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?

Why are you renting and not buying

Maybe because they can't afford it

No YOU should read, husband isn’t diabetic, one of the dc is!

Erm maybe because they can’t save for a deposit.. because they don’t have money spare.. which is the whole point of the thread? 🫠

Maybe do that before having kids, seems obvious to me w

Unfortunately life is not as neat and straightforward as that !

Choices

If it was that simple, everyone would buy a house.

We did

It's amazing that you did considering you can't seem to work out how it isn't possible for everyone.

It is possible, just engage brain first

Probably got help from parents.

Yep. It's just that easy. It's amazing that private rentals exist at all.

Pot, kettle, black.

I reread and saw that, doesn't change any other part of the reply though! Child needing help with diabetes is likely more taxing than dealing with your own!

We make choices and are largely responsible for our own destiny

Don't think she chose two children with disability.

Some choices and circumstances are largely out of your hands.

Not in my experience

This, subscription pet food saves a fortune, i buy good kibble & supplement it once weekly with something extra.

That’s a very very normal rent for a family of four.

Very normal.

Then you are very fortunate.

People have been so nasty to you on this thread, OP. I have a neurodivergent child who has regular appointments, and a preschooler with a speech delay. Even that is impossible to keep up with. I've had to leave two jobs as the flexibility just wasn't there - and I understand that, but juggling work and parenting was becoming impossible. I did find a job that's much more flexible and understanding of these things, but it's only temporary and will be ending soon. It's so hard to have a career and parent. Of course one of you needs to stay home with a young diabetic - it won't always be so, but for now, that is your reality. There's nobody else who could really do that, short of employing a nurse. I can't believe the people here who would rather the child would suffer than you get a few extra quid from the government to make your life easier. Bet none of them spoke up when the government threw away billions of our tax pounds by mismanaging COVID.

Well, she didn't CHOOSE to have children with additional medical needs, but she is making it work. And probably saving the taxpayer an absolute fortune by doing so!

I would genuinely love to know how to find a job like this because I have been looking for months. Have applied to loads but I think the AI is screening me out a lot of the time. No amount of tweaking my CV seems to help. I used LinkedIn and the WFH Hub (subscribed to mailing list) but just wondering if you would know of any other resources for WFH part -time jobs?