Living standards for a family of 4 on £75k a year

[Onfire]

I know there’s so many variables due to expenditure but based on a family of 4 running 2 cars, one paid for, one that’s £200 a month, no other loans, no childcare, a mortgage of £1100 how would you expect to live?

It’s 2 people earning so the total amount coming in per month is around £4600 after tax and deductions.

I ask because it seems like a lot, but yet it doesn’t seem to stretch very far. We do manage to save a little bit but most of the time this is maybe a role £200 a month here and there.

DH is in need of replacing the paid for car, it’s not worth a huge amount as it’s getting old and ropey but I’d be worried about borrowing money

As PPs have said, do some analysis.

You suspect you’ve been spending a lot on extended family birthdays / celebrations? Tot it up. Decide on your budget for those things from now on, then, and decline invitations you don’t want to spend as much on.

It’s not necessarily ‘generous’ to spend family money on extended family and friends.

@rottd

including food?

Including, although I think that might be when I budgeted £400 a month for food. It’s definitely gone up though

well I think your essential spends look reasonable so you need to work out where the 1.6k ish is going. How much of that goes straight into savings?

I have a standing order from my account to put £200 in savings
We have a joint standing order of £250 for joint savings but this should be higher in my opinion for what we’re earning and we sometimes take some back out

DH puts his surplus in his own savings but he’s the one to generally top up the joint account and pay for extra spending on gifts and days out so I am not entirely sure he manages to put much away

When you work out a budget, include an amount for personal spends for you and DH after some savings for car replacement, major expenses on home, holidays etc.

Then if he wants to treat his friends and colleagues, it comes out of his personal spending money.

He's basically put you in a position that you have to borrow to buy a car, because he's been having fun playing the big generous man. That is ridiculous and reckless on your income.

Is there any chance he can keep his current car for another year or two, while you save up to buy outright? Only get rid if/when a big bill actually arises.

1.6k extra is a good amount but you have to be mindful as you can easily burn through it.

Where is the money going?

We're on less between us with a slightly lower mortgage. We get by. Our council tax is 250.

Get a spreadsheet and write down EVERYTHING. We deliberately have a birthday/Xmas fund of £50 per month to use. We only buy kid presents now too and these can be cheaper.

so £450 into savings, I would increase it & then from the other money as barbara said give yourself personal spends.

I allocate myself £350 on a monzo account & am quite strict.

It’s strange, other than the family days out and gifts neither of us buys ‘stuff’
We have a small house so we don’t like to fill it unnecessarily. We have a small wardrobe and we don’t buy new clothes unless something needs replacing.
The kids don’t have too many toys. We don’t buy for them throughout the year.

I’m the one who keeps an eye on the accounts abs budgets and i feel like for the earnings we should be able to afford to live in a 3 bed house by now but it all seems so unattainable

But how much do those days out cost? Do you pack snacks or buy etc?

On that income you could buy a nice but not premium car and finance it over a 4 year or 5 year period. Then cut back on days out and meals out / treating others. God knows how much you spend on birthdays.

I wouldn't worry about the car finance. Work out what the extra is and think if it in terms of meals out. So I spent £350 financing part of my car over 3 years. That's maybe 3 meals out, or 4 max.

Or save much more now and then wait for car to croak. Reduce your finance costs.

75k is an OK income outside London (is that before tax and over 2 salaries?) Its not brilliant so you need to stop living like Billy big time! If you live on expensive area then presumably everything costs more like childcare or plumbers etc..

You seem to be approaching this like a mystery. Surely you can go back through your bank statements and see exactly where the money is going?

Are you/him taking cash out so when you look at your account you can't remember what it got spent on?

If DP is taking his friends out that could be £500 a time!!

How much do you/ he spend on alcohol?

I don't think it's the norm to buy more than token gifts for adult siblings.

Re gifts we do £200 per child, £50 each other, £30 parents, the occasional £10 on a friend.

[quote UnfinishedBunting]@Pissinthepottyplease, I can't see four different debts other than the mortgage - I can only see one (a car repayment). [/quote]
Plus sofa, carpets and credit card payments.

@Pissinthepottyplease, I still don't see sofa, carpets, and credit card repayments 😄🤔. 1. Are we reading different threads? 2. Why am I so invested in this 😄?

OP, if you own your phones outright, check out giffgaff - I only pay £7.50 per month.

How much do you typically spend on each person's birthday -- what is the budget for someone who lives in your home or outside your home?

£70 per month on car insurance is the thing that massively jumped out at me for being expensive. Our cars (one new on finance at quite a bit more than yours) and one old (over 120k miles) owned outright come to under £400 per year which is Less than half of what you're paying?

@UnfinishedBunting

@Pissinthepottyplease, but that's @thesugarbumfairy's list!

On that income I suspect you are in the hinterland of receiving no tax credits, etc, which have an invisible impact on the perception of other people.

4600 less 1300 = 3300

From which I imagine you then have to pay:

Utilities
Car insurance and tax
Commuting costs
House insurance
Broadband/Sky
Food
Birthdays and Christmas
Haircuts for the family
Dentistry/opticians
School related expenses: lunches, uniforms, days out
Clothes for work even if modest
General maintenance fund

Can see it doesn't go far.

@margotsdevil

£70 per month on car insurance is the thing that massively jumped out at me for being expensive. Our cars (one new on finance at quite a bit more than yours) and one old (over 120k miles) owned outright come to under £400 per year which is Less than half of what you're paying?

For one car it was £200 but we had an accident in the other one about 4 years ago so that went up to about £500 a year. (Non fault accident )

I budget about £150-200 on children’s presents

I do token presents for adults but this could be a £15 bottle
DH spends £40 on his siblings and quite happy to spend £100 on parents. Abs often pays for parents to go on holiday too

How much is he spending on his parents holidays?
I wonder if you're being a bit faux naive here. We all know where our money goes, maybe we don't want to admit it, but we know.
We earn the same as you and save 1k a month, and still have plenty left over for days out, restaurants etc.

@Pissinthepottyplease your'e looking at the list I gave the OP as my example of a breakdown of finances. We have about the same income - I was just showing where ours all goes.

And what a pointless observation to make - 'Do children who are old enough to have mobiles need childcare?' My youngest has had a mobile since the pandemic started. I don't think 10 years old is too young for a mobile phone in this situation. We gave him it to keep in touch with his friends when they were all home schooling.

If breakfast and after school club had been available to us during this time, then yes we'd have paid for childcare. As it happens, we both ended up working from home, so we were lucky enough not to need childcare that we would normally have paid for.