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?

You have £1700 a month disposable income. That is a lot.

As for the cleaner: you either have extra disposable income and do the cleaning yourself OR you suck up the fact that a cleaner is a luxury and you'll be down the best part of £400pcm as a result. Neither is right or wrong but it is an either/or.

Most parents clean when their kids are in bed or when they're otherwise distracted.

As for a 2-bed flat and some ironing taking 5hrs a week... Your cleaner is either taking the piss or you have about 9 bathrooms or you leave it like a pig sty. How much ironing really needs doing? And - if you're someone who insists on everything being ironed - you either have to suck it up and do it yourself or accept that it's going to cost you.

Paying for nursery when you have a full-time nanny is absolutely ludicrous. You can afford it, for sure, but it's totally unnecessary.

Ultimately you face choices. Outsourcing cleaning and ironing is incredibly expensive. It's fine to do it - I do it - but it is a luxury and will negatively affect your budget as a result.

You can do things to reduce your outgoings (e.g. switching to an interest only mortgage, going for a longer mortgage term) but all of those things will affect how much you pay on your mortgage in total at the end of the term.

A high salary doesn't necessarily leave you with a high disposable income because of the lifestyle creep. Right now you're wanting to have your cake and eat it.

I just want to say thanks to everyone who gave me advice. I was anticipating some judgemental comments, they don’t phase me. I want to have the best life possible for my family, I made so many sacrifices to reach where I am at my job, my kids are happy, we spend every second of the weekend with them and are always home for bedtime.

Also, if aged 3yrs that is an expensive nursery. Ours cost about £1500 a term for schooL hours and was excellent?

To add to my previous post. Nursery is only about "education" when a child is age 3 and they start the Early Years Foundation Stage.
If your child is 3 then you don't pay for that. As both parents are working you will get 30 hours funding for that. It's part of the school system. It's free.
Before that it really is just childcare. Yes children will be learning - but it's life learning that they would also get from going to a Stay and Play, Rhyme Time at the library, going to the park, going to the supermarket etc.
You are paying a nanny - she should be doing those things with your child.

Unfortunately our nursery doesn’t accept the 30hrs funding, only the 15 and that’s just a discount on their standard fees, so we have to pay the top up (despite being 3 hrs per day and term time only). But its an amazing school

@Needmorelego they almost certainly won't get 30hrs free childcare for the 3-year-old. It's not offered if either parent earns over 100k before tax.

Why don’t you and dh alter hour work hours slightly? If you tag team who goes in early or later then you don’t need morning nanny surely? One of you does school and nursery drop off, then get a nanny to start at lunchtime. That’s about 4.5hrs per day of nanny costs saved. Nearly 25hrs a week.

Also with huge nursery and nanny costs, it might work out better to actually work less? If you and dh both shortened to a 4 day work week, you would save 2 full days childcare.

The get 15 tho - can you put him in a school preschool for free?

One of you take them out for 2 hours, the other cleans. Swap the next weekend. Or do bits in the evening. Once you get into a routine it gets quicker.

Would the nanny do the cleaning in the hours in the morning she doesn't work?

I know the thread has moved on, but I'm stuck at this.

It makes me so cross. I live in one of the 10 most deprived areas in the country, in a small 3 bed. House prices well below the national average. My council tax is £270 pm. A third of our council's bill is spent on temporary housing for

1. council tenant Londoners choosing to move out of London to a perceived "up and coming" area and needing a council property.
2. Londoners choosing to move here to buy 3 properties for the price of the one they had in London. The two they rent out have priced locals out of the market, so they need rehoming, and council properties are all they can now afford.

OP, it's ok. Your children will get free school meals until the age of 11. That will save you money over the rest of us. They'll only need a sandwich/toast and soup for tea. The rest of us have to start paying for a hot school meal each day aged 7. You get 4 more years free daily dinners per child. And don't get me started on all the free access on many other child friendly initiatives you get too.

No sympathy here at all. You can cut your cloth easily, but you're choosing not to.

Childminder also will reduce the mess in your own home as the children will be at the childminders!

As someone who would love a cleaner I get why you want to keep yours

Bit weird to pretend you can only afford primark clothing out of a £1,700 budget.

I was a lone parent in zone 1 on £92k a year, while being a lone parent I bought a large two bed flat (with two parking spaces). I had a cleaner, as it was a flat and I’m not a huge slob two hours a week was more than sufficient. I also didn’t pay for two lots of childcare at the same time because I couldn’t be bothered to change child care hours during the school holidays. The nanny and cleaner saw you coming.

Well, you're a fool for marrying a man who "won't clean", and having kids who haven't learnt to entertain themselves for a couple of hours while you're busy. Here's a novel idea... If your husband is so cleaning adverse, he could entertain your needy af kids while you do the cleaning. Unless he's adverse to parenting too?

Keep it then! You work full time and have 2 young kids. You need some help here even if it's not free. Similar situation to yours but my husband cut his hours to help with childcare. Despite older DD being in school, we still have to take to extracurricular activities outside of school so he combined it with looking after younger one at the same time to reduce nursery hours.
I absolute don't see how we can upgrade ourselves to 3 bed modest house ... it's just too expensive

Where do you work? It seems a long commute if you both work in London?

@galwithkids if you want him to have 3 hours of nursery just send him to a state school nursery class. It's free.

@Flatulence sorry I didn't know there was an upper limit on the 30 hours entitlement.
My point stands - a 3 year old can attend a school nursery class for 15 hours a week (3 hours a day) for FREE. All children in England are entitled to that.

OK but that’s a choice.

you are choosing to spend a lot on a private nursery AND have your nanny sitting around doing nothing for three hours a day and get paid for it.

if you want to keep the nursery, change the nanny.

it is CRAZY to pay her to do nothing, but hard to change now you’ve done it.

the only people I know who have done that to keep a nanny they value have been very wealthy indeed.

not just high incomes but plenty of equity.

and to posters focusing on income its not jsut about that.

wealth in general and especially in London is about the equity / assets you hold more than income.

lots of people in London with children and a nice lifestyle got given significant equity to buy a nice home and keep the mortgage affordable.

Retirees with pensions of £40-£60k per year but that own a home
worth a million or more, as lots in the south east do, are richer than the OP

I kind of understand the crazy childcare costs but they are for another 7 months for oldest when he'll only need afterschool and possibly another 18 months till you can drop them both at breakfast club and pay for after school care
right now you have £1700 left but you are not actually budgeting it,
my guesses in brackets add up your flat insurance (400) how much you spend on Christmas and birthdays(1000) your commuting costs, (£15 x 2 x 46 = 1400)do you buy lunch and coffee every day ( £6 x 2 x 46= 550) are they counted as part of food budget? a clothes allowance for you Dh and kids per year ( 1000 a bit on low side if you need smart stuff), toys and craft stuff,(300) holidays (0), day trips (50 x 12=600 ) (occasional car hire or ubers 1 a week at £10 =520( it doesn't appear you run a car) all of these could add up to £6000 or more a year which is another £500 a month. and these guesses are probably on the low side Like lots of people it is easy to forget that budget needs to include absolutely everything including incidental spending for you and DH is you go for dinner or drinks with work colleagues etc, if you really want to know where your 1700 is going you need to keep every single receipt and write it down so you know
I guess your food bill is higher due to convienence foods needing delivery all from one supermarket normally £40 per adult per week for a decent healthy diet with plenty of fruit and veg and decent protein so 3 adults is £120 and 2 kids says £20 each ( as nanny not there at weekends ) total £160 = £650 a month add on £50 for laundry toilet paper shampoo etc and I agree it's £700, we do £500 including cleaning stuff laundry and basic toiletries for 2 adults and teenage DD effectively 3 adults we both work from home so it is all meals including DD school lunches.

You have luxury childcare. No shame in that. And it won't be for long (unless you enrol them both in private school)

why would they want to do that when they seem to have £1.7k each month left after their bills? Just kicking the can down the road and a bigger problem to deal with

I need to clarify that we use the majority of the £1700 for additional food bills, commute costs (£250 per month) car costs, mobile phone bill etc. Not everything is covered by the shared expenses. We have separate finances with my DH

No we have an outstanding state school in our catchment, one of the reason we don’t want to move

You are spot on and thank you.