Is 22k a year possible to live on for a family of 3

PeaIn2Pods

Spendless said:

How old is your child? What sort of hours are you trying to cover? I'm a bit confused by some of your post. You say it costs £2.5K per year for childcare (just over £200 per month - which is cheap) and the 2nd income into your household is £10K less this childcare and commuting costs. How much are these travel expenses? At first sight it seems that your household is still better off with you working than not.

What does 'we have discussed childcare costs but my husband is refusing to do it' mean? Is he saying he doesn't want your child in childcare? 

He is 5. I'm trying to cover term times only and occasionally teachers training days but I can probably do shift swaps for those.

My husband does not want to pay childcare because it is too much of a burden on our finances (rightly so really). We have a lot of outgoings because we have a couple of credit cards to pay off as well as having to do the house up, which we are keeping on top of. We budget religiously as well. We are not big spenders and last time we went holiday was in 2018.

Travel expenses for me is £130 a month, for my husband it'll be an additional £110 so that's more outgoings.

I think I really need to sit down and work out absolutely everything down to the last penny.

PeaIn2Pods

bargainbetty said:

Can you find a job where you can work from home instead? Call centres, bookkeeping, admin support etc - maybe that would be an alternative option, and you could do more flexible hours too. If your husband is the primary earner, you obviously need to work around him to bring in extra income. 

You will need to do a full budget detailing all your regular outgoings - use the budget calculator on here. Once that is done, you will know what you need to bring in to survive or to thrive

I am currently seeking employment for nights, in warehouses or something or WFH as you suggested but so far, I haven't even been asked for an interview or they are not suitable to fit around childcare. Also maybe the problem is that I have always worked in healthcare sector. It's all I've known and I am deaf as well so working in call centres or anything to do with telephones is off the agenda computers, though.. I am quite a techie but again, no experience and it is usually daytime.

mcpitman

PeaIn2Pods said:

bargainbetty said:

Can you find a job where you can work from home instead? Call centres, bookkeeping, admin support etc - maybe that would be an alternative option, and you could do more flexible hours too. If your husband is the primary earner, you obviously need to work around him to bring in extra income. 

You will need to do a full budget detailing all your regular outgoings - use the budget calculator on here. Once that is done, you will know what you need to bring in to survive or to thrive

I am currently seeking employment for nights, in warehouses or something or WFH as you suggested but so far, I haven't even been asked for an interview or they are not suitable to fit around childcare. Also maybe the problem is that I have always worked in healthcare sector. It's all I've known and I am deaf as well so working in call centres or anything to do with telephones is off the agenda computers, though.. I am quite a techie but again, no experience and it is usually daytime.

Just as an FYI - We have a number of deaf staff working in our call center functions - they handle WebChats and emails, not phone calls. Call centres don't only take calls.

Not sure why your husband doesn't want to pay for childcare, if you need more income, then you need to work and that will result in childcare costs.

Sandtree

SChitmehard said:

What we need is a real wage. In the `1950s to the 80's, one person working in the family could support the whole family/pay the mortgage, but then we started with neo-liberal economics and wages have been stagnant in real terms since around 1980. All the while cost of living increased so now 2, 3, 4 people in the family have to work to make ends meet and we get the issues we see above. And people keep voting for the people that have the same policies and so it carries on. Corbyn would have changed things a bit for the better for working class poor but alas the elites and their friends in the media were against him. Now we have Starmer who is no different to the Cons. 

Rose tinted glasses to say the least... as others have already pointed out mortgages were not an option in the 50s for the vast majority but we've created a culture that has normalised home ownership and belittled renting. 

Consumerism has exploded in that time too and that has massively driven up the cost of living... we've gone from having a single phone in the house that actually came with the house and was left when we moved out to having over 1 phone each that get changed every couple of years. TV was 20 years old, now they're replaced every 5 years or so not because they dont last but to keep up with technology. Home computer wasnt a thing, now we have 4 computers and 3 tablets. 

Lose some of the trappings of modern life, go back to the shopping habits and lifestyle of those times and you'd find life much more affordable. Some will enjoy darning their socks listening to the wireless in the evening but most of us want the 300 TV channels on their big TV to entertain themselves. 

warby68

I think you do need to look more closely at your budget to better inform your choices.

Your posts read as if you have done relatively well out of the pandemic with reduced travel expenses and childcare accommodated by husband who has been WFH in a better job. You've managed to save up a deposit to buy a house. Unfortunately not many employers knowingly support doing childcare at the same time as working although obviously there has been some flex on this during the pandemic.

Unfortunately now come the tougher times and, understandably you feel a bit of resentment. In an ideal world, you would have seen this time coming and budgetted for it before and not been committing the travel expenses/childcare elsewhere but such is life.

You really won't know what your options actually are until you drill down fully with your expenses - 2.5k childcare costs from 10k income is actually good as you have missed the pre-school very costly full day nursery fees so I would say that makes working worthwhile.

Yes, its 'possible' to live on net £22k. Whether you can depends on your commitments and probably how much lifestyle you're willing to concede. If your commitments really are too high and you can't get another job then taking the childcare hit might be the most realistic option.

Andy_L

SChitmehard said:

What we need is a real wage. In the `1950s to the 80's, one person working in the family could support the whole family/pay the mortgage, but then we started with neo-liberal economics and wages have been stagnant in real terms since around 1980. All the while cost of living increased so now 2, 3, 4 people in the family have to work to make ends meet and we get the issues we see above. And people keep voting for the people that have the same policies and so it carries on. Corbyn would have changed things a bit for the better for working class poor but alas the elites and their friends in the media were against him. Now we have Starmer who is no different to the Cons. 

Or perhaps not

 "Whereas only 41% of women born in 1958 were still in work 2 years after the birth of their first child, this figure was 58% for women born in 1970 – even though the employment rates of these cohorts were essentially the same both 5 years before and 10 years after the birth of their first child."

"40 years [ie 1978] ago mothers partnered with men in the bottom and top halves of the male earnings distribution were equally likely to be in paid work themselves, with employment rates of around 60%.

"Overall, the proportion of couples with children where only one adult works has almost halved (down from 47% in 1975 to 27% in 2015) and the proportion where both work has increased from 49% to 68%"

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/12951  (2018)

jimpwarsop

Sandtree said:

Rose tinted glasses to say the least... as others have already pointed out mortgages were not an option in the 50s for the vast majority but we've created a culture that has normalised home ownership and belittled renting.

Perhaps you might consider the true cost of renting.

Unless they can get a golden ticket (council house) the rent has to pay all the costs of buying the property and end up with nothing.

We stood no chance of a council house, so we saved a deposit and bought a house in 1985, I dont think our mortgage payments were ever significantly more than a private rent would have been.

Now the mortgage is gone and we live rent free in an asset which will pay for our end of life care if required, to rent our house would now cost at least £1000 a month, until recently our joint income was around £1500 a month. Even a one bedroomed flat would cost £500.

Grumpy_chap

PeaIn2Pods said:

I think I really need to sit down and work out absolutely everything down to the last penny.

There are many ways to do your own budgets, but one tool that you could use is the SoA (Statement of Affairs) that is available through the DfW (Debt-free Wannabee) area of this forum.  I think the tool was originally developed to aid with the managing of debt, but can equally be applied to any situation where a better understanding of the household budget would be a benefit (so just about everyone).  Once you have that tool developed, there is no obligation to share it, just use it as your own tool between you and your husband.

ariarnia

i stopped working for a while until the youngest was in school full time but when i went back to work it was because i had married my current oh so we could coordinate when we'd leave or get home and there was wrap around at school and i had an older and sensible sprog to keep an eye on things if there was an odd time when one of us was a little late getting home. 

i'm wondering if your figures might be a bit out. if you stop working can you share your tax free allowance with your oh or are you already adding that in to the 22k? 

and re your question. 22k really depends on where you live and things like if you keep two cars or if your okay sharing if he's commuting in or if you can use busses while he's got the car and things like that. in some parts of the country a 1.8k take home it will probably be plenty, in other parts of the country most of that could be your mortgage payment and his train ticket. 

Sandtree

jimpwarsop said:

Sandtree said:

Rose tinted glasses to say the least... as others have already pointed out mortgages were not an option in the 50s for the vast majority but we've created a culture that has normalised home ownership and belittled renting.

Perhaps you might consider the true cost of renting.

Unless they can get a golden ticket (council house) the rent has to pay all the costs of buying the property and end up with nothing.

We stood no chance of a council house, so we saved a deposit and bought a house in 1985, I dont think our mortgage payments were ever significantly more than a private rent would have been.

Now the mortgage is gone and we live rent free in an asset which will pay for our end of life care if required, to rent our house would now cost at least £1000 a month, until recently our joint income was around £1500 a month. Even a one bedroomed flat would cost £500.

Your looking at it from the wrong angle... I am not saying that renting is a good thing but socially home owners look down on renters; home ownership is an aspirational thing in the UK which wasnt always the case.

Comparing mortgages and rent is always something a bit difficult to do because of the cash element needed... around our little area of London you are talking about £2k a month for a 2 bed flat for rent, to buy that flat on a 95% LTV you'd need £50,000 for deposit and stamp and then would be paying circa £2,600 on the mortgage and probably around £300 in service charges/ground rent. In theory as a renter with £50k in the bank you should also consider investment return for a truer comparison. The mortgage will come down in time though as the capital is repaid and better interest rates can be secured. Appreciate that in london rental yields are the lowest in the country. 

There are other countries where home ownership isnt the norm and isnt seen as something to really aspire to however their rental markets work differently (and in the case of Switzerland their taxes too)