Nursery Fees Ate My Botox Budget!!

[Kerrik]

Excuse the sensational title! And please don’t come at me because I already know how First World Problems this sounds, but honestly… what am I missing here?

Early 40s. One toddler. London. Two-bed flat. Nursery fees that currently resemble a second mortgage (£1,000 a month). Actual mortgage now £2,500 a month because apparently interest rates hikes decided we’d all had enough joy in life.

I earn £75k a year working for a giant billion dollar tech company, husband earns slightly more, and yet by the end of the month we both seem to just sit there and stare at each other thinking “where did it all go??!!”

We haven’t had a holiday in two years. Saving? Hilarious. Moving to somewhere bigger? Only if we win the Euromillions or discover a wealthy elderly relative we didn’t know about.

But the thing that’s genuinely getting me down is this: I feel like I can no longer afford to maintain myself as a middle-aged woman. Not in a glamorous Real Housewives way… just basic “try not to look like a sack of old s**t” way.

Hair = £200. Botox = apparently now the GDP of a small nation. Nails, beauty treatments, supplements, veneers, replacing make-up / skincare products… all somehow seem impossible now.

Before child + mortgage apocalypse + cost of living crisis, these things were manageable. Now every salon appointment feels like I’m applying for a bank loan.

And yes, I know Botox and balayage are luxuries before anyone tells me people are living off beans. I do know that. But I also work really hard, climbed the career ladder, got the degree, did all the supposedly sensible life things, and I honestly thought by your 40s you’d reached the stage of life where you casually booked a haircut without first checking three banking apps and briefly considering selling your kidney on the black market.

Meanwhile everyone else online appears to have:

• immaculate hair
• matching gym sets
• glowing skin
• extensions
• bi-monthly spa days
• houses with utility rooms
• holidays in Tuscany
• children called Rafferty doing forest school in cashmere

HOW?

Are people secretly in massive debt? Is everyone getting parental help? Are there just far more seriously wealthy people around than I realised? Or am I catastrophically bad with money?

Because right now I genuinely feel like I’ve worked all this time just to become a permanently tired woman in a tiny London flat Googling “how long can Botox realistically last” to ensure I get my moneys worth!

Is that with childcare support, the child element of UC and rent support?

I am post menopause and care about what I look like.
Can we stop assuming all women are the same!

Many people on UC working 16 hours a week would be asked to earn more as their earnings wouldn't meet the AET

They would be expected to look for 35 hours a week at min wage apart from a few exceptions - such as having very young children

yep I remember my daughter dating someone from London for a short while, he couldn’t comprehend that someone up north could possibly be earning more than them, own their own house etc

I could afford more, but I’d rather spend out on the kids.

I’m in my fifties now and the ageing has hugely accelerated and it’s a little like trying to catch raindrops once they hit the glass pane. You could worry about the wrinkles but you need to also worry about the hollowing and the sagging and once you’ve focused on that you take your eye off the erratic bleeding and vaginal dryness and so you keep that plate spinning with medicine and suddenly you realise your sleep is awful and you now can’t see without varifocals and it goes on and on and on.

Didn't read the full thread but 75k pa, assume 5% pension contribution and student loan should give you 47.5k pa net, so 4k take home per month.
If your DH earns the same (you said slightly more?) it's 8k take home per months.

2.5k mortgage + 1k nursery leaves you with 5.5k per month, bills on 2 bed flat + food should be less than 1k. So you have 4.5k per month disposable. How do you spend it? it should be more than enough for looking presentable, having holidays and still saving.

I think being in London is a big part of it - it is an expensive place (albeit a wonderful place to live) and most people I know had to move out and commute in to get the lifestyle (and space) you are after. I have a big commute, which is annoying, but I can afford those luxuries you mention. I guess it is about choices

I have to agree with this. A born, bred and currently residing in Londoner here.

Property prices unless you purchased a long time ago can be shocking in London. But that's not the case for the OP.

Lots of other stuff is far more reasonable/competitive as you have economies of scale and competition. Council tax always seems cheaper than my friends in the provinces who are funding three layers of local government. Public transport under £2 for a bus journey, markets galore for well priced fruit and veg, lots of supermarkets and not just an eye wateringly expensive Nisa.

And with the reasonable and plentiful public transport, getting to other areas to find good value evenings out, hairdressers, beauty treatments and the likes is pretty straightforward.

If this post is real, moving out of London is unlikely to solve the OPs core problem given their fixed costs sound very aligned to their income.

If you earn £75k - the take home will be about £4400pm, allowing for a pension. So the nursery, plus rent, plus household bills, plus food probably takes one salary.

So half their income covers all of their essential spending. That's an incredible position to be in.

Oh I agree, it’s a great amount and I’d be happy for that take home pay.
I do however, see the ops frustrations when other people assume she’s taking home and having a spare £100k each year when the reality after tax is half of that.
Id be gutted if I on paper learnt nearly £100k but took home near half!

She earns 75k. After tax will be around 54k

Not sure which world you live in where and additional £1200 (over a third more) per month is "no huge difference", especially when you remember that you won't get a pension if you're not earning and paying that "modest 3% contribution".

Does your calculation include rent, and do you actually know your LHA or did you just assume it would all be paid? You'll also have to potentially demonstrate that you are looking for work, especially if you've given up a full-time well paid job just to go min wage and claim benefits... Good luck with that.

Coming at it from a different angle - is all the necessary spending (mortgage, nursery, food, council tax, utilities, house and car spends) shared evenly between you and your dh?

Thats the rate on the website. No plans for giving up work. But looking at these numbers it is tempting.

People are expected to meet the AET. If they don't they need to up their hours. It's 991 for a single person and 1591 or a couple before they can claim UC and be put into the light touch category. So someone in the household needs to be employed if one person is planning to give up work

It's around 18 hours a week at NMW for a single person to be able to claim UC and be in the light touch category

I’m not sure how it’s a shock for you that nursery fees are so high? Was it a planned pregnancy? I’m not saying it’s right but it’s not a secret they’re so high.

did you explore other options- both of condensing/reducing hours/childminder? I’m not judging if it was unplanned but you seem incredibly shocked about it all. Whatever you earn, children are expensive. Most people have to cut their cloth somewhere. You’re still in an incredibly privileged position.

Having a degree and working hard are no guarantee of anything. There are many people who work very hard with qualifications & earn a lot less.

You won’t need to prove anything though would you in reality. They wouldnt question why you’ve fallen on hard times and had to take a minimum wage job. They just go on your circumstances at that point in time.

The poster would still be working and paying towards a small private pension. Once you’re in the system, why bother bettering yourself? Stay “poor” (taking minus £1200 than you would on a £75k salary) and the state provides. No pension, no bother, keep claiming.

If someone is single there's an earnings deduction - a taper and they get no in work allowance. So for every pound they earn their UC is reduced by 55p.

This would only work if someone was renting their home. If someone had a mortgage they don't get it paid on Uc. Some people don't get the full rent element paid either. They get the lha amount and if their rent is higher they need to pay the shortfall from their personal element. Someone working 18 hours a week would get their NI stamp paid towards their pension

If someone was single and working 18 hours a week min wage the taper would pretty much wipe out their entitlement to UC. They could get help with rent and that's pretty much it

I'll never understand the desire to freeze the face with botox.