How do people afford to live in London?

[galwithkids]

What it says in the title really..
We live in a 2 bed flat with our 2 DCs (4m 3m) in London zone 3. I love our area, I love London and I don’t want to move away. However I keep wondering if everyone around me is making more money that us to be able to live comfortably? Both me and DH work full time in demanding jobs and we bring home approx £9000 net. Our monthly outgoings are £7300. I have tried everything to bring this number down but I am not able to. This is just family basic living expenses, no extras, no commute or car costs, personal
phone or subscriptions not included. I have worked SO hard to bring myself to a point of earning that much, and yet every month I am left without any spare money, I never spend any money for myself, all my clothes are from Primark or H&M, the kids clothes and toys are all second hand, we don’t order take out, the weekends are usually free activities in the park or museums, I don’t save any because there isn’t any left. I feel like I have worked so hard for so long to bring myself to a decent salary level and yet I am not living the life that should come with it. I don’t want extravagant expenses, I don’t mind shopping at Primark. But I would like to have some
savings for the kids’ future, and I have nothing because money is never enough. What am I doing wrong?

It’s pretty unusual to live in zone 3 and have an hour’s commute. We live in zone 3 and the train to the City takes 20 minutes. That is the reason that we chose to live where we do- neither of us wanted to do a long commute so we decided to buy a smaller and more expensive house close to work.

It’s also pretty unusual that both you and your husband both have 100% office- based jobs. Is there no flexibility on that at all? Were you key workers during Covid? My industry (law) and my husband’s (banking) had zero WFH pre-Covid but now it is completely standard as our systems evolved and we all proved ourselves productive during Covid. It’s completely revolutionised how we organise our family life.

If you can WFH now and again you could maybe organise yourselves in future so that a nanny is not needed in the morning, or to make it easier to use clubs. At some point your kids will have activities that they want to do so it’s not just clubs=childcare anyway.

Who cleans their blinds and windows weekly? Not me.

Why don't you ask for flexible hours or compressed or something so you can drop a day of childcare?

Do you live in London? What does your partner do if you don’t mind me asking?

My DH2 has a disability so that’s an added stress for me and complicates the childcare requirements

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian about how rich people have no idea that they’re rich. A salary of £59K+ puts you in the top 10% of earners in the UK. £80K+ puts you in the top 5%. Yet 60% of people in the £80K-£100K bracket consider themselves as earning merely an ‘average’ income. They’re completely out of touch.

This is peak Mumsnet. Families are living on less than your disposable income each month. You can pay your overheads and still have a very tidy sum left over each month. Count your blessings.

You don't need to cancel her then, but you can accept that this is what you are choosing to pay fir instead of fancy clothed. And surely you could reduce her hours?

We have a big 5 bed 4 children and a dog and I am disabled and having a cleaner 4 hours a week still feels excessive

5hrs a week cleaner though? You’re buying primary clothing, just don’t iron. Get cleaner to not iron and come once every 2 weeks for 2-3 hrs for the essentials.

You have maybe 5 rooms in your flat? That’s an hour on each room (minus the ironing, but I’ve never ironed, so not sure how long that takes). Our cleaner does our whole house in 2hrs, including changing the beds, both bathrooms, mopping the whole of the ground floor. I think you can definitely cut down on the cleaner.

Do you really need the cleaner? DH and I work full time and we don’t have a cleaner. Four-bed house in London.

Basically the OP knows that she could cut back on the nanny and cleaner, but she doesn't want to. Not really sure what the point of the thread is, OP can more than afford to live in London, but doesn't want to pay for the things she deems essential 🙄

I’ll bow out now because you’re absolutely off your head if you think a 2 bedroom flat needs 5 hours of cleaning a week. Can you hear yourself?
A nanny is a luxury. A nanny sitting around twiddling her thumbs while you’re paying for nursery is a luxury. £800 a month on food is a luxury. 20 hours of cleaning a month is a luxury. £1700 a month leftover isn’t bad either… but you seem to be living in cloud cuckoo land.

Wanting Dom Perignon on a Moët budget!

I dont think you can have everything at the.moment. Something has to give when you have small DC. If not the nanny and the cleaner, then expensive clothes. Things will improve.

How much per hour are you paying your nanny?

in your position (child in school, baby) we had a nanny 4 x 10 hours days to cover the 4 days a week I worked, and she cost about £48k a year gross.

i would either ditch nursery for the youngest and have them full time with the nanny,

OR get more ruthless about the number of hours your nanny works and gets paid for, and the rate you pay.

for comparison once our you get was in nursery 5 days a week for school hours from age 3 and up we did the morning school runs ourselves and changed to a 20 hours week nanny for pick ups and after school care. She also does school holidays. We pay her £16 per hour gross

that approach would cut your childcare spend by over £1000 a month.

i know qualified and experienced Nannies can command more an hour and some will refuse a part time arrangement.

you have to be prepared to recruit from a wider pool of candidates, trust your instincts and check references throughly, have a decent probation period and find someone more flexible and will to accept a lower hourly rate or less hours than you currently pay.

£16 an hour is a great pay rate for a job with better conditions for someone who’s worked in a nursery or been a teaching assistant or works in social care or a shop.

ive found and hired great Nannies from gumtree and more recently Koru kids and Nextdoor.

sometimes I pay for them to do a childcare course (about £200) and I teach them what our kids need, as I would with a family member

We have a similar income. Our outgoings are less but we still pay a premium for convenience (eg having a cleaner). I generally buy clothes from primark or supermarkets; fancy for me is M&S! But I appreciate that's because I'm paying more for stuff because it suits me and my life. It's life isn't it? You can't have everything and at this salary level, you can have most things.

I have to agree with this I’m afraid - I sympathise with the mortgage and childcare costs, but you are throwing money away hand over fist and then wondering why you’ve got none left.

You remember that meme about spending less on candles? That is currently you.

Reading the thread you don't want to compromise on the cleaner or nanny as you want a stress free life (fair enough) so that only leaves the mortgage which as someone up thread suggested could be interest only.

That will give you additional funds to buy the nicer things in life but be careful as it is a risky strategy to be interest only and probably not worth it.

I earn £30k for a job that required a degree and 10 years of experience...please can I be your nanny?! I'll undercut her by £10k!

I can’t cancel the cleaner because I will drive myself crazy

Can you hear how luxurious your life is??

Your childcare costs are nuts. There are cheaper ways of getting your kids looked after. Full time nursery for example.

You don't need s cleaner. You clean on your days off.

Oh, and consider moving out of London. It's an absolute hellscape on your finances. I know. Once my DD is settled, I'm buggering off back "home".

I would shuffle things around a bit.

Cut the cleaner down to say 2 hours twice a month. Nanny can take in the responsibility of the kids' laundry; you and your husband do your own (who irons anymore?) If you're essentially paying the nanny to be "on call" from 9-12 she can tidy up the kids stuff and throw the washing on. Ours did all the child-related domestic chores even when she had all three at home with her.

Sack off the nursery, too. Over the longer-term the nanny is more useful.

This! Exactly the same set up, two working adults, two kids (plus dogs and cats) and have zero cleaners bill to pay, because me and DH keep on top of it ourselves. I can't even see how a two bed flat could get that dirty/messy enough to require five hours cleaning each week. Surely you and your partner can dedicate a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday morning to blitz the place, and keep it in order? That's what we do, plus jobs like cleaning the windows/mirrors, picture frames, ovens, etc, rotate so they get done once every 6 weeks or so. Literally two hours on a sat or sun, and the place looks spotless, and apart from that just the daily cleaning up that needs doing anyway

Why are people getting offended? Just because it's a world away from your experience doesn't mean she's not allowed to ask for advice. Otherwise, no one would ever be allowed to complain because there will ALWAYS be someone worse off than you. Stop racing to the bottom, people.

Your childcare bill alone is higher than the UK average full time wage. Might explain why you don't have much left over.

Not in London, no but just outside it. Train into St Pancras takes about half an hour.

We have a cleaner but not 5 hours a week! She does 2 and that's plenty to do all the bathrooms/hoover/mop downstairs and give things a wipe! We don't pay childcare as I'm home but youngest does go to preschool two days a week so I can rest! I take him out to groups or soft play or swimming on the other days!

DH is a CTO and wfh majority of the time which is great as he does school run in the morning and finishes early on a Friday so we go out for dinner!

So, what hours do you do that mean you don't see your kids, you can't possibly tidy up A FLAT or iron yourself and what on Earth are you eating that costs 800 quid a month. It's laughable. Truly laughable.