Earn over 50k never seem to have any money

pollypenny

OP at home all day, kids at school yet she's having too many takeaways and wasting money on Netflix.

The holiday price is ridiculous. I Love Florida - it's far more than the theme parks, but priorities are skewed here.

Stephbaker

I understand your situation and I get how difficult it must be to sort out your finances when only one of the partner is earning. I would suggest that if you really want to save enough for the mortgage, you might have to cut down your spendings further yet for a few weeks. Chart out a plan and decide on areas in which you can cut back a bit. Also, I know it must be quite difficult to take care of 3 kids single-handedly. But even so in between if you can manage some freelancing work that can be effected from home, then you might have some extra cash in your hand.

Spendless

I read this thinking you must have at least one pre-schooler, so the double whammy of expensive childcare preventing working and holidaying in school hols. Then I read on, your 15yo could help out with childcare for you to work, either by being there for the twins after school, or for evening work. Or you could look at finding a childminder, breakfast/after school club for the twins.

I holidayed last year in August, it came in at around £10K, for 2 adults, 2 teens, aged 17 and 14. We had tickets for disney, universal (inc the waterparks) and kennedy space centre. I know you've got an additional person, but I suspect you're staying at a disney hotel. Look to do this cheaper. I understand why you want to do it, we didn't know it at the time but it turned out to be the last family hol we went on the 4 of us as eldest is now at Uni, and diff circs meant we didn't all holiday together this year.

TBagpuss

OP, one thing you may find helpful is to work out your budget, but then to help you keep to it, consider having two separate accounts.
Account 1 - Have salary paid in, and all your regular, fixed bills, (including money into savings, and for expenses which don't come every month,) paid out.
Account 2 - for day to spending.

That way, you always make sure that your bills are paid, and as you have fewer things coming out of your 'day-to-day' account, it is easier both to see how much you have left for the month, you can also see more easily what you are spending.

And follow the suggestions made above, to write down absolutely everything you spend. This helps in 2 ways. Firstly, it lets you see what you are spending money on, but also if you have to stop ad note down every penny you send, it helps focus you mind on what you are spending, and perhaps think twice about whether it is something you need to spend.

Soundgirlrocks

Mkchalloner wrote: »

The reason we got to Florida and spend so much on holidays is that I want my kids to experience different thing's and places etc no offence but Benidorm is not a place where I would take my children it's a fab place to go with the girls but not really our scene for a family holiday

I don't think you can say that a theme park in Florida is really any more culturally stimulating than Benidorm!

£17k on one holiday is crackers, you could give your kids several truly amazing holidays with that amount, that help them grow as individuals or you can give them playground bragging rights …...

Glad

Mkchalloner, as well as the excellent advice you'll receive on the Debt-Free Wannabe board, check out the Old Style Moneysaving board for ways to save on grocery bills, as well as great recipe ideas. Good luck

Fireflyaway

It seems you don't have money to spare because you are choosing to save for a holiday and possibly spending in other areas.
£51,000 pay is over 3k per month income. Your rent is really low. I'm paying £1200 a month so I'd be happy about that for a start. You also don't work so if your lack of money bothered you that much you could get a job. After the debt and holiday money you have £2000 of maybe more left over. I think you have a budgeting problem.
I don't mean to sound judgemental. I know I don't feel any more well off as our income has risen but I realise we have expenses that we didn't previously have. Expenses we are grateful to be able to afford.
There is a difference between not having money because you just don't have money or feeling like you don't have money because you don't keep tabs on what you are spending.
Do a written budget and then you can see where you can make savings.

duchy

£12 K is still far too much for a Florida holiday.

Flights 5 x £600 is doable so £3k for flights
Car hire for 2 weeks £700
4 bedroom villa £700 a week so £1400
Disney passes £380 x5 £1900
Where is the other £5K going ?

Happier_Me

Once you have completed your SOA and know where your money is going as one full picture you may feel better about your situation. You will be able to see how much of your budget you're committing to your holiday and what other savings you are prepared to make. Some ideas from me:

Holidays: I holidayed in France in August for 10 days with my kids for a grand total of around £550 when they were smaller (just a few years ago). That was our share of a four bed farmhouse plus ferry crossing. We cooked most nights, shopped at Lidl. Kids loved it, my daughter visited the Normandy beaches the same year she studied WW2 at school.

This year we went to Kingswear in Devon, got lucky with the weather but booked a 3 bed bungalow with amazing sea views for £1k (7 days in August). There are some beautiful places nearby that are much cheaper than your holiday and I wouldn't say we do things on the cheap. Just a thought for the future.

Food: This is my biggest downfall. Its easy to overspend here and when I overspend I mean by an eye-watering amount. Set a budget and make sure you stick to it. We'd got into the habit of weekly takeaways at around £150 a month. It's a waste and unhealthy. We haven't had a take away now for six weeks and when we have one it will actually feel like a treat.

Bits: it's easy to blow a small fortune on stuff...a cheap top in the sale whilst food shopping, the odd coffee, sweets for the kids, this activity, that birthday party etc.

Priorities: it's been mentioned but most of us have to decide between luxury treats, house purchases and/or improvements. You need to rethink you priorities. To put your holiday spend into context, I'm 43, our household income is around £90k a year and we live in a mortgage free home. We spend a max of £2.5k a year on holidays and that's only recently. Five years ago we rarely holidayed but the kids were too young to appreciate it anyway. We've proritised house purchase and mortgage overpayments over luxury experiences because we couldn't afford to do both. You need to rethink your priorities if you want your own home, £50k a year won't allow you to afford both.