34 on 42k a year and feel poor

[User6404]

I'm supposed to be in a 'good' job, work all hours and lots of pressure. Im told this is a good salary but I never seem to have any money after paying mortgage and bills!

Is anyone else in this position and wonder why it is worth working so hard for little return? Am I deluded? I dont talk about money with friends.

When did you last have to choose between heat or food?

Get a fucking grip.

Am I deluded

Yeah, you're deluded.

I am also 34. I earn 34k which is a good wage, in my view. My rent is £850 per month and I live alone. After I pay all bills I have £300 a month left which includes all going out, food, petrol, everything apart from the regular bills!

I agree with everyone to make a budget and see where you are spending money, i.e if you buy lunch out every day and a few coffees it will certainly add up. But it really could be worse, money wise!

Wow.

We are a family of four managing on dhs full time salary of £17.5k, tax credits and disability benefits.

You need to budget better if you’re struggling!

Bad choice of wording but what you probably are is realising that no-one has taught you budgeting.

Go to moneysavingexpert.com. Do everything it says - change utilities, cards, bank account, mortgage, make your own lunches and so on.

I was prob your age when I did this and it really sets you up well for finances.

Have a packed lunch every day and don't buy coffees from coffee shops as they can be over 2£ each.

You need to look at your spurious out goings if you are spending over £1.5k a month with nothing to show for it.
I have, in the past, put say £20 in my purse and that has to last me a week. I didn't have my cards on me. If I didn't have the means to spend it, then it couldn't be spent.

To be broke on £42k with a relatively small mortgage means you must be pretty profligate. Rein in that spending!!

gggrrahg....are you paying high bills because only having £300 / month left from a salary giving you a take home pay of £2260 / month seems very low.

You could try taking a second job too as that can be easier for some people than cutting back.

Poor?

WTF...

You're deluded. I earn 35k, in my 50s, in London, working shifts, weekends, bank holidays, commuting three hours a day. 42 is a great salary. Any other job I could get would pay far less.

Yes I do think you’re a bit deluded.
You’re on a decent wage.
You’d be better off asking how you can save money and cut bills.

You are earning more than the average wage plus you have a mortgage so you are financially better off than a lot of people but money is so easy to fritter away. I started a good paying job in my early 20s & I’m embarrassed at how much I threw away due to lack of major responsibilities & the freedom of a regular, high salary.

Firstly, if you feel you’ve never got any money left over at the end of the month, look at your receipts/bank/credit card statements - you’ll see where you’re wasting money & can pull your horns in accordingly. Buying daily lunches were my thing...

I think you’re going to have to do a spreadsheet to sort out your finances.
Monthly income - hopefully you’re paying into a work pension - if it doesn’t hit your bank account then you can’t spend it....
Outgoings - mortgage, council tax, utilities, debt repayment. Health/life insurance? Monthly savings? Food bills.
Looking at how much you NEED to spend each month, would you be able to do that on a lower salary? What would be the least you could earn to cover your costs & give you something left over?

Hopefully doing all this will give you an idea of where your money is going & what sort of salary you can take & still feel happy if you decide to make a change. I did this & I feel a lot better, more in control of my finances & able to live on a lower salary in a less-pressured job with more work/life balance.

I was on less than that until recently, living in the Midlands, but managed fine. Then again I don't have a car and my mortgage was so low I was able to pay it off halfway through.

Yes sounds like you need to do some budgeting. Move money into other accounts for savings as soon as you get paid. Take cash out for weekly allocated spending leave cards at home.

The cost of living is so big these days.

As a household we're on a little more than you but our rent is double your mortgage.

We have the square root of fuck all at the end of the month.

Chill out everyone, OP is asking for help.

OP, there are budgeting ninjas on Mumsnet, they'll set you right. But for starters:

Make a list of all your outgoings. See where your money is coming from.
Check you are getting the best deals from utilities, phone provider etc.
Check out your debt and whether you can reduce your interest payments.
Check you don't have any subscriptions, DDs or SOs that you should have cancelled.
There's a whole world of smart grocery shopping ideas to reduce your food spend.

Good luck !

Keep all your receipts for a week & see what and how much you are spending. Then the following week take out half the amount out of the hole in the wall and see if you can manage on half the amount.

These sorts of threads never end well, OP. You do realise austerity is literally killing people?

unexpected It tends to get people's backs up when someone says they're poor when they are on a high wage, when some people don't have the money to feed their kids.

Unless you’ve got 10 kids stop fucking whining.

You’ll be wasting money on shitelike pretty much everyone else - Spotify, Costa coffees, Tesco meal deals, too many nights out, Uber, Netflix etc.

Cook proper food, have friends over, take a packed lunch to work, buy a flask. It’s all basic boring adult stuff but it works.

Another trick is to “make” savings another “bill” and have a standing order into a separate account for savings. Set this for payday.

With your income you could easily have two savings accounts with nationwide and marks and Spencer’s bank for £500 that’s half into each and make 5% interest on the accounts over a year giving you £6180 at the end of the year

I'm struggling to see how you 'feel poor' OP.

Obviously difficult to say for certain without knowing all of your outgoings, but I would be surprised if from your net salary you had much less than £1000 a month leftover after paying all essential bills. That's a huge disposable income relative to many people.

Don't spend as much.
It's not that difficult.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”