How are people surviving?

[Snowbear96]

We are on a household income of 45k a year. I work term time on a support staff salary, and partner is full time on a basic salary. After all out bills have been delegated this month (inc all bills and food etc) we are left with £150 to play with. This is for days out, treats and bits and bobs for the kids. I am grateful we do have some left as I know some don’t , but how are people affording nice things like holidays? It honestly baffles me that on minimum wages people can’t love comfortable anymore.

£150 is not a lot of money for a family at all. It's not even much disposable income for one person living alone. Is this after your savings?
Unfortunately most workers in the UK now live in relative poverty due to bills and other unavoidable costs such as commuting, it does seem like if you're not entitled to any benefits and don't earn huge amounts you're the most worse off of all.

They earn more than you and/or have lower outgoings! £45k is not a large income, 2 people on full time minimum wage would earn than that.

Thats not much left over at all, but you are below the average household income so the majority will have more than you. Could you find a full time job to bump up your income?

There's just me and my daughter, I earn minimum wage (school kitchen) and I get no maintenance from her father. We eat mostly vegetarian, I walk wherever I can, we do a lot of free things. Clothes are from charity shops and Vinted. One seaside holiday a year. It's hard but I'm used to it now.

That sounds really tough, and you're doing well to have some fun money left at the end of the month, even if it's not much.

I don't think a family on part time minimum wage has ever been able to afford much in the way of 'nice' things. I think minimum wage has always just covered the basics, if you're lucky. I say that having been there!

45k used to sound like a decent yearly income but it's really not much nowadays

Living on minimum wage has never been designed to be comfortable.
The average individual wage is about £39k, so your total household income is only a few thousand above that. Unless one or both of you can get jobs with higher salaries then you're going to continue like you are.

Can I say that as a nearly 70 year old, my heart goes out to hardworking, double income parents who are struggling. There seems to be no end to the digging behind the sofa for spare change.
I get particularly frustrated when older folks like myself bang on about how they managed in their day etc etc.
You are both on a half decent wage in my eyes and yet the cost of living and giving children a comfortable upbringing seems to just get harder.
I guess by now, as you come across as capable, that you are already frugal. Problem is budgeting is pointless, as prices just continue to rise.
I know I'm not offering a practical solution but my utmost sympathy.
Holidays are the one thing I can maybe comment on, having never been taken on holiday as a child. There was no entertainment as such for me growing up, or my kids as we were in Namibia in the middle of a ruddy great desert, but kids are resilient and can find things to do I'm sure. I know it's hard when friends are going on sunshine holidays but hopefully they will remember being loved and cared for which is so important....with the odd bus trip to the coast maybe. Do check out travel specials for children.
More power to you my lovely.

Yeah your first sentence is the answer to pretty much all questions about how do other people afford things I can't. Tough though, I'm sure.

OP I think it would be more helpful for you to list your income and out goings.

The only way out is better paid jobs. It’s never too late but easier to have high expectations of your children and help them avoid similar struggles.

I think you need to post your outgoings and area if you want a realistic picture. The devil will be in the details.

Very low outgoings, no car so walk as much as possible or use public transport, no subscriptions and only buy if I need it. I manage to save each month by living like this. I realise it wouldn’t suit everyone.

We were minimum wage in our early 20s and we absolutely couldn’t afford holidays! We were lucky if we had a weekend break. Im not sure minimum wage has ever been comfortable. We couldn’t afford our first proper holiday until we had climbed the ladder a bit and we weren’t paying for full time childcare. I grew up in a minimum wage household and we had a handful of holidays, they were very infrequent and special occasions, usually caravans in the UK.

Your household is minimum wage and you’re part time, you need to be realistic about what you can afford. If upping income is not possible, you’ll need to reset expectations which is the main thing that I think has increased over the last 10-20 years (as well as CoL of course, not denying that, but realistically I don’t think you’d have been having annual holidays 20+ years ago either).

I often wonder this because we have a higher income than yours and things feel increasingly tight and worrying. Sorry to state the obvious but have you already checked what UC you might be entitled to? I know working families get it to top them up it’s not just for the out of work.

Another suggestion - could you up your hours and go full time? If expensive childcare and wraparound care for school age DCs is the barrier to that, could you band together with some other families and pool childcare? I am about to attempt this with two friends who have DC at the same school, because childcare costs are really biting now and we are tying to make it free for everyone by all doing some days.

Are you sure you’re claiming anything you might be entitled to? Universal credit etc? Use the turn to us benefits calculator to see if you might be able to claim anything (Google this). I think the only way people on lower incomes afford holidays is to either put them on a 0% credit card and then pay it off monthly or use monthly payment schemes through Jet2 etc. That’s how we would do it when we had less disposable income - and yes it’s a gamble really because you don’t have much extra and you have to hope and pray (!) you don’t suddenly have any emergencies. Lots would say it’s irresponsible to live that way (ie book holidays and no savings) but it’s how many live day to day.

Because they have more money than you. Look how quickly oasis tickets sold out over the weekend. People falling over themselves to spend £200 a throw without blinking. Never underestimate just how much money some people have.

If you rent… have you checked if you’re eligible for UC? And are you claiming child benefit?

I’m on £36k as a single parent and wouldn’t be able to manage without claiming those. Especially the childcare element.

We have a joint income of over £100k and we only have about £300 left after all bills and food are covered. We barely make savings. We have two kids. It’s exhausting. We both work hard in professional jobs and neither of us have enough saved for retirement. Life has turned out to be one long miserable slog. If I’d known how things would turn out financially for us (that we could work so hard and still have to be this constantly careful and anxious about money) I absolutely would not have had children. I took the decision before things got so tough. I can absolutely understand why we’re in a birth rate crisis.

Our income is similar and we find it pretty comfortable. Are you paying childcare costs or have a huge mortgage?

I’m also wondering if you might be eligible for UC.

It should be possible to have one parent working FT on NMW and another working PT to live a better lifestyle where you can afford to save. It really is shit.

Sorry that isn’t terribly helpful.

When DC are older you can increase your hours and things will improve.

We are in London. Higher mortgage. Our energy, water and council tax bills alone are over £700 a month. We have a child with additional needs who we are getting extra (private) healthcare support for. No foreign holiday since 2018. I cannot understand how our neighbours can be chatting about private schools etc. I wouldn’t send mine anyway but the idea that it’s even possible is madness to me.

We are also in London...i think council tax in London is generally lower than the rest of the country which has always surprised me...but obviously housing costs are the real issue in London. We are very lucky that we bought our house a while ago.

Fwiw I find a lot of people in certain circles talk about private school but very few go for it...the ones I know who do, you often find it's actually grandparents paying .

Sorry op I don’t know how you’re surviving tbh on that salary with kids. Even 15 years ago when I was on minimum wage, it was just enough to pay rent and get by, without saving much. No way even then would I be able to afford kids.

You haven’t mentioned how many children you have, that’s one of the biggest extra expenses as per child. You also work term time only though I can see why it will be better for childcare. Plus there is the geographical element, that’s housing mainly but also access to goods and services.

It’s simple economics, income versus outgoings but it’s very variable. People can be better at making money stretch with self deprivation but that tends to be smaller amounts such as giving up Netflix, it is a saving but small.

Income streams are wages, gifts and then savings making interest and then investments.

For us personally our household income peaked at 82k. By then we only had one dependant child at home and the mortgage was paid off. We then had interest to add from our savings. At that point we were 48 and 50.