£412

[headaches80]

Hello everyone.

I’m quite meticulous with budgeting.
mortgage rate has gone up again. I’ve just done my forward planning calculation.

After all bills/ direct debits/ standing orders (all essential stuff like mortgage, energy, c tax, TV licence, life insurance) I have calculated that we have £412 per month left.

This is for food, clothes, gifts, any school trips and unexpected bills. also to include petrol.

I’ve not included the insurance (car, home/contents) etc which I tend to get annually (I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it).

I spend around £30 a fortnight on petrol (getting to work). I downsized my car to pay for Christmas.

How are you splitting your £412 in my shoes? This is joint income, 2 adults and two teens. Both adults working full time.

I’m thinking

£200 shopping
£60 petrol
£40 unexpected/ school trips
£100 left over (will get eaten up no doubt)

its not a lot :(

I know I can sell stuff on Vinted. I don’t have loads of extra to sell and intend to save this option for use ahead of birthdays etc, I made £200 recently ahead of sons bday.

I’m thinking of ditching the TV usage (making licence fee not nec).

if Martin Lewis is correct, I’ll save 17% on energy bills. This will save me an extra £42.50

Any extra income streams or savings that I’ve not thought of?

Negotiate everything. I just got 25 quid a month off my broadband and tv package as it had crept up. I negotiate all insurances, I have haggled in John Lewis when all the boxes to an item I wanted to buy were damaged.

Eating a lot less meat and going down the pulses and lentils route is a great way to save money. We eat less meat now. Last night I used a block of feta cheese and a very small bit of bacon for my pasta.

The life insurance, what does your pension cover as your public sector death in service payment should be decent.

Feel like there are some ignorant posters on here OP - sorry to see it. I think people on higher incomes simply don’t understand that if you work in the public sector even having 2 full time incomes just means nothing anymore.

You are being somewhat presumptuous here.
I think you'll find, hidden amongst the high earners, there are a lot of people on MN who are teachers, nurses, social workers, paramedics, police officers and staff. Or family members are. Because of this, they know what a FT income is, and are therefore somewhat surprised there is only that much left each month.

@AliceMcK - so no protein? No meat, no fish, no eggs, no cheese, no milk, no bread ? I absolutely could do a shop for £45 as a one off, but I couldn't do it week in, week out for months, feeding 2 teens as well as 2 adults. 17 yr olds each a LOT.

I’m not sure if cash in hand work cleaning/ babysitting would be more straightforward

Please don't try to avoid the tax man (which cash in hand would be). It's just not worth the risk to your profession. I've known teachers sacked for this. Self-assessment tax returns are straight forward, don't be put off by going self-employed, and an evening or two of tutoring would be pretty good value for you in terms of effort:pay off ratio.

Please don't consider body shop at home or anything else that is an MLM, which I'm sure was a suggestion made in good faith. There's a reason they get bad rap on here: 99% of people lose money on those schemes; this has been proven beyond doubt time and time again.

Are you currently grossing only £1k/month?

Apologies- net, not gross.

Sorry to jump on the thread with a completely unrelated matter but I'm looking for tutoring to integrate my 14yo into Scottish syllabus before a move there. Any chance you could point me to some resources/services.
Thanks

H and I are both teachers too, I’m surprised at how little you have left if you’ve been teaching for years. Is the mortgage huge? I do exam marking to get about £1000 extra for the summer holiday. I have been offered more work than I can fulfill this year and I know some subjects are still recruiting.

I’d recommend too good to go app - you can pick up groceries at the end of the day for about £3 a bag, including fresh stuff.

Two f/t min wage workers with two teens would have a household income of approx 2.7k, and would then be topped up with benefits, so presumably your income is higher.

If you have only 412 per month after essential bills you are over extended. Are these direct debits really essential, or nice to haves/things that aren't a massive priority right now? Can you get your energy bills down, even if it means shutting off parts of your house?

Cutting out the TV licence isnt going to address the underlying problem here.

Hi op
In a similar position in terms of jobs and low pay.

Not long term solution but may help
Can you and your husband switch bank accounts? Easily done and lots offering free £200 incentives. Thats £400
Mortgage holiday (but remember will cost more from missed interest when resuming payments)
When I was a teacher, I used to work in next during the summer sale and spend the wages on clothes for my kids (in our local no interview needed, just an informal chat. Ask when they're taking on staff for sale)
Vinted and ebay
Are you in credit on your energy company by more than 2 works worth of use? If so get this refunded
Use cashback sites when you shop online
Ring round providers for cheaper rates
If your younger teen is able get them to earn their own allowance. We have a lot of young teens offer to cut grass round here. Paper rounds etc.
Are you on a water meter or fixed rates? What might work out cheaper for you? We used to pay £35 fixed. Our water meter costs us £15 (two adults, two kids)
Meal plan

Watching with interest because mine is £405. Yes really.

People on benefits have to manage an awful lot less

I’ve seen several exam boards looking for markers (home based) in case that’s of interest OP. Also, teaching English as a foreign language online is another possible source of income. Hope you manage to figure it out and things feel easier soon.

Both change your jobs to something that pays more.

Do you have a spare room you can let?

Mediocre public sector salaries are usually more than minimum wage, is your mortgage very large or you have expensive car PCP, even as a low paid teacher for many years you must be on at least £30k if FT as DC are teenagers so you must have minimum household income of £50k even if one is NMW. Maybe give more details of incomings and outgoings

Your mortgage must be massive to both be working full time and be in this situation. I’d be doing babysitting and exam marking for sure. Your DH should also look for additional work.

Tutoring? My friend easily makes 50 an hour in London for A level science? Other friends do it as a sideline for some sen children.

Your son does very well to pay fir driving lessons, his clothes and his spends out of his earnings from a Saturday job. I used to get 2 shillings and sixpence at mine 50 years ago.

I honestly can't see how OP is in this situation, we are on lowish incomes (less than a teacher) with one working 4 days a week and we have a lot more left over than the OP.

OP I am 😮and 😡that you are living like this as a teacher. I am sorry I don't have any great advice I don't know how you are managing- good luck.

OP as a teacher though will be earning more than a lot of other jobs, they won't have any childcare which is usually the killer. Mortgage is probably large or lots of car PCP, note none of this is mentioned in the OP

Presumably you only have three bedrooms and that you can’t take in a lodger?

This doesn’t add up.

Would you mind breaking down your outgoings OP, I don’t see how this is possible, and it would make it easier to see where you could save.

Struggling to see how you have so little left.
income - approx £4000 from two teachers at about 30k salary each
direct debits for council tax and utilities-£1000
annual insurances for cars and house etc -£500 a month
so being generous about £1800 a month on essential bills.
Mortgage - is this really £1600 or more a month to give you just £412 left over for food and petrol ?

you both need a second job if this is the case.