Earn 40k single parent and struggling

[Noncomplyturkey]

Never thought I would get to 47 be earning 40k and struggling financially, I’m JUST getting by, before you ask I don’t live an extravagant life, no flash card or holidays, just two teenage sons with a £1k a month mortgage and regular bills. I have no idea how others in similar circumstances that earn less are managing. My monthly outgoings have gone up by over £300 due to increased int mortgage rates, food, petrol, energy. Child maintenance is due to finish in September too as my twins go to uni (fingers crossed). I’m going to have to get a second evening job, anyone got any suggestions or miracles?

I've two teen boys 17 and 13 and they eat lots of

Noodles
Pasta
Baked potatoes

I'm always mystified by 18yr olds who don't have a pt job, you're feeling the pinch but have two boys who could be lightening the load.
All too common in MN, not expecting teens to work.

My first comments are you should save £300 a month just with single person council tax discount, water costs and food bills. There's no reason you cant get your food bill down to £250 on your own and still live well- my son does and he eats nearly all M&S - uses his freezer well and buys loads of yellow sticker stuff to freeze.

What are your insurances at that cost? Is that car insurance? As otherwise seems high- also could you ditch private health for a while- that's depleting your take home by quite a bit I would think - maybe £100 a month? Do you need a car? I know it's a nice to have but if your loan and insurance are around £250 that's a big chunk.

I don't think not getting maintanance will be as bad as you think as the costs of them not being there should balance that off.

Could you do a mortgage repayment holiday for say 4 months and then put that money in savings so you've got a bit of a buffer ??

Think about the second job thing as sometimes it's hard to have the time and energy - can actually make more sense to do something like AirBNB one weekend a month if you live somewhere 'in demand' or a small side line from home.

Benenden health is only about ten pounds a month

Why are your boys volunteering but not working? Is it related to their uni subject/future career?

Netflix and Spotify aren’t compulsory.

@Orangesandlemons77 Really? I will check it out

On another point OP I see you say you only have about 3 years left on your mortgage? Are you overpaying considerably? Because if you've been there 20 years or so that seems a very high mortgage , I know in 1999 we had a £115,000 mortgage and it was £482 a month - if you are overpaying, and can't really afford that I would stop it - if you don't actually owe that much now how about maybe adding 5 years but getting your payments down by quite a bit ? Just a suggestion if you are struggling a bit.

Forgot to add- especially if you are thinking of selling anyway.

Your net wage seems vey low for 40k ?? Do you have huge pension deductions or something ? I earn 25k and come out with almost £1700, no pension deductions currently though.

2500?

Less 1k mortgage

200 council tax
200 gas and electric
400 food
100 petrol
100 towards car maintenance

That's 2k already gone

500 for phones , pocket money for the kids, one takeaway a week , new glasses, a bit toward holidays and Christmas .. it's nore than many have but it most certainly needs managing

It’s incredibly tough just now, and your outgoings don’t look outrageous. (Well, food does, but two teen boys is gonna do that!) except maybe water. Are you on a meter? I’m literally scraping by on around £15k. It’s no fun at all, but we’re just about solvent. My mortgage is much lower than yours, only one DD who’s thankfully super-cheap to feed and no maintenance. When will your child benefit stop? (sorry, but you don’t need another shock there!)

In your position, I would look to your mortgage. I’d remortgage for five years now and either reduce the repayments and lengthen the term, or take out some capital to pay for DS’ uni, and make sure they have a home for holidays, and then when they graduate, you’ll have a year or so where you can house them free/low cost to get them on their feet with first jobs and first rental homes. You said you were ok with going into debt for that (and I think that’s a valid reason) and a mortgage is generally the cheapest way to do it. Once they’re both out on their own (and a deadline might be helpful there!) you can downsize, or if they’re still at home, get them contributing - you’ll have two or three incomes, then, and they could maybe contribute to your mortgage while saving for a deposit (or if you downsize you might be able to help them with a deposit depending on your preference, their maturity and your house value)

My budget, in case it’s helpful. It is…..not ideal. All supposed to be short term, but my income is getting worse, not better as was expected, and I’m almost at crunch point.

Mortgage £362 (will go up next month as the fix ends)
Council tax £152
Electric £50 (shouldn’t change much use wise, as have economised massively. Will go up in October, though)
Gas £13. (Will go up massively in the autumn. I’m over-paying a bit to try and prep and have cut hot water use to tepid showers twice a week. Obviously no heating atm). I actually pay £99 a month and have almost £100 credit, but they said today they want a DD of £153. No bloody way!

Water £28.50
House insurance £22
breakdown/travel/phone insurance £13
Pet insurance £110. Annual policy, will be downgraded or scrapped in oct.
dog food £40
Food £80 (no bloody fun at all. I’m living mostly out of the freezer and on pasta/veggie soup and bread. Kiddo fortunately loves beans on toast, pasta and mash and we have mountains of strawberries, raspberries and currants and some veg from the allotment. No meat or fish, and cheese and milk are treats for me. A friend has hens and gives me her surplus eggs. We look after them when she’s away and I bake for her in return)
petrol - £135 for one tank a month (small, beloved campervan, but no finance thankfully. Next to go, I think)
Camper insurance and tax £80 (only vehicle. I might be able to get the insurance down a bit in September. I think it’s high, but I was distracted by a crisis at renewal time last year and didn’t shop around)
DD’s phone £32 (on contract till next July. Will go to PAYG SIM asap, obviously)
My phone £32 (ditto)
Netflix/Disney £11 (not both, we flip between for DD - cheapest entertainment there is and got FA else to do! Kirsty whatsit can fuck off, and fuck off some more)
Amazon music £8 also for DD. I don’t bother with it.
National trust £6 (annual, but paid monthly and can’t cancel it. Going to when I can)
School lunches £20 (nope, can’t get ‘em free. Tried. Kiddo mostly has packed, but some snacks as treats and chips on Fridays)
Karate £20
Music lessons £36
DD pocket money £28
tax £21 (self employed, so I pay it separately)
Savings, pension, life insurance £0 (deeply uncomfortable with this, but really how could I?!)
Clothes, shoes, haircuts, beauty treatments, coffees/eating out, takeaways, days out, treats, holidays, Christmas and birthdays £0. (Obviously. For birthdays, or If DD needs school shoes or uniform I sell something. If she absolutely needs clothes, I beg my mum for help. Mum also helps with school trips. If I have a spare couple of quid from a Tesco voucher or something, we get chips on a Friday night. But that’s it.

I can see four ways not to literally starve. (There’s already no heating in this budget. The credit I’m building will not go far this winter) and they are all poor options. I’m trying to decide on the least worst.

1. Sell the camper. It eats fuel and is actually worth a little bit. I don’t need a vehicle, but fuck me it would make life harder. I hardly drive as it is. Shopping, national trust visits, country parks or close-ish friends. Couldn’t even get to Aldi, then, or free days out. And job opportunities way more limited, if it comes to that. Also vet visits, health appointments, admin stuff harder. You can go away very, very cheaply (or even free sometimes), if you can scrape petrol money together. That’s a big deal. But each month it costs more to fill up.
2. DD has no clubs/lessons/music/telly or school dinners. What a fucking joyless existence that would be for her. This isn’t her fault and I’m trying to shield her as much as possible. I’m kidding myself I can hire it out, and thus keep it and stay afloat. But it needs a little work first, and can I afford to gamble, even a couple of hundred quid?
3. Surrender the dogs. I can’t even think about this without crying. I’m not an overly emotional person, but man that sucks rocks. DD adores them. Walks, training them playing with them, snuggles - they are worth every penny, and about all I’ve got (I don’t watch telly or listen to music) now the camper’s grounded due to petrol prices. They aren’t chattels, they’re living beings, and I PROMISED them a forever home. You can’t buy love, but you can rescue it. What a hellish thing to have to do. Send them back to shelter because it’s care for them, or feed us.
4. sell the house. I almost downsized last summer to be mortgage free. Bloody wish I had (offer declined as we hadn’t sold ours) It seems so drastic, and has huge costs and massive disruption associated with it, and I keep hoping something will give in the meantime. This is not a bad option, and I’m looking for something that means DD can stay in her school, but even the thought it almost overwhelmingly exhausting.

Each would save around £150 a month and we’d survive until the next wave of cost of living hikes, when they’ll be nothing to give. What a crock of shit.

@Eeksteek I really feel for you - do you not get any maintanance or tax credits/UC ?

You will be taxed but you if you do a second job you get an extra full NI allowance

Eeksteek
I really needed to read that, I’m really sorry you are having such a tough time and are faced with such difficult choices 😞sending you huge 🤗 and wish you lots of good fortune x

My mortgage was 750 then I bought my ex out and that was when big rates were low and I knew things would be tight with the term I set up…. I do have the option to spread my mortgage over more years but part of my mortgage is on fixed rate and part of it is on a lifetime base rate tracker and only just slightly higher than base rate… it would gut me to lose that as the interest is quite low.

it’s all swings and round abouts and I feel blessed I do actually have some options compared to some other peoples situations. 🙏

I earn 40k. I take home £2153. I can well imagine that OP is finding it tight with a family to support on one income. A couple earning minimum wage would take home over £2500.

Yes I'm getting a bit sick of working my arse off on a similar salary, buying ex out so that dc could stay in their schools and be near their friends to now be scrimping and be entitled to none of the handouts for cost of living rise whilst every pensioner gets it regardless of house size or income. I'm sick of always 'doing the right thing' and being metaphorically kicked for it. I worked throughout the pandemic, looked after the dc on my own, home schooled them, did what the government asked, had to leave dc alone whilst I did supermarket shopping when shops wouldn't let them in and I wasn't eligible for delivery slot, had zero help from the school during the pandemic, and now no help for cost of living, getting poorer and poorer month on month whilst not working any less.

Every pensioner does not get the cost of living payment. they get winter fuel payment but that's not a lot. They only get the £650 payment if they claim pension credit.

All pensioner households will get the one-off Pensioner Cost of Living Payment as a top-up to their annual Winter Fuel Payment in November/December.

My mum is in her 80s always worked any job she could do raised 6 children with my dad who worked in a steel factory, we didn’t have much money growing up buy my Mum was very savvy and we always ate well. My mum is comfortable financially in a two bed house that is paid for. Ive heard her say many times how it astonishes her how much pensioners get and she can’t understand why they complain 🤷‍♀️

I agree feel like we’re “existing” not living 😞

i would get a lodger

Must admit since I've been doing benefit checks, I am very surprised how much some get. Even with 50k in savings they can get a lot of pension credit if they have the disability premiums and things that add up. I won't say some of the things I've seen/ heard just this week alone, as I'll get flamed but blimey i am shocked at a lot of what goes on.

Have you checked if you’re able to get any help like tax credits/universal credit? Also low income homes can get a winter fuel payment. And don’t forget council tax reduction. I’m sure you probably know about all this but it’s worth checking the website ‘entitled to’ to make sure.

Sadly not. I’m widowed (I do technically have a tiny pension. It’s £93 a month). DH put all his money into other assets, which I inherited, so they are not protected like a pension would be, and count as savings for UC. I have to sell the assets and thus lose his legacy and it’s income, or hold out for better income. I chose to hold out. It was a bad call. That’s why I limit the impact on DD. She didn’t make the wrong bloody call (I’m not beating myself up. No one knew about Ukraine, and inflation, interest rate rises and the ghastly energy crisis then. The forecast was good and Hindsight is 20:20. Faced with the same information, I’d make the same choice. Holding out is still the best option, but there comes a point when it’s not possible. I think we have reached it.) So it goes. I’ve had some great years, I can’t complain. And when I really, really needed them - when DD was in primary and didn’t sleep worth a damn and there were days when I struggled to make a sandwich and could not possibly have held down a job, they kept us afloat. If I have to go back to being employed, now is better than then. I’m grateful for that.

And thank you for your support. I’d be a basket case without the kindness of strangers on the internet.

Please divulge more 😀