying to prove just how much I do and nor am I getting anyone's back up...other than possibly yours by the looks of it. You don't agree with my posts. Fine. I can deal with that.

Xenia , I'm a 30 something and my father who is a bit older than my mother talks like that. "I was 7 before I saw an orange" and "I had butter or jam but not both" and "newspaper makes perfectly adequate loo roll".

And that HAS had an affect on me. I think I chose motherhood over materialist comfort or financial security. I would love those things. But being on that bottom layer of society (without qualificats or relevant experience) I was unable to have both (due to cost of childcare and an arse of a partner who've I've now left).

Sadly I had to make a choice. ANd because like I said in my earlier post, I'm just a mammal, a few phylums higher up the chain than an orang utan, my hormones and biology or nature tricked me into choosing to be a mother.

I agree with what you say in theory Xenia and for the more privileged and more qualified young women it is the wisest path probably.

But not everybody can earn 100k. And by the sounds of this thread, it doesn't make people content or secure anyway.