How will we survive on low salary? Please help what to do? London!

[bumbleandbumble]

My husband earns 30K. At the moment I am not working and we are living with family paying a very low rent...we barely scrape by. Now we are being evicted and looking for a place to rent. I have the possibility of a job also for 30K...still in round 3 of interviews...

But even if I get the job, how will we survive? All my earnings will go to childcare (2 kids under 5) and his will cover rent...but no money for food/bills!!! How do you survive in London with these incomes?

Downtheroad - yes keep the riff raff out of london eh?

And for your information it's not a free market as you so simplistically put it. It's a corrupt and greedy one. My local council has managed to sell off quite a few of their public buildings to private property developers. And are they building affordable flats?

Affordable if you have half a mill' in your piggy bank, but that's the free market for you.

And are they building affordable flats?

what do you mean by affordable flats? non-luxury flats? in zone 2 a 2 bed goes for minimum 300k.

There is council housing already in zone 1. I used to live near it. It's very nice, and looks very smart and well kept. It's been there years, plus I've been in one of the apartments and they are huge, all high ceilings and lovely huge rooms.

well the job offer came back and seems they can only afford part time... so no 30K for me. I will take it just to improve my cv...but it means that I will earn next to nothing when childcare and travel is taken out of my salary.

I have no problem leaving London! The problem I have is finding work. Neither my husband nor I work in fields with options outside of London...
Sorry not to be more specific as I like to remain anonymous on here but we work in creative industries (film/theatre/fashion/art) and there are simply no jobs for either of us in the midlands or wherever. Even when we both worked abroad, we always had to be in a major city...or close enough to commute.

I dont have the time or money to retrain at this point in another field....believe me I have been considering it.

So now we are back to a total income being around 30-40K which is LOW in London. And yes we have toxic debt...but that is a whole other story. We cant even begin to clear debt when our cost of living is so high. And the debt is my husbands not mine.

Part time is good when childcare costs are very high:-

Proportionately less tax
If you can get childcare vouchers then they will cover a greater proportion of the childcare fees
Once kids are 3 the 15 free hours will cover more

Downside is that you can't take advantage of things like season tickets.

Could you create your own business Bumble? Something bespoke that people will pay a lot for? Could you teach some sort of creative class in the evenings or at weekends?

Look at a Nanny share, live in Croydon or somewhere similar.

I completely empathise. Because of my late ex- husband's debt we lost our house. I live in London and earn just over 30k, have two teenage children, so no childcare costs. The only way I can afford to live is because I receive housing benefit, it doesn't pay all of the rent but does pay a proportion of it. I am sure you would be entitled to this and with such young children you'd probably also receive tax credits. Good luck.

I am shocked at the rental prices in London!!! I live in a lovely village in the north we are renting a 3 bed detached house with massive kitchen, 2 reception rooms , conservatory, garage, front and back garden for £550 a month!!! We are on a low income and struggle on a joint income of 24k. The difference in house prices, child care, bills etc between the north and south is astounding :0

Whilst London is particularly expensive Goldie you do seem to have v cheap rent. That's the same as I get for a small three bed townhouse in a fairly rough bit of Leeds!

But it's so difficult to move from an area that you have lived in all you adult life. People on low/average salaries in London are consumed with money worries, quality of life elsewhere must be so much better. But try explaining to a socialable, popular 16 year old that you're about to move them away from their school, their friends and life as they know it. I rent privately a small ex council house that us valued at about 600k. Did you know that if you earn more than 25k a year you are now allowed to go on the council waiting list? When my youngest child finishes full time education I will no longer receive housing benefit as my rent is more than 3/4 of my salary what do I do then? So many sleepless nights!

Hi Bumble, where are you looking to rent? You can find cheaper rentals the further out you go. The metropolitan line goes all the way to Chesham for example.

Meant to say, if you earn more that 25k you are not allowed to go on the council housing list.