HULL: We have a good income — but it comes at a price

KIRSTY and Alex Braithwaite, both 31, live in Hull with children Zac, seven, and Harper, three. Alex is a mechanical engineer earning £40,000 while Kirsty works 22 hours a week in an administrative role which pays £5,000 a year. Kirsty says:

We’re lucky to have a good income as many people in our area are out of work. Our lifestyle isn’t flashy, but we can afford to do things we want.

We bought our three-bedroom terrace house ten years ago for £117,000 and added a playroom, dining room and an extra bedroom in the loft. We owe about £90,000 on the mortgage, which we’re repaying at £750 a month.

Our other big expenditure is holidays. We work hard and like to really enjoy our time off, so every 18 months we take the children to Walt Disney World in Florida.

I now know all the moneysaving tricks, so we spend no more than £6,000 per trip.

The years we don’t make it to Orlando, we go to Center Parcs for the Christmas Winter Wonderland. A week there costs about £700. We had our first British summer holiday last year, at a Premier Inn near the beach in Dorset, and it came to about £2,000.

We spend a lot on children’s presents — £500 each for Christmas and around £100 for birthdays. I spread the cost, buying through the year. I spend about £200 on Zac’s parties, but we’re cutting back this year. Now his sister is in pre-school, it’s her turn for a bigger bash.

To keep spending on clothes down to about £100 a month for all of us I buy at Primark and George at Asda.

We cook most meals from scratch, so our Asda bills are under £300 a month, but have takeaways at least once a week. A couple of Sundays a month, we go to a carvery.

Until last year we paid £120 a week in nursery fees for Harper but, since turning three, she has a funded place and the after-school club at Zac’s school is free, while breakfast club is 50p a day.

Zac plays rugby and Harper does dance classes, with fees totalling about £30 a month. Kirsty and Alex with children Harper and Zac: A threebed terrace and two cars Alex and I both have iPhone 7s and a car — me, a ten-year-old Ford Fiesta and him, an eightyear-old Ford Focus.

We save for the things we want and never go into debt. Our money goes a long way in Hull — we always have a couple of hundred pounds left at the end of the month.

Our income enables us to do what we want, to an extent, but it comes at a price. Alex and I work longer hours than friends and only spend much time together on holiday.

Are we happier than friends earning less? I wouldn’t say so. Are we more tired and stressed? Yes, I think we are.