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?

Is your diabetic child not in school? How are their bloods managed? Diabetes is a completely manageable illness they shouldn’t need 24 hour round the clock in person monitoring with the right management in place. Speak to their clinic about making sure you have all the right tools. Do they not have the loop device fitted with the alert app?

also make sure you are claiming every thing you are entitled too.

So we've had move home, work nights (after you've finished your job obvs), save a tenner a month on internet, have the husband PTS and the kids rehomed, taxpayers money - erm, what else? Has anyone mentioned taking in ironing yet? (just popped that in for those doing the bingo)

We haven’t had the suggestions to exist on porridge and lentils to save money yet (which won’t work for the arfid child!)

Well there’s 8 of you if you’re paying £200 per month for cats. That’s about 8% of your monthly income!

Child benefit?

Is there some sort of correlation between judgementalness and an inability to read & comprehend? Seems so on an awful lot of threads here

I agree. Spending half your disposable income on pets is crazy. What happens if you need to take one of them to the vet? Or you have any other sort of unexpected expense?

RTFM They are insured.

HAVING to spend £200 on fuel to be able to work a job paying much less than £3k a month (one child gets DLA, husband gets carers allowance) is the actual craziness.

What happens if the car needs repaired?

@MrsMop2026 is posting for help because her family income is so low, not to be judged for having pets. You want to try telling her she shouldn't have had a disabled child?

There are lots of families with SEN and diabetic children where both parents have to work or it’s a single parent family. It is a luxury that one of you is able to stay at home to care for them, do drop offs etc.

How much savings do you have if anything major goes wrong ? And how you gonna pay rent when you’re old ?

it really is crazy how much it costs to just live now

Could you ask the landlord if you could get a cat flap put in a door? Eliminates the need for litter . For the 2 house cats put their litter tray just outside the door for a week or so and then move to where you want them to pee/poop. Put some fresh dirt down and take away the tray. I hope that is somewhat helpful.

Oh and cancel the insurance. It's virtually worthless there are so many exclusions.

The issue with those suggesting the dad gets a job.
Carers can earn a small amount each week but if they go over the limit they lose the carers allowance.

I do work a limited number of hours as a carer but it is difficult to find an employer that will fit around your availability and for a limited number of hours.

It's also exhausting being a carer, I have no downtime my child doesn't have a suitable school place so it is 24/7 every day care
..it's difficult if I work evenings I don't see the other children much which is unfair to them. My partners job is full on long days. We already rarely have any time as a couple, no chance to discuss family things properly.

I work to keep my hand in my career as I had hoped I would one day be able to return to work - that is becoming increasingly unlikely as needs are increasing and support impossible to get

1. are you claiming this for husband? (Reduces your tax, increases your take home):

https://www.gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance

2. worth looking at you going part time, and husband finding a complimentary part time role - you're currently not utilising his tax free band. So, part of your salary is taxed, if you could get him to earn that instead your take home would be more. Get him applying for two or three days jobs, see what happens, then if he gets one with a decent wage, you put in a request to drop the days he works. Even better if one of his is a weekend day, you could both be doing three days a week.

I don't think 3,000 is loads on paper at all and not surprising you don't have much left when your rent is circa half.

Our total take home is 12,000 a month which sounds like loads but we have a huge mortgage in London and childcare x 2. We don't feel as well off as we'd like with so many huge monthly costs and live quite a modest life. I think rent / mortgage costs are such a huge portion of people's monthly salaries.

Depends where they live?? You could just about get a house share for that in London! I live in the South West and again don't think you'd find a family place for £1200 anywhere round here.

Its now pegged at 16 hours pw at NMW.

But even if he earned half that it would make a huge difference to the household disposable income.

OP if he can't get a couple of shifts in retail or hospitality can he set himself up as something self employed and work a couple of days while DC are at school? Cleaning, gardening, dog walking, odd job man etc?

Apply for UC! We have very similar situation. It's easy for people to say "get an evening/part time job". My son is SEN+Asthma. No childminder will take him. We can't even get a breakfast club at school. No one wants to be responsible for child who has health problems....
We still receive UC even with almost £4k income as our rent is crazy (London).

Go on turn to us benefits calculator and see what you are entitled to. You may get uc and help with rent. 3k unfortunately isn’t a lot nowadays.
My large dog only costs about £70 a month in food and he’s probably the same size as your cats combined!!

I am applying for DLA for my autistic son. Even if he gets low rate that is still another £100 and then roughly £150-200 more from UC. It is going to make a difference if we can get it. So it certainly will make a difference for you.

Statistics disagree with you. There is a reason why carers allowance exists in the first place.

Not many work places are willing to be as flexible as needed when you have a disabled child. I was sacked for having a disabled child.

My sister is a teacher. She really struggled to get any after school club for her autistic son. They wouldn't take him.

I can get one for my autistic child, his sen school run clubs but soon as we mention type one diabetes nobody and I mean nobody will take them, no childminders, no sports clubs, no hoilday clubs etc.
It’s disgusting. We did have an idea to start our own business to help other parents/carers like us but it’s the money side as always.

It's the same for my son because he has a central line which is how he receives some nutrition. You need specific training even if you aren't handling it to know what to do if the line breaks/cracks/comes out etc.

Places like that won't go anywhere near my son either.

It so hard isn’t it? They claim SEN clubs are to help kids like ours, but they also won’t go near them.
Cannot get respite as they claim “not disabled enough”, ughh.
It’s something me and my husband have been researching for a few years, would like to set up a “hub” for families effected, but it’s not the best timing for that now with what’s going on in the world. Catch 22 problem.