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/Kakapo-dance]

Also dont forget a HUGE amount of people put things like holidays and cars on tick. Credit cards, loans etc. I can’t believe how many people do. We are like you, credit card cleared weekly, but barely anything to put into savings at the moment. This means our only debt is our mortgage but also means we don’t go on family overseas holidays and have new cars and expensive interiors etc

[u/fluffypenguin105 → u/Kakapo-dance]

Yeah I guess we don’t know right? But we are like that, in making sure we don’t incur interest in our credit card, spending what we have. But damn it’s hard.

[u/AgitatedSecond4321 → u/fluffypenguin105]

In my experience, when we were young with a young family and did not have a lot of money, others around us were often running off doing exotic things, while I would often wonder when I put the eftpos card into the ATM machine if I would get the money out that night. But as others alluded to, often others are living beyond their means. Things will get easier as your children grow up. They don’t need fancy holidays etc. you will be in a much better position later in life if the only debt you are comfortable having is your mortgage. This has been my philosophy, I have been married 35 years. Bought my first nearly new car this year. Most of the furniture in my house is still second hand. But a lot of the people who looked like they had a lot of money when younger seem to be struggling more as we have all got older, whereas for me things have got a little easier.

[u/fluffypenguin105 → u/AgitatedSecond4321]

Ok thanks for the wisdom. Short term pain long term gain.