Can you live on £18k a year?

[peeweechigs]

Run a house with two kids? No childcare expenses. Is it possible? Thinking what might happen when separating....

Council tax should be on your list too, if that's not one you already pay.

You definitely can, dependent on size of house, mines small mid terrace, 3 bed, 2 bathrooms. I live on about £12,000 with mortgage paid off and feeding two grown up sons most of the time. Also run an old car so insurance, road tax, diesel ect included in that. I don't go out much or have holidays from choice (I have savings and could if I wanted to) but £18,000 would leave spare for this.

How come no housing costs? If you’re married, the house is an asset and will get split in divorce…

I run a house on 18k. I only have one child though, and im in a shared ownership so my rent and mortgage total £400. If i had to privately rent, theres no way id manage.
Also take into account UC and child maintenance
If my ex paid CMS, Id get an extra £2400 a year, which more than covers my child's annual costs

Yes, it's possible. Me and my 3 dc live fairly comfortably on 25k+child benefit, including repayments on a relatively small mortgage.

£1800 gross, is about £1560 after tax and NI, so about £1700 net with the child benefit. Take off £300 for gas, elec and water, £150 council tax, £50 for phone/internet, £250 for food and you're down to £950 for everything else.

If you run a car cheaply then that'll be at least £100 a month, more if it's thirsty or you do more than a few miles. Still leaves you with about £800 a month for the rest (clothes, entertainment, holidays, etc).

But if you have a taste for nice things - car on lease/finance, contract phone, gym membership etc, then it'll start looking very tight. And I've not included home expenses like house insurance and maintenance as you've not said what the arrangement is for that?

Depending on your age and circumstances it might be worth putting a chunk of your savings into your pension - to get it down under 16k, if you wanted to become eligible for UC.

You must live frugally? I don't mind doing that , as long as my kids are ok. I do currently spend a lot on hobbies, but I can cut that back. I suppose i can get a better paying job when I'm now and stable and the kids are older. I'm currently term time only.

Are you getting the house if you separate? If so that's a massive asset (4bed) so if you needed money you could downsize.

You have 2 children and one is 16? Is the other very young? Why only working term time?

Running a 4 bed house will be £££. I could do it on about £18k if I had no mortgage overheads but it would be tight. Have you looked at how much all your outgoings are? Council tax and heating will be a lot

Are you confident you will get the 4 bed house outright? And that your DH will move out? Will he have the kids 50/50? A court is unlikely to award the house straight to you so if you don’t own it you may need another plan.

Bills will be fairly high on a 4 bed detached, you can check your council tax band online though to see what that is.

Depends where you are in country but what I would do would be:

• use some savings to get through next couple of yrs until the DC16 is at uni;
• take first aid / counselling courses to make myself attractive to private schools as a housemistress / teacher / cleaner depending on your qualifications or other live in job eg nanny
• then either get a live in job in a boarding school or downsize house to a 2 bed cottage to release equity (possibly Victorian by the sea 😁)

We get less than £1k as I'm limited capability etc.

We do ok, no holidays or fancy useless tat we.dont need, but we're housed and fed.

@AnonWeeMouse you get less than 1k a year?? Or a month?

I guess I do by many people's standards but having been very short of money when my children were younger it no longer feels like I do with mortgage paid off🤷 I worked everything out a few years back and all household and car bills were covered by about £4000 a year and £6000 covered food/spends, I've added a couple of thousand to that for cost of living increases as I have noticed food bill go up a lot lately, although I'm definitely not frugal there as I spend £5-600 per month and buy anything anybody wants including alcohol, although I never waste anything.

One thing I did do years ago when desperate was have foreign language students staying in the school holidays for courses or if you are near a university I also rented rooms out to students (I was in a larger house then). With a 4 bed house it should be possible to have a lodger if you need extra money so I wouldn't worry too much. It's a way of making extra money without leaving your children or needing to pay for childcare. One step at a time I think is always best, get on with separating, you have a safety net with your savings, but I know what you mean about not wanting to use your savings for living expenses as having been in dire straits in the 90s with mortgage rates up to 17% I now always ensure I have savings to hand.

Yes, I can and do.

Yes I think you could when you have no mortgage or child care to pay for. My biggest expense at the moment is my kids football, so expensive! but that could be scrapped if needed

I realise rent is the biggest expense, but there is still a minimum amount you need for everything else. This particular poster said they could manage on 8K a year (4K less than your 12K after rent). I just wondered how.

Agree - I would be interested in posters who can manage on 18k and where they live if they have 2 children. With or without mortgage or rent it would be tight. Life is not about scraping by and while you can manage very temporarily OP is saying this might be long term.

How about that once a year UK holiday break - even camping - you have to get there and back, extra curricular for children, hobbies, birthdays, Christmas days out. Play dates - school outings and events - Just life with children - Even homemade fun times cost money.

I'm surprised you couldn't comfortably survive on £18k if you're mortgage free.

How much are your household bills?!

I think you need to be very sure that you will get full ownership of the house from a divorce. It’s more likely that in a clean break you will have to split the assets, house, savings and pensions. Have you sought legal advice?

It's a month. I'm sure I put that, but I didn't, forgive me.

TBF I do only have 1 kid and I get bedroom taxed, but.. yeah. 980 or so.
Standard allowance went up a £10 a little bit back which helps.

I have 2 primary aged DC. A mortgage. I work part time and live in East Anglia.

I don't have childcare, rather after school activities which I have to pay for. They do swimming, Beavers, plus 2 after school activities which are £5 per child per session. So £20 a week. I have a car, live rurally. We go camping for holidays , we go to the cinema occasionally and have a parking permit (£50 a year) for a local outdoor play area/woodland/trails etc.

I was a bit taken aback when I heard colleagues chatting about hiw much they had spent in the next sale (600 - 1000!!) Needless to say I didn't spend anything.

Yes I've taken legal advice. We have more than one property so I am hoping I can stay in the one we live in and he can move into another in the same town he rents out.
The financials work out (if he agrees) that it would be my share and then I'd be mortgage free but still need to pay all the bills.

It wouldn't even cover my rent, so no.

I was going to say no as my mortgage alone would cost half of that. But if you don't have to pay rent or mortgage then yeah it's probably do-able.

Depends on your circumstances- how much rent/mortgage you have & other bills, loans etc.

I am a single parent, I earn £12,000 per year & I save some each month out of that & we have plenty of treats, day trips etc. Also I have pets & a car to run. I don’t have a mortgage or rent though so that leaves all my money for bills (£400 max pm) & disposable income.

I've already said no rent or mortgage. I'm talking about other bills

Their question was ‘is it possible’ rather than ‘who has the silliest rent bill’.

To the OP, living on £18k with no mortgage or rent with 2 kids is absolutely do able - as long as you don’t go silly with Sky / fancy car / Hellofresh and stuff like that you’ll have plenty left over.