I can't afford to be alive anymore

[worrywilma]

I live alone and I'm barely making ends meet. My mortgage is due to go up in 3 months by about £340 a month and I just don't have that money

My mortgage is for £125k and I'm already at the top end of the term. I earn £30kpa, which is a good salary, and just get by now, how am I going to be able to pay the additional on my mortgage?

I don't have children so I can't claim any benefits. A single person should be able to pay their bills, eat and have some sort of life on one salary. It's so scary

@Borka well because they have voted for them. Wasn't much choice currently.

This group of people who are single person with no children have always and will always be ignored by every political party. We are just cash cows to every other group...every budget there is help and financial support if you have kids, struggle to work, disabled and so on...and every time these groups are always asking for more. More help, more money and it happens.

There has never been a single time a budget of policy has benefit just the single childree/less person. You would thin kshit this group of people take on alot of risk if they lose their job and home they end up on the street in worst case scenario. They are at bottom of the list for help in everything. You would think it would be nice if once just once this was recognised and some safety net a real one where they are a priority was available to them but it won't. They will continue to be the people who taxed lost, no benefit paying for everyone else and when shit hits the fan they are all on their own.

Being single with no children is tough.

Can uou remortgage and extend the years

How many are left ?

Second job evening delivering /working in pub /cleaning

As a parent of young adults in the SE my first thought was of course nobody on £30k can afford to buy somewhere. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs isn’t it? I don’t see how mine will ever leave home.
Was chatting with a colleague yesterday who is 32. Has worked hard and done loads of overtime for two years. He is on 40 and girlfriend on 32. With their deposit they can afford £250k. So a studio flat. No wonder the birth rate is dropping so fast. How are people on ordinary salaries supposed to cope? Why doesn’t work pay? I feel for you OP.

What about getting another job if you've no children?

I'm not trying to be self righteous, but I was in a similar situation years ago and when I finished my day job I would do some evening shifts in a bar and then got a weekend retail job too.

It's not ideal and you'll be tired, but needs must!

That's just nonsense. If you don't vote, someone still gets in and it will either be Labour or the Conservatives.

To be honest, you need a new job or a pay rise. Everything else such as selling bits etc is only a short term solution and not a long term plan that would cover the length of a mortgage period.

I think the issue is you think £30k is a good salary in 2024 when living alone. It's a basic salary.

Unfortunately when you living alone except council tax and the fact you eat less food not everything is "halved" (even they aren't halved) - most houses now have 2+ people who live in them.

My motto which helps to kick me in my career: If you are going to bother getting out of bed for work then get the maximum salary you can for your time with the least amount of effort. I am not saying go after a management job if it's not your desire, but maybe another firm will pay you an additional £5-10k for a similar job - or offer better holiday/bonus packages. You shouldn't have to live like this.

Have you got parents who could help you in any way? Short term cash for mortgage/help with renovations?

Can you get a promotion? I just got a promotion at my job (Project Manager) and I found that I’m basically doing the exact same work but for £8k a year more which works out to about £430pcm. Apply for things even if you think you haven’t quite got the skill set, you might be surprised. Basically, sell your time for as much as possible.

If you can get the right lodger that would be a great solution. My lodger has been with me for a few years now and while you have to get used to sharing, I like having her here. She is quiet, hard working and a nice person. It works for us.

You may already be an excellent budgeter but things I found helped me to manage money better were:
Writing down everything spent every day to see where savings might be possible.
Monitoring fuel usage on a weekly basis with meter readings, and seeing where reductions might be possible.
Leaving cards at home and only taking a set amount of cash when shopping so spending limited.
Taking flask and sandwiches for lunches, journeys etc.
Cooking and eating inexpensive home made meals, eg porridge, lentil soup, scrambled eggs on toast, chicken casserole etc.
In your specific situation I would prioritise getting the spare room plastered, put cheap rugs on floor, get a second hand bed and move into that room, and let other room to short term lodger.
Good luck.

Second job

When I was younger and bought my first property I had to rent out the spare bedroom. Then any extra money I had went on overpaying the mortgage.

This doesn't add up. A nurse doesn't have to pay 10% into a pension, why shouldn't they repay loans and lastly if they are on £60000 they don't pay back any child benefit but if they earn £80000 then they pay back approx 2k of child benefit, which is 2.5% nowhere near 20%

While I agree that politics is fucked with no one giving a shit about most of us, I don't like the dramatics that nurses have to pay 81% tax

As for the op, sorry I have no useful advice but I hope things get better for you

@Penguinpairs

NHS pension rates from £32k are 9.8%. At £49 k they increase further to 10.7%

The point I’m making that is lost in your belief about its fine people paying back is it is creating massive avoidance behaviour as people think “why work/work additional hours when I’m getting 1/5th of what I earn net! No matter how much social conscience you think people should have, they don’t and will avoid it. Therefore up until lifetime allowance was abolished, numerous doctors took retirement at the earliest opportunity and then either did nothing or private work via their own limited company or Limited Liability Partnership.

Senior nurses …vast majority cut their hours when hitting thresholds if they have kids. Has slowed down since child benefit threshold was raised to £60k but they all previously watched very carefully the amount of bank work they did which they nearly all reduced dramatically around December or January to avoid going over thresholds…either 40% level and what used to be also the child benefit level. The Care Support staff with families and receiving Universal Credit….if they exceed a threshold they lose “/benefit passporting rights”- ie access to other benefits like benefit.

Whether you like it or not. This is daily behaviour I see in the NHS. I’m fairly new here and was prevalent in other places I’ve worked but no where near like it. It is the utter norm. They would all like to earn more but refuse for the reasons outlined. Hence when the government and CBI moan about growth and the countries economy growing, or not, then this is a huge factor. Frankly no different in principle to going and taxing the non doms to hell. Most will never ever pay it as they will move domicile overnight

When I was in this situation I found a job abroad that included accommodation and bills. Rented out my flat and put all spare cash into paying down the mortgage. Thanks to brexit that now wouldn't be possible the way I did it (low pay low skilled job), but may be worth still looking into if you are open to a complete change. Really not as easy nowadays unfortunately. A second job and talking to the mortgage lender would be my vote. Not a lodger, at least not as a first option, and only if you have the time and flexibility to be really choosy - which you prob don't right now.

Totally relate how hard it can be to afford the long term security of your own place as a single person. But glad you’re feeling able to crack on! A 2 bed is great though. I’ve done the living in the worst room so I could rent out the bigger room, and actually for the around ten years I had lodgers it was mostly great and I enjoyed different levels of friendship with them. Is it still called the rent a room scheme tax wise?

I also had extra jobs evening and weekends and that can be enjoyable./doesn’t have to be forever. Currently often doing 8-1 on a Saturday am and I still feel I have a weekend.

And also carpeted a small room during the pandemic for £19 with a remnant and a couple of carpet fitting tools. It doesn’t quite go to one edge but the furniture is there so it doesn’t show and does for now. Maybe you could staple/nail sheets from charity shops to the walls to make it a bit better until you can afford the plastering? All the best with it all!

So difficult

MarieG10 I wasn't disagreeing with you that the cliff edge people encounter when getting pay rises stops them working more. I was just saying that going over £60000 doesn't increase tax deductions by 20%. We don't receive child benefit and I am fine with that as we are just over the threshold and don't need it but I do think it needs to change so that 2 parents earning 60k each with 1 child get full cb and 1 parent earning 80k, with a sahp and 4 DC gets zero

Everyone (sadly not everyone really, super rich seem to be exempt) is taxed the same so those on very low income don't pay any tax, then it's 20, then it's 40 etc. Those paying into a pension are nor being taxed, they are paying into a savings account so their retirement won't be as bleak as it is for those on state pensions. If you think benefits are generous then I suggest you opt out of pension payments and enjoy the high standard of living you seem to think benefits provide in your later years

I feel for you - this was me for years.
I didn't want a lodger, so I took foreign students for a week or two in the summer.
I was too exhausted by my job to take another, so I joined a sales agency called CPM, (there are many more) and did the odd day here and there - the odd Saturday, and even took leave in order to do a week once.
Do you have babysitting agencies nearby? That can be quite lucrative.
I did half an hour of telephone work every day, it mounts up at the end of the month.
Don't forget the tax payments.
I did actually remortgage to get a better deal, but I realise that nowadays that might not be wise.
I have just changed my broadband provider, and have saved £33 a month. Kicking myself, could have done it when I needed to!
I managed to get the security of my own home, but the reality is that through the early years I needed ' little earners' just to live.
It became a way of life until I landed a relatively well paid job, and could relax.

Ask for a pay rise
Ask the mortgage company for a better price to stay with them.
Shop about for another deal.

Child benefit for two children is £2212 per annum. What used to be £50k, now changed from April to £60k is a high income tax charge for the next £10k. That is 20%! And until a few weeks ago, that is what a senior nurse started paying. I can guarantee that is correct. I have seen numerous people all with the same calculation.

That level of taxation and deductions destroys incentives to work and it is becoming the norm, particularly for women to immediately reduce hours to avoid it. As said previously there has been a slow down since the increase to £60k threshold, but yes just created another cliff edge

www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge

Yes, if you got a 10k pay rise from 50 to 60k then you lost approximately 20% of it in cb clawback. However, that's only on that 10k, your figures said it was on the whole amount- deductions of 81%.

Last year, using your pension contribution figure, a nurse on 60k would have taken home 66.8% of that after tax, ni, pension, student loan and cb deduction (and it's not actually a deduction, you just no longer get it but I put it as a deduction for these figures) so losing a total of 33.1% of their salary. The figure you gave of 81% would mean their take home wage would be £950 a month, around half what someone on minimum wage earns

I would get a lodger for £300