to ask how much money you have after all your bills

[galaxyplease]

left each month, which you consider makes you a middle income family??

Over 18 they usually have to pay for dental treatment. That's if they're in full time education (plus part time job!!) Bloody joke. I paid for my daughter's filling, but have passed up on dental treatment myself because I haven't been able to afford it. In fact we used to have a bit of a (ironic) laugh a couple of years back when at the school where I work, two of us were having terrible tooth problems, myself and a friend who works part time admin in the office. She earns a lot less (but also works a lot less - about 16 hours) and she got her treatment free. I was quoted about £400 for root canal treatment and ended up having the tooth out because I literally could not afford the treatment without running up an overdraft and fees. Yeap, the irony, me on a Deputy Head's salary and working about a 50/60 hour week compared to 16! We had a bit of a joke about it, and I didn't resent her personally, but it shows how pointless it is to talk about 'middle ' incomes. Oh and the double irony is that a couple of months worth of National Insurance deductions which get swiped straight out of my salary would have covered the treatement. You pay it out, but then can't afford the treatment for yourself.... Funny old world eh

Absolutely nothing left at the end of the money and many times we wind up in overdraft for at least part of the month.

enough to put a little bit by every month and live a comfortable lifestyle.

I have no choice if I want to get to work, I can't afford to live closer to work in a house I would like.

I don't know what you are talking about, do you mean how much in savings or something after paying everything?.

We have fuck all after everything is done.

'I think it's because they do not live near work. It's the "on your bike" thing - to live somewhere cheap and drive to where the jobs are.'

For renters, often they literally cannot live near to work, as to do so they would be living, say, 5 people in a one-bed flat as that it all they can afford to rent, and which no reputable landlord can rent to them under those conditions.

And they don't qualify for what sparse council/social housing there is and don't earn enough to buy a thing.

Same with owners. It's hard to afford near where you'll work.

The thread shows that those who can live within their means whatever those means are feel happier - just Dickens said in David Copperfield
"Income, twenty shillings a week, expenditure, twenty shillings and sixpence; result, misery. Income, twenty shillings a week, expenditure, nineteen shillings and sixpence; result, happiness."

Yes, and when your means are shite and you semi-starve just to keep the roof from the door, it sucks.

Dickens was all in favour of social reform.

About a tenner.

Just used an online calculator and to my horror if we paid an extra £300 per month on our mortgage we would save £33,000 in interest! Ah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wants the point saving when you can put the money towards paying off your mortage??

We pay an extra £400 a month onto the mortgage. This takes us right to the limit, but like galaxyplease pointed out, reduces the overall amount we will have to pay.

The overpayment on the mortgage also means that should the proverbial hit the fan, then we can take a payment holiday from our mortgage for the total value of the overpayments. This would give us about 6 months leeway should DH lose his job (unlikely, but never say never...).

Down side of this is that we've only had one holiday since we went on our honeymoon 6 years ago, but maybe we can pay less on the mortgage and save up a little for one.

GP, there often is no better investment than paying off debt particularly when interest rates ons avings are low but if later you could not remortage to release equity as income dropped or went then for those people it's better to have at least some savings rather than pay off debt.

after all bills are paid we have 1200 left. but we spend it all {mainly on food)
I don't really know how we spend it all. I wish I was good with money but I'm crap.

And wow at the variety of incomes people class as middle income!

I suppose I figured it to be about 1.5 times the average salary (reasoning that one partner worked full time, and one partner worked part time), so about £36k a year, and roughly £2500 a month after tax.

riven, that's the problem, though, isn't it? There is never any slack. So we jog along until something happens and then it's a nightmare.

It's no fun when you have to borrow taxi fare to the hospital because you think that your son has broken his leg or when you have to choose between putting the heating on more in winter or feeding your kids more than just homemade soup and bread every night. And we do live within our means, it's just that those means are rubbish and don't allow for extra expenses.

"I assumed everyone was talking 'nromal' bills like leccy, gas, mortgage, water, landline and food.
Anything after that is spare money and can be spent on what you want? "

That is what I assumed too Riven, I didn't include things like piano lessons, riding lessons, meals out, holidays etc in our "essentials" as they could be given the chop if necessary. I also didn't include the money we put away each month into savings, both for us and the kids. I just counted the cost of running the house (mortgage, insurances, electric, water, council tax etc), the cost of running the car (insurance, tax, diesel etc) and the cost of running us (food, insurances etc).

Nothing... I have two credit cards and a huge overdraft so even if there was money left, technically it should go into the black hole.

One day I'll sit down and actually work out my debt, then I can do something about it.

I am, however, working more. So hopefully next month will be better

ok, when I was working up until Jan this year I was left with virtually nothing even though I was bringing in 1900 per month. Renting a house was costing nearly 1k.

In Feb became a carer, moved to a council flat (count my blessings every day) and am left with about £50 quid a month and very stressed

am intrigued by all these people who put money into SAVINGS.
People have said £160, £400 and £1000.
Please clarify this. what are you SAVING for ?
We put money into another account for our car expenses. this is because we run 2 cars and the tax, insurance, mot, service, etc etc come all in the same month - October, so we need to save more than a grand for all of that . funnily enough we don't have 1.5 grand spare in october.
But that is not what i consider to be savings. like wise we have just been given a caravan and we go 4 times a year to dorset. we save £75 each month into our holiday fund. but that too is not what i consider to be savings.

so what do you mean by savings ?

Xenia question: What would you do with a $1.2mil portfolio (incl. $250K as equity in house)in the current climate? Pay off mortgage (circa $400K) or continue with 30yearfixed and rest in traditional diversified stock/bond portfolio?

(sorry for thread hijack - I am genuinely interested, tho...)

Oblomov we are saving for the following:

1. Buy big, fuck off house in the middle of nowhere with ten acre garden where we can plant our own veggies
2. Option to retire at 55
3. Cover children's (2) university fees entirely (we are in the States, so this could be a lot...)
4. Give away (hopefully) $1mil

We save for:

1. buying much bigger house at some point
2. contingency fund in case dh loses his job
3. school fees for dcs at some point in the future
4. university expenses for the dcs
5. unexpected events (medical expenses, parents needing residential care, house falling down etc)