I am about to live off £100 per week

[FlatBrokeForTheFirstTime]

Ok here goes. Please don't judge. I will skim over my background. Divorced and now I am dealing with a lifestyle change like no other. My sons are at Eton.

I have a little house in Wiltshire with a mortgage of £50k. I have a tiny flat in London that I rent out to make some income. I have a crap job and my pay is £30k. What none of my friends know is that I rent a bedsit off a guy near Paddington for £200 p week. After all of my outgoings I have £100 a week to live off.
Out of this I have to buy food, petrol, anything the boys want (so hence I am looking forward to them going back to school so that I don't have to buy them food too) Sounds bad, but that is the evil truth.
I don't expect pity, but I have enough clothes etc from my married life to get by, and they are still in date.
HOW on earth can I do this? Do I take out £100 in cash each week and put that credit card aside, out of my purse, for absolute emergencies? My maintenance from my ex has stopped. I don't get child maintenance as he lives overseas. He does give the boys pocket money and is generous to them.

I don't have a boyfriend. I am just on my own, trying to make ends meet. Apart from my mortgage have no other debts.
My biggest fear is never being able to afford another foreign holiday with my children.
How can I get out of this and improve my situation? What do I eat to make sure I am living within my budget? I think it must be about £60 after petrol.

Lavender she's already said he's gone back to his home country and isn't paying maintenance.

She has a £50,000 mortgage.
She pays £800 in rent.

Her take home salary probably isn't nearly £2000 either, I took home £2000 on a £40,000 salary.

Also, it's probably never even come up on your radar before but benefits - are you claiming child benefit?

Of you moved to Wiltshire on a lower wage you'd probably get WTC and CTC too.
I'm guessing your ex pays the school fees? The boys need to be told that their "generous pocket money" is now going to partially pay for any hollister-style addictions.

Juggling three properties sounds awfully stressful with two teenagers and a ft job - frankly who needs that kind of crap in their life at "this" age?

Take a step back and love your life again. Selling the London flat would also give you a few mark warner - if not mustique hols.

You have lots of lovely options and a bright future ahead but no wonder your head is spinning right now.

I hate to offer the usual mn advixe - but can you take off for a few days? Spend a day or two stomping down a remote beach figuring out what YOU want from life will feed your soul.

Life is too short for all this bollocks and you have the world at your feet - you just don't see it yet. X

oh! I skim read, sorry, to me "after bills" means after all essential bills.

OP, if £100 has to cover food & petrol and anything else for the boys, it is still okay. Shop at Aldi, cheap markets etc. Do also wonder why you are running a car. Look at selling at least one of the properties - yes, I realise you would have liked your boys to inherit both but I suspect you'll have to do this.

Also wonder why you are running a car - presumably for getting to Wiltshire. Would one of those car rental schemes so prevalent in London help you - like city car club? How do the train fares cancel out?

you have 2 major assets so you need to look at maxing out value. Maybe even rent the Wiltshire house?

In terms of the boys wanting stuff - plenty of teens want stuff. I wanted stuff! In many cases, my parents said no when they could afford it and I'm glad they did - I don't fritter away a penny now. I suppose it will be hard if you had a lot of spare cash but you are not badly off by any stretch.

I'm sorry but £100 a week after all bills but petrol and food doesn't sound bad to me. I live off less. I don't have kids yet but I live off considerably less, and have one on the way. Try shopping at the bargain supermarkets and switching your utilities and insurance. How about remortgaging? That may save you a few bob?

Hi OP

Swiss has given some excellent advice.

It's hard getting used to new living circumstances - give yourself time.
£100 a week for food and fuel is doable.

I'm afraid the DC are going to have to use their pocket money more wisely or ask their father directly for things they need. If he's supporting them I'm presuming they have a good relationship.
I understand not being able to claim child maintenance from a person resident abroad as I am in the same situation it sucks.

You need to write everything down and be practical - I think one of the properties has to go - you'll still have 1 left so no big deal. You're very lucky in that you work (and £30k is a good salary!!!) so many women don't and are totally up shit creek when their marriage breaks down.

Good luck

No ex doesn't pay maintenance it has stopped, he lives overseas and I cannot afford to go after him again. But he is generous in terms of pocket money.
We dont really get on if I am honest, but I am polite to him and will invite him to have lunch with us when he is collecting them.
I lend him my car etc.

The fees have been paid already we agreed to pay it out of the proceeds of our house sale when we got divorced. I dont begrudge that at all.
I have had a lifestyle drop, but it's ok, I didnt come from much, so I just have to get my head around it all and no longer shop in gasp wait for it, Selfridges food hall!!! My God I had it all!
Yes after ALL bills £100 a week is what I have, disposable income. Why petrol rather than train? Because I hate public transport and when you have to get 2 trains to see your kids and the trains are cancelled or late and you miss another and the journey takes you 2 hours instead of 40 mins, I would always choose driving myself rather than public transport.
My shit paid job in London, has been a life line, it has given me something to do and it keeps me busy.

Now back to the £100 a week, or more accurately £70 a week. I buy a LOT of eggs....I buy a bag of spinach (£1 in Tesco), I get free coffee in Waitrose, I buy reduced anything and make it into something. I shop in H&M and ebay. I am going to have to start taking just cash as it's too tempting to use my credit card.
This is a real life challenge. For me.

However yesterday we went to pick blackberries and I made apple and blackberry crumble which they loved. Free pudding. And more importantly happy memories.

Can I please get suggestions for making this work?

Air BnB the house in Wiltshire even if you can't rent it out
Or spend weekends there and AiR BnB the flat in London ?
Do a course and improve your employability and prospects
Sell stuff you don't need
Be honest with your kids
Tax credits etc

Luckily you don't have the feed the teenager boys!!

Will think some more.

£100 a week left after all the bills? Sounds wonderful, I could live the life of riley if I had that much disposable income.

Tell your sons they have to leave Eton and go to the local comprehensive.

There are lots of ideas in the thread to maximise your income. As I said you have choices (& flexibility). Please stop saying 30k is a shit salary - it isn't.

There a working 5-9 book which is good for ideas of businesses that can be started around full time work. If you won't sell a property or give up the rental flat your main option is to increase your earnings.

Can you downgrade your car to free up some cash if getting rid isn't an option?

Are you claiming child benefit?

If you rented out your Wiltshire home for 6 months (ie not the summer hols) would you end up better off financially if you then needed to use cheap hotels for exeat weekends and then relied on family and friends for some accommodation over Christmas?

And yes your teenagers can buy their own gear from the money they get from their father. If mine want something expensive they either ask for it for xmas/birthday or save up (they get £5 a week). Or they earn it (they are 10 & 13). It's a good life lesson.

Even if you rented out a room in your Wiltshire house that would be a contribution to the bills etc. of having it year around.

I really would investigate getting a job so you could be based there - you would be saving over nearly £10k off you salary by not renting the Paddington room.

Stop lending him your car. He is obviously very wealthy, and he is choosing to not pay maintenance, let him get a taxi!!

I suspect the OP won't be back but if she does come back- lots of questions need to be answered before anyone can offer any remotely constructive advice.

You can't put multiple children through Eton on £30k- who pays the fees etc?

What is the extent of this contribution- the fees are only one element- who pays forthe extra curricular activities, uniform etc? Is this support going to continue?

If their father is overseas do they go to visit him Ie is it only you who doesn't get to go on foreign holidays?

Why do you need to pay £200 per week on a bedsit if you 'only' earn £30k? can't you earn your take home pay less the £800 per month accommodation fees near your Wiltshire house?

Why can't you sell the flat and pay off the mortgage on the Wiltshire property?

Why is the father paying no maintenance if your children are school aged?

Got confused re the bedsit/flat.

I think you need to sell the flat or increase the rent, or leave London and relocate to Wiltshire full time. Or you need the house in Wiltshire to earn you some money while you aren't there as I suggested.

Lots of frugal threads on here about living cheaply - buying food just to go out of date, batch cooking, using beans etc to bulk out food, slow cooker for cheap cuts of meat.
Sounds like you are just surviving though - you need to live!!!

now you've confirmed that you have £100 a week completely disposable income...and you have a clear "tone" in your post calling your £30k pay - which I'd love btw "shit" pay - I've run out of sympathy so cba with budgeting tips.

your tone suggests you thought the rest of us were pretty low when you shopped at Selfridges food hall. You say you didn't come from much but your attitude suggests you must have, or how could you call £30k "shit" pay and say the job gives you "something to do?"

if you don't need that "shit" salary, I'll apply for the job!

I agree that £30K a year isn't a crap salary. However, it's your outgoings that are the trouble not your income. You can either scrape along for the time being and hope for the best or look at making major changes. Like giving up your job and the rented flat and finding a job nearer your home in Wiltshire. Because you are keeping three properties at the moment. Even if one is just rented. It's still bills and headaches.

£100 a week after bills.

Haha.
For one person.
Find yourself a lidl. There's loads in London.

30k a year.
Shitty paid job. Yup,
Tell that to others on a lot less who don't own properties.

Would loves to have £100 a week left after bills to feed three of us.

I do apologise for saying what I did regards my salary. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

My car is not worth changing it is a 8 year old Audi A6. It looks nice but high mileage and not worth very much.

I know I am lucky not having to feed the children, it is a fortune during the holidays.

I was going to name change for this but what the hell.

OP I was a single mum with two sons at Eton. I did not come out of a wealthy marriage like you - I came out of a situation of financial and physical abuse and I never received a single penny for my DS from the day I left. I escaped with nothing except my clothes and the tools of my trade (musical instruments). No house, no car, no money, and a 'D'H who left the country and hid everything so I never got a penny, ever.

My DS were both at Eton on music scholarships. The school was extremely generous to me and gave my DS incredible opportunities beyond anything I could ever have done for them. I lived honestly, frugally, and worked hard to build up my confidence and my career again. I rented a tiny two bed house and let out the spare room to various lodgers. When my DS came home from Eton for short leaves and and long leaves they slept in sleeping bags on the sofas.

They did not have gadgets or clothes or phones or holidays (any, not foreign). I got very good at cooking with lentils. All our clothes came from Primark, and only when they got too small or worn out. The DS were not allowed to put stuff on the bill, and never did. No newspapers to the House. No trips.

They thrived. They were respected at school for their particular abilities, and nobody gave two hoots about what their home circumstances were. They never felt ashamed and did not hide the fact that their financial parameters were very different to many. Eton is in fact quite a mixed community. Perhaps being rich, you only mix with the rich ones. I can promise you that I was not the only mum at Eton who was completely and utterly on her uppers, and my DS were not the only ones who didn't have the things.

I'm not going to advise you on how to run your finances. But as someone who really does know what it means to be broke at Eton, I want to advise you to start being honest with your sons and with their house master. Because once you do that, you can stop faking it, and start making some rational decisions about how to sort out your personal and financial life.

By the way, ten years later, I'm totally sorted personally and my DS are both doing amazingly. But it starts with a bit of integrity.

Right so I had imagined your DH was paying the fees and other Eton-type costs but what's the reality here, the fees are paid for out of the house sale for how long? Is money set aside for the other costs such as uniform and so on? It seems pointless working out how to make the current situation work if it could be upended in short order.

You need to resolve the problem of having to be in London for work but needing a place big enough for the kids to live in during the holidays and weekend breaks. Again, the solution looks quite different if you might have to be pulling them out of school in a couple of years' time in favour of a local comp. If yes, you'll want to base yourself around Wiltshire. If no, probably London I guess.

The job doesn't seem viable given the high costs associated with commuting to London, are there alternatives? In the meantime I think you need to find cheaper accommodation in London, there's no necessity to be in Paddington surely (except that you 'hate public transport' - you need to get over yourself on that one).

For driving up to see your kids, you could hire a car for the weekend.

If Eton is funded up to 18, how much of your children's social life is based around friends who aren't local to you in either London or Wiltshire? I'm wondering if there's an option to cut your losses entirely and move up to the Midlands without this having a material impact on them.

Rather than carry cash you could look at one of the basic bank accounts that doesn't come with any overdraft. That way you can use a debit card but once the money is gone, it's gone. Cut up your credit cards or at least put them in the freezer so you can get to them in an emergency but not otherwise.