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 had the option, 10years ago, before I gave up a job I absolutely adored whether or not to give it up to be at home with my first born or whether or not to hand her over to a childminder full-time and give up some of our income to pay for the CM. I took the decision to give up my job, no matter how much I loved working, doing a job I looked forward to going to, bringing home £x and maintaining that lovely independence that goes with a job to be at home with my new baby and to enjoy being a Mum. After a couple of years I went back to the same employer and worked weekend shift work. It worked brilliantly although obviously I never really had much quality time with DH but the money was good and I had no worries with childcare. I did this for almost 2yrs. It got to the point where I was exhausted. I made the conscious decision that my health and happiness and that of my daughter was far more important to me than money. We made some huge cutbacks...moving house was one of them and now, 2 children later, and still a SAHM with a part-time job I am happy.

I will be honest there have been times when I've felt frustrated at being the one who has the kids to look after the majority of the time but now, with them both at school, I love having more time to myself, working when I want to (I work from home) and being my own boss. The freedom that comes with it is great and I've waited a long time for it.

But Xenia, however keen I am for others to make Good Choices, most of us who are now in our 40s might find it hard to take your advice. It's really too late for me to be a lawyer or some such. So what you say feels unfair.

What if the mother is going out to work but still can't buy nice holidays and five lots of school fees? Most of us are in that situation, and since not everyone can earn in the top income bracket (commonsense), most of us (of whatever sex) always will be thus situated.

Re the poor OP: I at least feel sorry as what is always horrible regardless of actual income is feeling poor and insecure. I felt absolutely fine on benefits before I had children, even though I lived on about £4 per week for groceries (this was in 1980), but my then partner was seriously miserable.

And presumably the OP can't sell her house right now and downsize due to negative equity or even the diifficulty of finding a buyer? Not everyone with a good income lives in a good area. Probably pointless to say this, but can yall really judge her? Nobody is wise and self-controlled 24/7. I'm not, for sure.

whispy - inadvertently, i suspect, you have illustrated well one of Xenia's central points, one which I totally agree with, if not always her delivery. you say "I had the option, 10years ago...whether or not to give it (work) up to be at home with my first born or whether or not to hand her over to a childminder full-time..." The third option - which you don't mention and which I guess you never considered/had - was that whereby your dh gave up work - and you carried on and handed over care of your fb to his/her father. therein lies the fundamental problem of continuing inequalities. decisions about our children and their care so often continue to be premised on a continuation of the status quo for men and a moulding of women's lives around that premise. It's a complex package, I apprediate, factored into which is the reality that men frequently earn more than women. sometimes it's such a vicious circle I despair at us ever getting closer to real equality.

Yes, it was sexism which meant you gave up the career but not only that. Many women are different from men and feel different from men and find it harder to leave a child. Many won't even leave a baby at night and need it beside them all night, skin on skin. Others are heartless enough to put it in another room. We all have our own maternal insincts and the stay at home mother who doesn't sleep with her baby is arguably as rejecting and abandoning of the child as the mother leaving the baby with a nanny or its father when she works. Women genuinely do find it harder to leave a small baby than men do but I think most of us get used to leaving it fairly easily and it all settles down.

The issue is whether you owe it to your children to earn more money and give them a better life or whether you think your own happiness in not being away from them (and possibly although I don't accept this - the child's best interests in your being with them) is the better moral imperative.

The fact women marry men who earn more because they are materialist money grubbing little dependent so and sos who cannot help themselves because mother nature says go out and find a richer better man you can look up to and admire who will always earn more than you such that your own piddling little income is just pin money and the male ego remains flattered.....is not something most women even think about never mind can help.

Of course women intheir 40s can earn money. Plenty of them found businesses. They just need to make the effort. There are plenty of mature students being educated with my three university age children although obviously it's harder at that stage.

In some ways late careers for women are just the job because your hormones change in your 50s, you get less caring, more assertive and your chidlren are getting off your hands so you can pack in 16 hour days enthusiasistically without having to worry about getting home to cook someone's tea or have sex or whatever as you might in your 30s.

over here anyone still following this. I have something to say

aye still here but yer link doesnt work!get the wee man to fix it (if you havent down sized him)

oh bugger.

this work?

link works.dont be churlish if your thread went tits up that isn't anyone else fault.you wrote it

eh? Don't know what you mean ScottishMummy. I don't think my thread did go "tits up"........

dont blame xenia if you didn't get many affirmations.your post.your responsibility.
this herd mentality "xenia baaaad" is bitty sad

just going back to original thread (am too tired to read all subsequent post) YES YOU ARE BEING REALLY UNREASONABLE! OMG!!! Try living on £14'000 a year. And if you have no money then budget for crying out loud!!!! OK feel beter for my rant off to bed now

I'm not blaming anyone for anything ScottishMummy, least of all Xenia. She has valid points!

Think you have wrong end of stick SM.

look you wrote a thread that to many was insensitive,badly timed and unattainable.fine.

dont laterally pin it on someone else

SM - you've lost me, sorry. Xenia has nothing to do with my posts. I just keep out of it when she gets going, that's all!

Doh!your thread got panned.your apology citedxenia hijack'swhy?you apologised take it on chin.move on

The average woman paid less for doing the same thing, that's the problem. That's why it makes more sense for woman to give up work.

i know two families where the mum works because she earns more. If and when pay is equal then this will happen more.

Accusing women of being money-grabbing materialist grubbers is ridiculous. The only man in my office paid worse than me was the Colombian Janitor.

I did go out with a man who worked for a charity once. He wsa a self=righteous arse.

Well, I'm certainly not a materialist money grabbing little dependent so and so that's for sure. Sorry Xenia but I don't fall within that particularly category... but then I'm sure you'll come back and post to tell me that I do, actually.

I think it's people who are determined to work despite all the many obstacles who are materialistic, surely?? Somebody who can have a baby and then go back to work a week or two later, that frame of mind is anathema to me.

I'm not judging women who work, but you can't tell us Xenia that you're less materialistic than say Whispy?????

Come ON!

Buy a cheaper house, reduce your mortgage. Pay off your credit card debt and save for a holiday. What is the point of a massive house with an unmanageable mortgage. I'd rather live my life, than be chained to the debt.

That is such a massive income.

I think we have a good joint total income at £30K. We have a mortgage, nursery fees, eat well, and have two holidays every year, we have a meal out about once a month, and enough for new clothes, we also have plenty of room for saving.

Many of my friends have incomes of much, much less and still have a holiday. Some do not run cars, or eat out as much.

What are you doing with all that money?

Go see a financial advisor. Asap. You shouldn't be struggling to manage on that income and there must be money being squandered somewhere - dh earns similar and our mortgage is substantial but we have enough for new clothes, holidays, two cars etc. However, we don't have mobile phone contracts, gym membership, sky movies, neither of us smoke and we limit eating out to once a month or so. We also shop around for good deals on things we need. There may be some simple changes you can make to free up more disposable income.

I do agree that this may not have been the most tactful thread to start though, particularly at this time of year!

That's just it - I had the choice to go back to work or not when DD1 was born - my choice was dependent on whether or not I was happy with a Childminder when I found her and whether I was happy to pay her fees to care for my baby. I was very happy with my job, loved the money, loved the independence but nothing, absolutely nothing, was more important to me than being at home with my first child. There was no way I was going to hand her over to someone else and pay that person to do what I felt I should do. The exact same applied when I had my second daughter, despite the fact I had no maternity pay to fall back on.

..and to be honest, after slogging it in my lovely job - doing a 50+ hour week, I was actually quite glad to give it up and be at home learning how to be a Mum. Whilst that was a tough job in itself it was far more enjoyable than going to work 12hrs a day.

Well you're lucky your other half is happy you stay home then because quite a lot of men think not fair if I have to do that awful 50 hour a week job when my wife doesn't. As long as men have as much chance to give up work as women then that's fair but often they aren't given that chance. Although some couples do alternate - I know quite a few - one in Dubai for 3 years and his wife stopped medicine - her work then and now they're back here and the husband isn't working and the wife is back to working.

More importantly whatever your income you do need to sit down and look at what is spent on what and include everything.

xenia...'a lot of men think it not fair that they have to do that awful 50hr a week job when my wife doesn't'....

Sorry? Do you honestly think men would prefer it that their partners, the Mums of their kids, went out and worked a 50 hour week? You have a real problem with the male race don't you?

Xenia, why is it 'luck'? Should a man not value, above all else, the wellbeing of his children?

For the vast majority of women, paying childcare for more than one child isn't more than they'd earn anyway, so those men shouldn't be considering themselves LUCKY!!

They sit down with a calculator and realise it makes sense. And they can breath a sigh of relief that somebody else who loves their children as much as they do is looking after them.

So I don't think any man whose wife/partner is doing the childcare should feel LUCKY. He should feel relieved.

ON THE WHOLE, men don't leap out of bed at 3 am to mop up sick 'because they have to work 7 hours the next day'.

50 hour week is nothing! And most mothers know that. There are pros to being at home at your child. After being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, it's what feels right, logical, natural for a lot of women. But that doesn't mean it's easier than a fifty hour week.

Xenia all your theories fall apart when applied to 'mrs average uk'. who earns 25k a year. Childcare costs her the same as it costs a lawyer/doctor.

Wanting to be mother, choosing to be a mother, at the expense of a career and money doesn't make a woman materialistic! As I've said before, if anything, it makes her human, a mammal tricked by biology and her hormones into wanting children. But oh what a cruel trick! Would we ever swap our children for qualifications or more money??

Some people are lucky and manage to have both. But if there is to be a top layer of society, there has to be by definition a few layers beneath. So Xenia, it baffles me that you can't grasp that your theories aren't applicable to the majority of women/mothers.