Can we live on 1 wage of 30K?

[brassic]

i know this will be relative to what you are used to and where you live etc. but i'm currently a bit scared that i won't be in work after my mat leave and we may have to live on dh's wage for a bit. we're in the midlands-ish
Mortgage is nearly £800pm

Hi,

My hubbie is on about £36K and he brings home about £2200 a month, our mortgage isn't too bad at just under £400 a month, but we do still find our selves tight at the end of the month, I wouldn't really like to be on any less or with a bigger mortgage TBH, although I am sure if you put your minds to it, it will be do-able.

hi brassic

my dh is on £30k and we have a mortgage of £600 a month

we do fine, still have nights out and take the dd's for days out etc

have zero zilch savings though, we dont have a car (dont need one), or any credit cards

i hope so as we're about to do exactly the same!.

i'm on mat leave and not going back as we're relocating to rutland, looking at houses on saturday. dh has been working in the area since november so we need to get the move sorted asap. dh's salary is around 30k, and we're looking at extending our mortgage so it will be in the region of £800-£900pm, the same as yours. if it helps, i've no worries about if we'll manage on this, i'm sure we will. 30k is alot, most people manage on much less than. you just cut your cloth accordingly when the time comes

Lol the answer is yes. Our household income is 24K a year and mortgage/securedloan together is £800 a month. Things are tight but we are not completly skint. We also have 2 cars to run and 2 kids. You just have to be careful with what you have.

You should have approx £1k left per month after mortgage I guess. With careful budgeting it should be do-able. If you are planning on goign back to work eventually then you could afford to run up a bit of an overdraft/debt on the understanding that you could afford to repay it in due course.

The best advice I can offer is to go on the Money saving expert website where he has income/outgoings calculators etc. It is certainly doable, but there will be areas you will HAVE to cut back on

this is what we are trying to do! only just started though - I became officially unemployed a couple of weeks ago. We're in the process of moving house and expect our mortgage to go up to around £800-900pm. I have done my sums and in theory it is manageable, as long as we're sensible with our money and cut down on the luxuries. We're in London by the way, so the cost of living is higher for us. We'll see how it works out in practice - if we're really struggling, then I'll just have to get myself another job.

actually think our household income is around 22k...lol

still leaves you £20k pa after mortgage expenses. Perfectly doable I think, when not in the SE.

Rutland is not a very expensive area Lucykate, so I am with you as sure you will be absolutely fine.

I think your tax credits should increase though shouldn't they? So you would have 1K of salary left after tax and mortgage each month plus whatever child benefit you get and maybe £200 ?? tax credits.

main reason i'm not worried is that dh has been self employed for 13 years, not bringing in very much, only really enough to run the business so we're used to living on my salary alone which was around 14k. to us the 30k dh is on now is loads!.

Do you have any regular payments apart from the mortgage? Dp brings home £40K our mortgage is £900 per month and we have sofa payments, laaarge credit card bill (from buying the house) and day to day expenses which means we don't have much spare cash AT ALL. Things will improve dramaticaly when we've paid off the sofa, but i can tell you it aint pleasant atm.
If you don't have many financial commitments i'd say, yeah it'll be fine.
Good luck.

yes i've been a sahm for 2 years now and we manage onhusbands salary of around £33k (baout £2100 per month). We get a £30 child tax credit per month and then child benefit. Our mortgage is £780pe rmonth and in theory yes it is very doable - u have to be strict and really we should have around £500 pe rmonth left after everything (however mounting credit card bill) sop we're always robbing peter to pay paul!

there are loads of ways to reduce your debt, transferring all your credit/store cards to a 0% card is one way. some of them have 0% for 6 or 9 months, then when that period of 0% is over, just transfer the balance again to another 0% card. its easy

another way is to menu-plan (i do this, is extremely boring but worth it)

i went from a weekly shop of £90 approx to £50

yes, tighten ur belts and u will be fine

We have about £12k per yr and do fine, takes a little while to adjust properly to a different income but u will find a way of managing

Have to point out that we rent so only pay £450 pm instead of mortgage type amounts

Agree with mum of monsters.
You can do it,my dp is a student,we manage.

We just dont buy Stuff anymore

Hi Brassic, I am currently a SAHM. My partner earns £1,360 per month, we have lived soley of his wages since July when i was made redundant. At first we found it very hard, but have got used to it. We have a mortgage of £740 a month and live in the SE. It can be done as long as you budget for everything and you are careful. We run a car, we don't have any loans or credit cards and we are very strict about this. Def agree about menu plans I make all my own meals and have never eaten better or healthier, go for cheap days out, soft play centres, free musueams, park ect, my dd is 4 and loves all of those. We won't have a holiday for a few years but do go to Ireland to see family. Good luck

Brassic

Dh's take home is around £19/20k, our mortgage is £550 and we have 2 loans.
It's a bit tight at times but we manage well.
We also have 2 cars.

hi brassic, I think you'll be fine. DH was on just over half (16.5k) of the amount you arte talking about. We managed to pay our rent (675pcm). Thankfully he has a slightly better paid job now and is just under 20k. I'd love to know what 30k a year is like!

Good Luck it is hard, but you do just manage if you are careful and look at your outgoings.

very much doable. Have much less coming in and mortgage is over 800 and we manage ok....just

That's loads of dosh! We're on 20K, mortgage of £400 and survive (just!!)

Snap Compo. DH and my combined earnings are approx 20k and our mortgage is around £400 a month plus £100 on a personal loan. We don't run a car or have many luxuries and have no savings to speak of but we get by and don't starve!

i take my hat off to u on a lot less who can manage with mortgages of £800 and run 2 cars (as we do). DH on £2100 per month and i'd love to know where we could cut costs more. WE have council tax of £92 per month (at the moment!) gas and electric total about £55 per month, NTL brodband, phone and basic TV pack £60 per month, water £22, petrol~ £80, insurances including house, contents, life, employment protection, 90. Food is about £300 (there is me, dh and dd). i do menu plan and do from scratch, but i find its the other things that mount up, ie cleaning products, medicines, snacks for dh for work etc. Any ideas where we could cut would be gratefully received.

A lot of us are on much, much less than that, even in more expensive places. It's entirely doable.

DH's income is £12k + bonuses (usually works out at around £1400-1600 a month). I'm on about £7000 a year. We're currently paying £740 on the mortgage (usually £600 - but we're paying off arrears), and are also making 'overpayments' on a few other bills each month to pay them off. We're now suriving ok, but do have the occasional 'panic' about 1 week before the end of the month. Once we've got the debts reduced a bit we'll be able to live quite comfortably on our combined salaries.