Sick of having plenty of money on paper but not enough to actually live!

[MrsMop2026]

We get around £3,000 a month on paper that is loads.
Shouldn’t be struggling at all but why am I always struggling to put clubcard vouchers & pennies together at the end of the month.

Rent - £1,200
gas & elec - £300 (paying back some debt)
council tax - £150
water - £35 (on a special tarfif)
petrol - £200 (but obviously that’s now going up and god knows what that will come too - and yes I use my free bus pass where I can and no I can’t use less)
cats - £200 (i have four so it’s expensive Im trailing the cheaper supermarkets litter at £2.99 for 10 litres atm so hoping to get this down and next I will try cheaper cat food)
Food - £600 (cant get this cheaper ones diabetic other has AFRID)

leaving me with £260 a month but that just seems to go so quickly with school uniform, school trips, the occasional day out. :(

I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do expensive days out, takeaways are a luxury in this house.
It is so stressful isn’t it? How does everyone else manage?

God forgot to include the inernet thats £44 a month so have even less!

How many is in your household?

I think there is a reduced internet tariff.

Yes with BT but the speed is pants, no good when you sometimes need to work from home and have a autistic child who heavily relies on it. 😅

4 people - is that 2 adults or 3 kids

because £3k a month isn’t even 2 adults working full time on min wage.

you might not have take away but £200 a month on cats is a luxury on a low income.

I understand how you’re feeling. We have about £5k a month as a combined income & pay almost half of your rent and still need to be careful. It’s bonkers.

There’s me, DH, 2 x adult sons and teenage DD. Plus 2 cats & 2 cars because we live in a village with very little public transport & work in opposite directions.

Our biggest monthly cost is definitely food - we struggle to spend less than £200 a week all in.

I wouldn’t say that’s an awful lot on paper to be honest . That’s 1500 take home each

3k doesn't even sound like much on paper when your rent is nearly half of it alone. Is it one adult working?

Your rent should really only be 1/3, and before anyone calls me names I know that can be difficult with rent prices being what they are.

I agree 3k is loads on paper unfortunately and the double whammy of having half of the 3k on rent and council tax alone!!

£2400 a year on cats is a huge luxury. Rehome 3?

This!

If it’s three kids, where’s the maintenance?

If two adults, you need to work more.

Yes one works, one is a carer as our children tend to have a lot of medical appointments/sickness/refusal. Planning to go back to work when things are a little better. Would not be worth going to work as would need a lot of time off at a drop of a hat!

Tried that, thats how I ended up with two. Family member died unexpectedly no rescues would take them.. and we got lumbered with them! The other family members took the dogs. It was a loose loose situation.

Do you get the full benefits you are entitled to OP?

£3000 a month as a total household income actually isn't loads, especially not when servicing a rent of £1200.

Your issue is that literally half of the money has gone, on just rent, gas and elec. You also have quite high petrol costs and food costs - don't know how many you are feeding on £600 though and I think if that's a family if 4/5 it's not awful.

You've made some expensive choices like having 4 cats - no way round it that is a luxury.

Fundamentally though these days £3000 isn't a large family income really, that's probably not much more than 2 minimum wages coming in.

Unfortunately it seems a SAHP is a luxury you can’t afford. Can you work evenings or weekends?
Are you claiming PIP & carers allowance?
How can the worker earn more? Training? Change company?

one gets full DLA, I am in the process of applying for dla for the other. Was trying to avoid that as I feel bad but spoke to an advisor who said it would help increase our entitlement to UC? I haven’t applied for that either. Hubby gets carers allowance.

I have applied for more job roles with better wages, but so far no luck! It seems the job market near us is drying up a bit but I will keep trying.
I have even considered doing uber/just eat deliveries after work.
One of children cannot be left alone due to their diabetes, they aren’t independent and we have no family nearby.

Unfortunately running a family of 4 plus four pets is always going to be very tight on one income 🤷🏼‍♀️

One cat will probably need PTS in the next year or so, trust me it wasn’t my choice to have four. I was happy with two. Our income should hopefully increase with DLA and maybe UC i just feel cheeky applying for it if you know what I mean. Ive always worked just life got the better of us!

Well your rent is extortionate, so that's where most of your money goes. I don't suppose there's much you can do about that, downsize? More to a cheaper area?

Pets are a luxury, when you live on a limited income. I choose not to have pets so we have more disposable income for the things you've listed there.

Can't you get any kind of part time work at all? Often people say they can't work, or it wouldn't be worth it but actually many people do manage to have jobs and children with additional/medical needs.

No can’t move currently as one dc goes to a sen school and if we move out the area it will retrigger having to apply for a sen school. In their final years so probably look at moving in 3-4 years time.
I do work full time, husband can’t work as one is diabetic and it would be incredibly stupid and life threatening to leave them alone as they aren’t independent. (Something we are working on.)

It’s an annoying outlay but the Brit-Pet sieve litter trays use pellets so could work out cheaper. You can also use BBQ pellets depending on what is mixed in with them - some are fine and some not.