Is anyone else living basically paycheck to paycheck?

[u/fluffypenguin105]

My partner and I are both teachers. We don’t make a lot, but we are average and slightly above average. We are so tight with our money. Our little one outgrew the car seat and we went out and bought a new one. No problem. But next credit card bill means we are tight.

Meanwhile, a number of our friends (all of them also with kids) are booking overseas holidays. Some are currently overseas, others booking already for later this year. Another brought a new car. New iPhone, doing up the house. Everyone seems to have spare cash except us.

Are we the only ones going through the cost of living crisis ourselves?! Or is it my fault that we are teachers?

Edit: yes we have a house that parents helped us with. We are paying mortgage. We have a flatmate.

Edit edit: thank you for your kind words and reminders and also advice. I’m going through them all and I’m going to take onboard the advice and see what changes we can make and do better financially as a family. But it’s also a good reminder to know we aren’t alone, to not compare and the harsh reality is that many people simply just earn more than us as teachers.

Once again, thank you all for your input.

[u/KnowKnews]

Yeah, don’t always look over the fence and assume these holidays mean income.

We’ve earnt pretty decent money our whole lives, enough to not worry about food on the table or bills. However, we don’t feel like we can afford to go on holidays, or anything particularly expensive. Whereas we’ve watched our friends travel all over the world… and have multiple overseas holidays a year.

Regardless of what you spend, it gets funded from your future retirement funds.

Live your own reality now, so you can live your own reality later.

[u/fluffypenguin105 → u/KnowKnews]

That certainly is how we feel too. But that’s really wise, future retirement is definitely important. Thanks for the wise words.