Managing without maintenance

[Bisuitsbiscuits]

Hi there,

My DS is 15 and I receive £455 a month maintenance from his father.

I am concerned about budgeting once this stops, whenever he leaves education/starts working.

I work full time and currently earn £1680 a month after deductions including pension. This might go up slightly in the next few years as I move up the salary scale.

I understand that I won’t have to buy my DS so many things like clothing as he will hopefully earning his own money. Most posts that I have read on Mumsnet are against taking rent from your child and I know his father wouldn’t be happy with that.

How do people adjust to the loss of maintenance/Child Benefit? Taking a second job? I feel knackered just doing my full time job at the moment as I always end up working late!

My mortgage is £625, council tax £108 (single occupancy discount), energy £140. My car is on its last legs and I need a car for work as I travel to rural areas. I will need to take out a car loan to buy a new one, probably over 4 years to be able to afford the repayments due to high cost of cars just now.

I have never been good with money. Although not in debt, but never manage to save anything apart from Park Christmas saving club.

Thanks

You have to factor in child benefit being taken away too. Have you fixed your mortgage? How many bedroom a do you have? Could you get a lodger? If your son leaves education and is working and earning a decent wage himself and you are struggling to pay the bills you will have no choice but to ask him to contribute.

This is the way for many teenagers.

I am not brilliant with money however if you start trying to save £50.00 to £100.00 a month and it becomes a habit it’s gets easier.

If you can't manage without it then your DS will have to pay rent. If his Dad doesn't like that then tough.

I’ve got 4 children and have never received any maintenance from their father. I’ve never factored it in to our lives as have never had any!

Even charging rent, long term, won’t fix the problem. Because he could move out at anytime. Short term it will help. But that’s assuming he can find a job, doesn’t decide to go to Uni etc. also remember council tax will go up, CB will stop.

You need to work out where you can save money and budget. You have a few years. If you really can’t save anywhere, you need to either take up more work or try and look for a job that pays more if possible. Easier said than done but sometimes changing employer for a promotion is better than going for promotion with an existing employer. Gets you a bigger wage jump.

There also be some benefits still available though it’s hard to say in advance

Not really the same though is it. You don't factor it in so already budget without it (as do I) OP is used to getting it, so will notice the difference when it's gone.

@MaxwellCat and? How is your situation at all relevant to the op's?

I know lots of people are anti rent for children but it can lead to situations where people struggle to pay bills. Whereas the young adult of the house lives for free and has £1k+ disposable income a month.

I always paid dig money which was 1/3 of earnings. Still cheaper than living anywhere else.

If his Dad doesn’t like it he can pay it or he can house him and you can get a lodger.

Then maybe start not factoring it in now so you can budget without it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks everyone.

I’m in a 2 bedroom property at the moment and have just recently fixed my mortgage for another 2 years. My previous mortgage rate was a lot lower prior to that so this increase, along with energy and food has started to make me worry a bit more.

I’m currently spending £70-75 for shopping which includes cleaning products and cat food. It doesn’t even seem like I get that much food with it. I rarely drink and don’t smoke. No hobbies or gym memberships.

I just can’t work out if I am being ridiculous and should be able to survive on my wage alone. I know my mortgage is a lot lower than what people pay in rent and what I would pay in rent for a similar sized property.

It’s hard getting used to having that money then it being taken away and it’s only now that I am starting to panic as time is going so quickly.

What kind of job do you do? Are there opportunities to progress quicker? Failing that I’d be looking at a second job or generating some self employed income to be honest. I don’t think working extra hours in your salaried job is reasonable, not for that salary. So, either new job, promotion, or being hardline with your employers and spending your spare time earning more.

If I were you OP if keep a list of everything you spend for a month or 2. Every coffee. Every meal deal (or whatever). See if you can cut any of that.

I have no idea of the costs of running a car, but other than that you should (imo) be able to survive on your wage.

My entire income is similar to your wage
My rent is more than your mortgage, and I've got 2 teens.

I'm not saying it's easy, or that I'm anything other than surviving. But it is doable.

If an older child/young adult is earning more than pin money they MUST contribute. It doesn't matter whether the give you cash, pay some bills or do the shopping now and then.

It's obscene how many don't contribute and, furthermore, refuse when asked.

One of my former colleagues doing call centre advice stuff couldn't hold back on that one....

If a parent's getting help with Housing costs or Council Tax then the starting point is what's lost as non-dep deduction.

Have you sat down and written out a budget without the maintenance/child benefit? That's the first step. Work out what the actual situation you'll find yourself in is - don't let it be a surprise to you when it happens. Bearing in mind the cost of everything is going up and interest rates are unlikely to go down before you need to redo your mortgage.

The good news is you have a couple of years to address it, whether that means getting a higher paying job (if poss) etc, and whether you can afford a car loan.

Personally I would start trying to live in less money now so it's less of a blow at the time - save the rest (say half maybe) in the mean time.

Will your child remain in education op? If so your ex will heed to continue paying maintenance. If your child is leaving education and starting work then he will need to pay you rent. I was in exactly the same position as you my take home salary is almost identical to yours and once my kids left education they had to pay me rent to help cover the difference. Once they were both driving and had a car I then sold my house and bought a smaller cheaper one in a different location I then had a small nestegg to fall back on. That was 3 years ago and it's not been easy but I do make the money go round just about.

On your income and expenditure figures, it would seem to be feasible to try to budget to live on just your own income now, and save the child maintenance.
Being debt-free currently (apart from mortgage) is a sound financial starting position.

Saving the maintenance payments over 3 years until DS is 18, will provide a good emergency fund of over £16K. Some of this could be used for a car purchase and will still leave a savings emergency buffer and preserve the debt-free status.
It will also enable you to develop good budgeting skills over time, before you're faced with the loss in income.

Thanks again for the helpful suggestions.

I work in a community care team which is pretty stressful. I can’t really just work within my salaried hours unfortunately as situations come up all the time where I need to work longer hours. It just makes it worse the next day if not.

I always make my own lunches and make a packed lunch for my DS as he doesn’t like the school meals.

I will have a look at my outgoings to see where I can cut back. There just always seems to be something extra that’s needed to pay for every month. I don’t have any tv subscriptions anymore. I pay for Spotify for my DS but he really doesn’t ask for much so don’t mind paying that. He uses it everyday on his walk to/from school. I forgot that I am adding £40 into an account each month to help pay for DS’s driving lessons when he is old enough.

I’m not sure if he will go to Uni or not yet. That will be a greater expense, even with maintenance, so preparing now is probably the best idea.

Could you try and live on as close to your income as you can? Utilise things like olio, yellow labels, places like aldi, bulk buying from amazon/costco, meal planning to avoid waste, shopping every 8-10 days rather than weekly.

Or possibly save the child benefit in a separate account so that no longer becomes part of the budget and won't be a shock when you no longer recieve it.

I thought for a long time that I couldn't save money. But now I record every penny I spend and once I've reached my budget for eg food/bus fares thats it until next month we make do.

I've managed to save around £300 this year. Plus I've cleared debts of £450 and bought the school uniform outright rather than doing klarna.

Also can you sell anything unused to try and get some more savings behind you. Maybe you could get enough for a car or at least a larger deposit so the repayments each month wouldn't be as high. I've used vinted for clothes, toys, homewear and made quite a bit of money which I've kept separately.