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!

Where does your leftover income of roughly 4k a month get spent? Genuinely interested as I couldn’t spend that if I tried

Doesn't Botox muck with your DNA and possibly your brain? lol

You're obviously intelligent enough to write eloquently so I'm sure you can work out how unreasonable you are being, and what the solutions are.

Household net approaching £10k/pcm FML 🤣🤣🤣

No, of course it doesn't.

YANBU. Our household income is similar to yours. I’m 50 and I feel the most hopeless about money that I’ve ever felt despite now earning more than I’ve ever done.

Grew up in one of the most deprived areas of the country but managed to make it to a grammar school miles away due to a travel bursary. Killed myself to progress - Russell group university, worked abroad in several countries, continued professional development. Now in a senior position with a lot of responsibility and I’m exhausted and feel I did everything right - but the rewards are disproportionate to the stress and sacrifices I’ve made along the way.

I seem to be surrounded by immediate friends and family of the same age who have objectively not worked as hard, haven’t had to work any where near as much, and are by far better off than me due to luck (meeting a partner early in life, benefitting from combined salaries and able to buy property before the prices went nuts), family inheritance, bank of mum and dad generally, living on trust funds, being in right place right time.

It’s very hard when your immediate friends and family have millions (literally) and are all early retired, and you are looking down the barrel of 17 more years of work. It’s like being on Instagram but you can’t leave it because they are your closest nearest and dearest.

And as for the continued freezing of the tax thresholds so that we are paying more and more every year despite living a very basic lifestyle. It’s soul destroying.

I never did Botox or nails, but I’ve had to stop having my hair cut, I drive a 16 year old car, and our holiday is 5 days camping in the UK. Not what I was promised in the 90s at the height of cool Britain and the positivity of the day. We are past childcare fees days but due to the terrible state of university fees and student loans we are desperately trying to save money for our own children so they are not saddled themselves because their generation will be even worse.

Botox can influence brain function by altering neurotransmission, cortical maps, and potentially triggering neuroinflammatory processes, though most effects are dose-dependent and vary by individual.

I honestly thought this post was satire.

Do you have any idea of how ordinary families in London live? The average salary in London is about £40k. The average rent for a 3 bedroom family home is between £2k and £3k. Thousands of families have to manage. Yet, if they and their loved ones are healthy, they feel blessed.

£200 for a haircut is an extortionate rip-off.

Yet your glass is still half empty? You still want more?

Perhaps consider some volunteering to help you get some perspective on your extreme wealth and privilege? Maybe therapy too?

IMHO, Botox looks ridiculous. So obvious and ruins people’s looks. I find character is what makes people’s faces attractive. Kindness, humour and lightness of being shine through in a face. But to each her own on that.

Wow, im in Scotland and our nursery fees for 4 days are £1700pm. Im surprised you managed to find them for £1k in London. Agree with the sentiment though, we are the same. £175k joint income, never imagined earning like this growing up, id have thought it bought a lifestyle of sheer comfort.

OK. Two obvious solutions present themselves here.

1: stop looking at the socials. You must know it's all gloss, smoke and mirrors, OP? Nobody has a perfect life. Not all the time. If you want a very obvious example, think Amanda in Motherland. She's all about the gloss and optics, shown to have a pretty miserable family life behind closed doors. (Ok, it perked up for her in Amandaland but I'm not talking about Amanda in Amandaland! )

2: Move out of London. Surely only billionaires live in London and expect to have an Insta-tastic lifestyle too??

Oh and 3: most of us have to cope with living as a middle-aged woman without the botox, the spa days, the frequent hair appointments, the designer tat, the facials ... I am 52 and do indeed look like a sack of shit. When I can afford it, I have a haircut somewhere cheap. I'm told that lots of fresh air and free exercise (eg there are loads of gorgeous and huge parks in London, great for speed-walking, running/whatever) do impart something of a glow. Must try that one day.

I mean, I get you. Who would have thought that a professional career would still entail scrabbling around at the end of the month? Yet this is what happens now. I don't live in London but I do live in the SE. DH and I are both educated to PhD level. I no longer work because I'm the parent who needs to be in for our severely autistic son when he gets back from his special school, which doesn't have an after-school club, and frankly we'd struggle to pay that. DH earns a professorial salary which I believe is around 75K for him right now. And at the end of the month we are scraping around. I never thought middle age would be like this - one child about to hit university which is ££££s in terms of topping up, the other child causing us to haemorrhage cash because of all the things he breaks/needs/etc, me not working. I mean, there are worse things in life OP. I'm about to have a fun-filled day at the breast assessment clinic to investigate 'an anomaly'.

I’m mid 50s. Facial hair is my one expense at not much. DSD does my eyebrows whenever we see each other.
haircut maybe 4 x year max. I stopped coloring it a decade ago.
I look my age I imagine. But mostly I don’t know because I don’t compare myself to others. I recommend it as an excellent way to go through life.

@Kerrik by my calculations you are taking home about £9k pm as a HH income.

That's quite a bit – and the two expenses you mention (which will be the highest ones surely) still leave about £5k pm. So where does it go? Food, utilities, car expenses or travel will only be so much and won't vary enormously (certainly not by hundreds) from a wealthy HhH to a poorer one.

My expenses are lower in that my mortgage commitments are nowhere near yours and I don't have childcare costs – but our gross HH income is considerably less than your salary. On the money you make, even in London, you should be able to buy nice skincare etc. Tho I don't know how much Botox costs.

Share your outgoings and we can make useful suggestions.

People you describe (especially with kids called Rafferty in cashmere and homes in Tuscany) don’t earn 75K. They probably earn nothing and have family money (or have hobby business like tree surgeon)

Oh dear the modern parent
Childcare is for 5 yrs.
Botox is revotling and so is the look.

Where are you going to “casually book a haircut” at £200?

I casually book mine and it’s £38 🤷🏼‍♀️

I also smell a rat.

Even not-for-profit community nurseries in London charge more than £1k a month for part-time.

I also find it hard to believe anyone could be so bad at managing such extreme wealth. And so crass in complaining about their situation.

You get some free counselling from your GP and learn how to increase your self esteem. Delete social media too - lies lies lies.
Thinking you look “like a sack of shit” because you can’t afford Botox in your early 40s is tragic.

I don’t compare myself to anyone
i like having Botox, and hair coloured and nails. Spent 26 years bringing children up, work full time and will spend I what I like on myself now I can afford it

I hate this stupid take.

the fact that people have a career they worked hard for and just above an salary doesn’t mean they live like of enormous wealth and privilege. Privilege is something unearned; by definition a career in a competitive field is not privilege.

second. If someone is earning above average the expectation is that they should be able to afford some things above the minimum. Otherwise what’s the point?

Get the train out of London £27 to where I live. Good cut and colour £100. £75 up

Sure. I just don't agree that women who don't do all this look like sacks of shit.
It's too much time on Insta.

I don't get my hair cut professionally at all, I do all my own hair.
Turning 40 this year and I have a few greys which I cover myself.
Botox? I thought much older adults do that.
But I do facials occasionally at home.
And my great joy is going to the spa every 6 months or so
If I had more money I'd go to the spa more 🤣
I'm also saving up for a massage chair
I believe relaxing and good sleep makes all the difference.
But no, I don't have money for hair and my hair still looks good

I take a bit of issue with claiming that middle-aged women look like a sack of shit if they don't do the long list of things you mentioned.

I do literally none of that, I even trim and colour my own hair, but I am happy with how I look and feel because I eat well and exercise.

This.

As well as the highlights reel that is Instagram being a poor representation of most people's actual situation, for people in your position, the biggest factor in how financially comfortable you feel is how you manage your money, not how much you have.

You have enough to comfortably pay your essential bills without worrying. Plus you have plenty leftover for a nice lifestyle. But what you can't afford is to buy the most expensive version of everything without running out of money, almost no-one can, despite what you think their social media is telling you.

So you have to prioritise. If you want botox, £200 haircuts and a whole list of other enhancements to your appearance, then something else has to give, but tbh, I don't understand how anyone can be arsed keeping up with all that, especially on top of a full time job and parenting a toddler.

Plus I know that 'children called Rafferty doing forest school in cashmere' was tongue in cheek, but you must know that toddlers don't care whether their clothes come from Primark or Prada, they're going to get mud, paint and snot on them no matter what. And grow out of them in no time.

Central London costs maybe but not where I live in southwest London. Cost is less than £120 every six weeks plus pedicure £32. No manicure.

The lady I work with gets Botox. I literally cannot see any difference in her face. Shes happy though. I’m sure her Botox lady is too 🫣