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!

The pp specifically said it would be hard to spunk £50k - which is what I was referring to.

Parental help in many cases.

Get a railcard and travel to Kent / further afield once every month / two months and get you hair / nails done. I pay £390 for Botox in Chelsea but it’s about £180 in Kent so there’s a saving.

nursery won’t be forever, I was earning similar when my kids were in nursery and never felt like we had anything spare.

more importantly are you building up a decent pension? Salary sacrifice would be a good idea at your income levels and won’t make a huge difference to take home.

I get all these things are important to you, but I’ve reached age where I’ve realised I’ve wasted so much month on clothes etc and my pension is crap and I want to retire asap.

sell your unwanted clothes on Vinted and use that to fund your beauty.

get off insta it’s a load of crap and just makes you want to spend more.

I look after my skin and have been told many times how good it is. I don't need to spend £££££ on it. I cleanse it properly twice a day every day. Wear SPF50 moisturiser during the day and night cream at night. It really does not need all the potions and lotions that "influncers" try to convince you it does. I just buy whatever is on offer at the time.

I do my own nails, but one thing I won't compromise on is my hair which gets cut and coloured every 5 weeks. I don't have the skills or the eyesight to do it myself.

Yep, that's London.

Nursery fees are only for a short time; you'll have more surplus money when your child is older.

A single person online is not doing everything on your list (or if they are, they are not doing it with a toddler and a huge mortgage) - they are doing the one or two things that they care about most. As others have said, you should have some fat in your budget for luxuries, so if hair and botox are important to you, then think about stopping something else instead.

What's your joint take home pay after tax, bills and pension?

.

What….having about £50k left after nursery and mortgage and still feeling hard done by?
Saying “yeah yeah I know it’s a first world problem” doesn’t really negate how it comes across.

I'm having the same problem. My hair is falling out in clumps after losing a lot of weight very quickly and all I want is to get it cut into a bob with balayage so I don't feel like crying every time I shower or brush it, but I just simply cannot afford it. I keep BIAB on my nails because my work involves my hands and my life puts them through tons of abuse (young kids, gardening, cleaning etc) and my nails are bendy and flaky, but have to stretch that out to monthly because I can't afford to have it done twice in the same month. I've run out of my peptide serum. Only £15 but I can't buy it this month now. I was on WLI but that's fully out of the question now. Admittedly my hair wouldn't be falling out if I hadn't lost the weight so that's a problem of my own creation but I'd also be obese and probably die of a preventable cancer without them so it's swings and roundabouts. I can forget about replacing any of my clothes too as my kids are at the growing like weeds stage, so they're the only ones getting things replaced and even then it's largely just things they need, nothing just nice to have.

Just feeling sad that life has so little spontaneous joy and little luxuries are out of reach and I have to go through it looking and feeling like shit.

Influencers are no more relatable than supermodels. They are trying to sell you stuff and it isn’t how most people live. Look at your colleagues, neighbours, friends, other nursery mums if you want to know what real women in your area look like! Then prioritise what beauty treatments really matter to you. I got really good at doing my own hair during Covid so just get a professional cut twice a year and do my own colour and blow drys. I couldn’t care less about nails if they’re short and clean, use drug store skin care and have curated make up down to just the MVPs but nothing replicates the botox 🤣 Also the nursery years are short! You won’t be paying £££ in fees forever.

I earn similar, juet a littlr more actually. The fact is, we arent high earners for London.
I got my har cut at supercuts last month, 35 quid plus tips. I purchased shoes from sainos.
Your mortgage is a lot, for your salaries. A lot of my friends have very small mortgages on 4 bed houses, because they bought their first properties in their early 20s in London and then have the advantage of large equities. But they are still struggling.
Noone on 75k is living the life you described, 75k in London is scraping by.

Not what you want to hear OP but I would highly recommend stopping the hair dye. I wasn’t bothered about the money, but with long very thick hair I used to be in the hairdressers for about 5 hours when I got a cut and colour. Not enough time in my life for that with two kids so I had it cut into a bob and have been natural colour for about 5 years now. Zero regrets on that.

As for the Botox, it’s unlikely you’re fooling anyone. So unnecessary.

I’ll admit I struggle to give up salon nails, mainly because when a gel manicure lasts me three weeks the cost per week isn’t actually much and I’m not very neat with the polish. But I’m currently giving home manicures a go to give my nails a rest. I got a few Chanel polishes including the base and top coat and my first go was still going strong after a week, no chips at all and probably cost the equivalent of two gel manicures to get the polishes.

I think the best way to remain young looking to is remain fit, so gym membership is a non negotiable for me.

I think you must be spending a lot on other fripperies. Try cutting back on eating out for starters. That’ll save you a lot. Buy cheaper groceries for a bit, etc etc.

Yes, you have a decent job and so does your partner but you still need to budget.

Childcare does make a huge difference and is something that is often overlooked by those who never have to pay it.

I saved up 100k before having DS purely to cover nursery fees as I didn’t qualify for free hours. That equates to over 200k of pre-tax income as some of it was caught by the 60% tax trap.

By the time DS started Reception pretty much the whole fund had been used up.

Since then I also have to pay for all wrap around school care without any tax free refund.

I have to pay for all childcare and of course receive no child benefit.

All in all I reckon it’ll cost me somewhere around 200k which is 400k of pre-tax income. At the same time some others pay none of this and also receive child benefit payments.

I’m sure those who pay for no childcare don’t feel like they’ve received a 400k bonus at work but the reality is that’s the equivalent of what they have received compared to me.

The difference is enough to fund a substantial change of lifestyle and explains why you might see others who earn significantly less having far more disposable income than you might expect.

This is a You problem - you sound pretty bad with money…even after tax - what’s the drip feed.?

You need to stop comparing yourself with people online. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the supposed casual photos of immaculately made-up mum at Forest School fondly watching expensively dressed Rafferty probably took them hours to set up with lighting reflectors and a nice bit of post-processing to give everyone glowing skin.

The reality is probably mum looking knackered and tearing her hair out because Rafferty's dropped mushy peas on his cashmere sweater and now he's refusing to put his shoes on.

It's an inheritocracy now

Lots of people I know have inherited hundreds of thousands by their 40s. Some have inherited millions. From modest backgrounds too, it's just even an ex council house in the SE can be worth a fortune.

So what you earn becomes far less of an influence on your lifestyle.

I think it's part of the reason we have such a productivity crisis

Also, I came across a mildly famous influencer mum the other day and got intrigued by the separation between her insta posts and reality. It's often all smoke and mirrors (and flattering filters)

I think annoyingly it’s because you live in London. I live in the north west and our household income is the same as yours and we holiday a few times a year, have overpaid our mortgage and are now mortgage free in our 30’s, I have my hair and lashes done weekly, nails, pedicures, Botox etc. and go out a few times a week. Is it possible you’re comparing yourself to people who live outside of London? Because I think £75k in London is not like £75k up here. Could you travel out of the city for some appointments?

Bloody hell, that doesn’t sound an enjoyable life at all. What’s the point in slogging your guts out to stand still? Move out of London, mix with people whose priorities don’t include injecting toxins into their body to paralyse facial muscles. By a bottle on nail polish. Move somewhere you could get a decent house (what equity do you have in your flat?)

Tbh, you could probably take a career break, live outside of London in a better house and still have a better standard of life.

Instagram is not real life so forget that.

You have a hefty mortgage (also in London here but mortgage is less than half of yours) to pay.

Cost of living is high and you have to cut to your cloth, unfortunately. Shop cheaper if you don’t already - toddlers are cheap to feed too (try having two young adults in the house - they’re like locusts)

I spend about £125 on hair cut/colour at a good local salon in a decent area of London - she’s a senior stylist and I don’t get highlights. I only go every 8 weeks though.

I don’t get Botox - I’m in my 50s and most of my friends aren’t getting it either so really is it necessary? You can do your own nails, facials etc.

I don't think the mortgage is that disproportionate these days, it is 1/3 take home. The uk average is £1300-1700 and the average take home will be lower than theirs I'd have thought

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/articles/property-news/current-uk-mortgage-rates/

It really doesn't have to cost that much, even in London. My DD and I (different hairdressers, different parts of London) pay between £140 - £190 each.