Should I feel richer than I do with a family income of nearly 100k?

[longestlurkerever]

Very conscious that this could come across very badly but I'm prepared for frank responses. I realise I'm very fortunate. Dh and I both have good jobs and are able to afford a house and all our bills comfortably. I definitely do not take that for granted.

I am just trying to make some decisions that hasve financial implicationsx and I'm trying to get a feel for what kind of lifestyle is realistic on our salaries. I used to feel quite well off really, but both our pay has been frozen for years now (public sector) and our expenses have gone up.

We earn just under 100k between us, roughly evenly split. Our mortgage is 1500 a month (London) and childcare is about 650 per month, with extra in the holidays (but will go up to about 750 a month soon when I run out of the excess annual leave I am using at the moment). Commuting is about 200 per month. I have no savings as I just spent them on building works but would generally aim to have 5-10k.

My instinct is I can afford to upgrade the car to a slightly newer and greener but not fancy one - like a ford focus 3 years old, but not a brand new one, that i can afford one European plus one UK holiday a year, but not skiing or long haul, that I can afford 2 hours cleaning a week but not a nanny, that I can afford music and swimming lessons but not private school.

Does that sound about right or must I be frittering my money away somewhere not to have more left over? I don't feel I do, except on nice food and wine. I don't buy expensive clothes for me or the DC, for example, and generally favour second hand. Most people I went to uni with seem to afford these things easily and have bigger mortgages than me, but I assume they earn a lot more in the private sector and i know they get significant bonuses every year.

I'm not moaning. I like my job and deliberately turned my back on a more lucrative career path, but I feel like I've been beating myself up a bit that my life seems more chaotic than theirs, and my house and general appearance much scruffier and am trying to work out if I could afford more help, or if actually i am comparing my life with people weith considerably more disposable income than me.

No idea if this makes any sense but all comments welcome.

I only hit upon the car seats thing after having a similar conversation with a colleague. So, yes, once car seat age has passed, you could revisit this. In the meantime I have no answers about mortality and cars. Apologies about that.

Feeling undervalued at work is shit. Does your DP do an equal share of the nannying, cleaning and holiday club runs? Can you eek more happiness out by pooling your resources a bit better? If he feels undervalued at work, maybe he is? In which case can he push for non-salary benefits and/or look at moving jobs? The private sector is not a moral pariah, although the pensions are less good, I will give you that.

Definitely do a budget. A budget doesn't have to mean eeking out whether you buy value beans or fish fingers for tea, it can be far more macro than than.

Just getting a grip on where your salary goes each month will be an eye opener. You mention montage, travel and childcare but not other bills. Have a look at your DDs and work out what else you spend your money on.

Credit card bill is a sucker for me. I buy shit on my card that then adds up to a couple of hundred a month, that I probably wouldn't have done of is seen it reducing my actual day to day bank balance.

Include how much you pay in to your pension in your budget. That's coming off your salary even if it's tax free, but should be seen as an investment, not a cost.

Set up a standing order to put some money in to a savings account on payday. Sounds like you're like me. You'll buy nice lunches and go out for dinner as long as there's money in the bank, but then stop when the money runs out. In that case make a concious effort to only have the money you're happy to spend in that account. If something happens (emergency/ amazing thing in the sale) you can always dip in to the savings to too your spending account up a bit, but stops you from frittering it.

As someone mentioned, a spending diary will also help, just to get an idea of where it's all going at the mo...

Also, are you still paying off student loans? If you are, that'll be 245 each a month on those salaries! Hopefully not for much longer though at that rate...

The budget thing does sound like a plan - thanks for the tip re money supermarket though I'm not actually planning to go mortgage free (interest rates are very low). Takeaway coffee is a bit of a vice, though I try and make my own at work and did invest in a flask (yes, saddo) for park trips, but it packed in after only a couple of uses.

Food generally is a bit of a can of worms that I left out of my OP to avoid boring people more than necessary, and is related to the question of whether dh is pulling his weight. He definitely isn't doing half atm but he has some health issues (requiring an expensive/restricted diet) and it's hard to get a handle on what is fair in the circumstances.

One thing I could do if I was truly unhappy is cash in the house and move out of London to go mortgage free. It is a back pocket plan, but I love London, on the whole. If Sadiq can get the air quality under control (that again!) then I'm staying.

Keep track of every penny you spend for 3 months & you'll know where that £2.5-£3.5k is going. This is not rocket science.

No, student loans are paid off and we have no other debt except I have borrowed a bridging loan from my mum for part of the building works that I am currently remortgaging to pay back - but once we have done so we'll be on a better rate so actually overall the mortgage shouldn't increase by much at all.

We've never had a car even when DS was in a car seat, but we're in zone 1 so it's easier and quicker to just use tubes and buses to get around. Since I don't pay for my travelcard, I find even the cost of Uber quite offputting! With delivery services etc I don't think there have been that many occasions where a car would have been worthwhile when it comes to transporting items.

I make my own lunches and don't find that too much of an ordeal - just a habit I've always had since a student and it's healthier and means less queuing as well. I don't drink much either, for health reasons really, but it all makes a difference to our grocery/socialising bills.

If you have an older property they can be money pits - ours is just a modern 2 bed flat so very energy efficient and needs barely any maintenance. We're quite impressed by anyone in London who has an actual house rather than a flat, so your house wouldn't seem too modest to us!

Tracking my current outgoings is one thing, but I've got a lot of exceptional expenditure at the moment - tiles, carpets, painting, etc etc so what I'm more interested in is what my disposable income will look like in 6-12 months' time. I am hoping that we are due a bit of respite from guttering/plumbing/appliance replacement/ etc etc as all that seems to have come at once recently, but there always seems to be something, you're right.

But I don't dispute that I spend money on non-essentials. It's school holidays and we are going on plenty of family outings. I don't really want to cut back on that kind of thing though. Should I need to, on our income?

get a peice of paper (or do it on excel). type out/write down all of your income. add it up. type out all your regular direct debits add it up. set aside a weekly/monthly amount for food, travel card, childcare savings everything else. add this up. look over your last months spending from cc and bank statements. does what budgeted for match what you actually spent.

compare your outgoings and incomings how much potential have you got left over. is there anywhere that is ridiculously high, anywhere you can and want to make savings.

keep a record of all this information. update it as anything changes

shopping at aldi and lidl doesn't necessarily work out cheaper it depends what you are buying there. it can but it doesn't automatically assume you are saving money just be shopping there. Same for the high street and kids clothes. the high street covers everything from cheap (primark) to what for me would be considered expensive (marks and monsoon). cheap isn't necessarily cheap if you are replacing it all the time, but it is if the total cost of replacing is less than the more expensive version. so just saying your buying on the high street doesn't say too much either. you seem to assume that these things equate to moderate or sensible spending

looking at what you feel you should be able to afford is ridiculous. you should know what you can afford. when I went car shopping I knew I had x amount of savings and x amount spare a month.That meant if a car came inside that amount I could afford it and if it was more I couldn't.

You need a budget

you only need to cut back if you can't afford what you want or need to afford. if you can afford it and enjoy it you don't need to cut back

I agree that you should get an app like YNAB.

Nobody can tell you what you need to cut back on or if you need to cut back. All you can do is work out the sums.

Look at what you have spent over the past few years and estimate what you think you need to keep as a reserve - look at your property and work out what will need replacing e.g. what kind of roofs do you have, how often do they need replacing/maintenance.

If you don't want to budget, just look at how much money you have left over at the end of the month and work out if you think it is enough to cover future costs. Look at things like when you want to retire, when you will have paid off your mortgage, how much pension you will have and how much financial support you would like to give your children.

I heard you OP. We earn the same and always feel short. I just had to put a family holiday on a credit card. I have no idea where our money does although we spend the same as you on mortgage and nursery and tbf that's a big chunk of it. I always think we waste a lot but when I really examine it is only a few hundred a month, hardly life changing (we waste money on Lunch at work every day, Costa and eating out, not big things) no big unnecessary bills. It must be te childcare

to predict in the future you do one for now. and then do a second with any changes on. if you do it in excel it's really easy.

It wasn't me that mentioned the high street actually, but fair points. I tend to shop for the kids in charity shops and if I don't find what I need there, the supermarket, though I also get given a lot of handmedowns so don't buy them much. I bought a load of clothes for my work wardrobe from everything5pounds.com at the end of maternity leave but the summer dresses I am living in at the moment are several years old. I honestly don't think I spend a lot on clothes at all, and furniture etc is pretty much exclusively Ikea and freecycle. Sorry - not expecting any violins here - I'm fully aware we all have spending priorities - I'm just trying to illustrate that I don't feel I'm totally frittering my money - I do think about whether I need something and whether it's good value before I buy anything. Where I spend more than average is probably on days out and so on. In London a lot is free and I make the most of that, definitely, but it does tend to involve stopping for breaks in cafes etc quite a bit I suppose.

I know it's a weird question. The reason I ask is because I'm remortgaging, as I mentioned, and I could borrow the bare minimum I need to pay my mum back, or I could borrow the whole amount I need for the loft, including what I have already spent from my savings, which would then give us back the the budget for the car, furniture etc without having to take it all out of the next year or so's salary and scrimp on the nice-to-haves in life.

But if we borrow more, it begs the question of how much - what type of car/furniture etc should we be buying. My instinct is always to go for the cheapest but everyone else I know has lovely high-end bathrooms and furniture etc etc. Green eyed monster, maybe, but that's the reason I put the question the way I did, rather than "I have x amount of money - what should I buy?"

The less you need, the richer you are

2.50 a day for a coffee. 12.50 for one every day of the working week £50 a month (assuming one every working week day and roughly). £650 a year.

double for 2 of you.

small costs do add up. fine if that's what you want to spend your money on and you can afford it. but it's an easy saving otherwise. don't assume the some amounts don't add up very quickly

Do you like high-end bathrooms and furniture?

Do you even like skiing? I don't like skiing, driving, interior decorating, cooking nor making house. You are getting answers about budgeting when your question reads more along the lines of "my tastes and priorities are different to those of other people. This is making me feel somehow unsettled. What should I do?"

I am sorry to hear about your DH's health concerns. Are you able to brainstorm with him about what he can do, if there are things that he can't do? If he feels undervalued at work and is dealing with health stuff as well, in some ways, hankering after a bigger house makes a sort of sense. Maybe he would like something to be different? It sounds as if you would.

Takeaway coffee is always mentioned. I have a cafetiere at work. Dh doesn't drink coffee. I do tend to buy one if I'm at softplay or the park, but the value of coffee normally is the chance for a sit down in a cafe with a friend - not just the caffeine hit.

Maybe I'll resurrect the flask plan for the park but the last one was £8 and lasted 2 trips so was a false economy.

OP, the childcare years are hard, no doubt about that. But there is no "should" about how you should be spending your money. As long as everyone is safe, warm and dry and essential bills are paid, then it's all down to your personal preferences and priorities. We lived on a much lower income (albeit not in London and only 2/3 mortgage costs) for years, but lived with rubbish carpets for 12 years after moving in, and have a smaller house than many people would consider for a family of 4,but thus enables us to participate in the activities we love.

But again, take away coffee at £200 a month really isn't the big deal that I expect it to be. Yes £200 a month is nice to put in savings but it's not really that much. I'm
Miffed as to where everything else goes.
My forensic transacting seems to indicate it's more about big one offs, lurching from month to month without savings to pay for them (repairs, recovering from cost of building work/ maternity leave/ a new car, generally large items like car insurances and holidays/ Christmas)

We just never seem to get ahead

If you're paying for the house renovations out of your general salary then you'll have plenty left over when all that's done.

I'd go through your statements and tot up how much is house renovation vs day to day spending, you'd be surprised how taps/tiles/ paint adds up!

We were living on a shoe string when we did our house. We had access to plenty of credit etc, but builders/ electricians / plumbers don't take credit card! So every penny of salary went on them, and everything else went on cards (that we knew we'd clear fast once the big stuff was done).

It got to the point we'd go out for dinner with mates and pay the while bill on our card, just to take everyone's cash contributions!

Point is, don't be hard on yourself as you're in a very expensive and cash hungry period. If you're worried about what it'll be like when you come out of the other side, then splitting out the building stuff and totting up the rest will really help.

TBH if you're applying for a remortgage, you need to sort all that stuff anyway. You need to be able to demonstrated where your spending goes (they're a lot more nosey than a couple of years ago), so proving that it you've had a period of high capital expenditure that's not BAU will help with how much you can borrow.

Do I like high end bathrooms and furniture and skiing? Hmm, good questions! Skiing I have never tried. It kind of appeals, but not right now with small dc. My equivalent would be upgrading our holiday accommodation in reality - we tend to go for the cheapest that fits the bill but somewhere with a stunning terrace or something would be a treat.

High end furniture etc - well yes, our house does look scruffy and tired and this is bothering me a bit, although it's hardly the end of the world. If I had more disposable income the first thing I would buy would be new sofas, table and chairs and a proper piano for me and the dc to learn on. More to the point I wish we'd spent more on the basics like flooring, doors, skirting, etc as they look so scruffy and feel like they're impossible to keep clean.

But it's the chaos feeling that's getting me down. I seem to have way too much junk, issues with pests (which is more to do with where we live and how the house is built than actual unhygienic living standards but still...), broken things like loo seats and leaking guttering and not enough time to get on top of things, never mind time out to get my hair cut or whatever. Maybe that's the age of dd1 (she's 14 months, going through a clingy phase and not sleeping well) and the building works causing dust and noise, and will pass soon - maybe not. I'm looking at other people who look so together and poised despite also having small dc and jobs, and am wondering why my house can't look calm, tidy and clean. Then I think maybe it's because they have an army of helpers and that I'm aspiring to live a lifestyle that's perhaps beyond my means. But I dunno - maybe I'm just crap at cleaning and lazy? The lack of sleep isn't helping with everything as I am physically knackered if I don't use dd2's naptime just to have a breather - but there's also 1:1 time with dd1 to fit in.

DH's health issues are a mixture of physical and mental - so it's a tricky one to address head on. He is getting help and things are improving a bit.

Thanks Bristol - that's reassuring. Though calpol's post rings true (and yes, the inventor deserves a knighthood)- if I write off too much as exceptional expenditure then I'm ignoring the reality that there always seems to be something (proper mouseproofing is next on the list).

I think that's the point though. the coffee. there really is no should. if you can like it and you can afford it why not? but if you want to save it's an easy saving.

the same applies to posh kitchens and furniture. if you can afford it (or afford the debt comfortably), why should you scrimp? but if you can't afford it putting yourself in hardship to keep up with your mates wont make you happy.

but bear in mind when you look at what other people have sometimes it's sheer luck. I'm on benefits but I have a real oak kitchen because it was excellent display and I spent quite some time making it fit into the space. it came in cheaper than the basic kitchen; which is what I would have had if I hadn't been fortunate enough to walk in at that moment in time.

having a budget means you don't feel guilty when to spend OR when you save. because you know exactly what you can and can't afford.

We very similar household income and outgoings. I find things always feel tight but we are strongly focuses on saving while our son is still young. Budgeting has definitely made a difference to us. We cut back on some things and decided that others we weren't willing to compromise on.

I found that we were never spending a lot on anything but that £25 or £50 will quickly add up so some things that look like small expenses have been cut and cumulatively have made a difference. I obviously know we are on a budget but don't feel like we are sacrificing or unable to do anything because of it.