'I'm a middle-class mum struggling on household income of 60k – no more Waitrose for me'

A middle-class mum revealed she’s struggling to provide for her family on a household income of £60k and has had to ditch holidays, their second car and shopping at Waitrose.

Victoria Lindsay, 53, works 50 hours a week and her partner is a civil servant, but claims they still have to “count every penny”.

They turn off the electricity and use candles to save cash, can only holiday in the UK and can no longer afford to go to the theatre or “buy avocados from Waitrose”.

The family are now “counting down the days” until they can move north away from their “forever home” in the south to save cash.

They had to get rid of one of their cars and haven’t been abroad since 2017 – and she feels if she’d learned a trade rather than gone to university, she’d be better off.

Mum-of-three Victoria, who runs her own childcare business said she feels those in the middle are “stuck” – neither wealthy nor able to access benefits.

She earns £22,000 and her partner, 54, earns £40,000 meaning they have a combined income of over £60,000.

She’s speaking out after a report, Caught in the Middle, revealed this week that it is becoming difficult to maintain a decent living standard on household incomes as high as £60,000 a year.

The report, by Financial Fairness Trust, blamed Britain’s insecure jobs market and high housing costs.

Victoria, from Bromham, Bedfordshire, said: “We are having to count every single penny of our weekly shop.

“We turn the heating off and the lights off for an hour on a Tuesday between five and six because Octopus Energy will give us the money back. We are sitting in the dark with candles on. There is no luxury. We don’t take our kids to the cinema. We go on lots of bike rides, we go for lots of walks.”

“I don’t have a National Trust membership but I do have an English Heritage membership that I can offset the cost of.”

“There’s a beautiful garden just up the road from us and they want £25 a visit for my family to go.

“We’ve not been in for years, and my kids were there all the time when they were little. We can’t afford it.

“I can’t afford to go into the theatre anymore, I can’t afford to buy my avocados in Waitrose.

“People might say ‘don’t buy your avocados in Waitrose’, but why the hell shouldn’t I when I work really, really hard?

Victoria and her partner have three children – a 24-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old.

The cost of living has meant that their only option was to downsize from their “forever home” in the south of England which they have lived in for 16 years, and move to the north of England when their children leave home for university.

They are planning to move because keeping the family afloat in the south of England is something that is proving almost impossible for Victoria and her partner.

“We live in a nice house four-bedroom house that we pay mortgage on,” she said.

“When we bought the house – we could afford it. We didn’t buy a house that we couldn’t afford.

“We can’t afford to replace doors or windows or carpet or anything like that. We should be able to do those things. It’s terrifying and I want to run away from it all. Why am I slogging my guts out to run my own business?”

Victoria and her partner have had to make cuts, including running one car instead of two and sticking to holidays in the UK.

“The last time we went abroad was in 2017, to a Greek island,” she said.

“We can’t afford to take our children abroad.

“We could go camping but we’re not young anymore, and I don’t want to go and stay in a caravan on the holiday park.

“This year, we will go away for a week, and it’s highly likely to be the Welsh coast because we’ve got our own kayaks, but we won’t eat out.

“We don’t go to restaurants anymore, but we used to eat out quite regularly as a family. How can you justify £50 per pizza? You can’t justify that for a meal.

“Last year, there was a band that I love, and that my partner and my son love, but to go and see them, tickets were £80. We didn’t go.”

She added: “I work 50 hours a week and that’s face to face work. I have my admin staff and my training and all of that on top.”

She said that they are “counting down” to when their youngest goes to university because that will mean they can downsize.

She added: “We don’t particularly want to move, but we’re now looking at where we could afford to live.

“In terms of our housing stability, I feel extremely vulnerable. Come September, if the interest rates haven’t come down, and our mortgage goes up again, there is nothing. There’s no flexibility. It isn’t there. It’s gone.”

The effects of struggling with money “causes friction, which causes arguments,” she said. “I worry about finances, it stops you from sleeping.

“I think that we fall into that group where we’ve gone off and got a university education, but if I’d learned a trade I might be in a better position than I am now.”

For Victoria and her family, it is those like herself who are middle class that are hit the hardest, she feels.

She added: “Those that are wealthy remain very wealthy, those that are on lower incomes have access to benefits, but it’s always been the people in the middle who are stuck.

“We’re not entitled to anything. We are in the middle, and we are stuck.”

“I’ve got university education but I’m older. I don’t have marketable skills. I don’t have current qualifications. I feel trapped by that,” she said.

The biggest worry for Lindsay is that she is depriving her children of precious experiences.

“We are really, really want to give our children positive experiences,” she said.

“They are growing up. Our kids are asking for things like school residentials, but we can’t afford for them to do those sorts of things. Our kids are great, they absolutely understand so they don’t ask.”

She said that the experience has made her feel like she is “being smacked in the belly by the Government.”

“We don’t need to be here, it’s policy that has meant that we are here,” she said.

“We’re kind of stuck but not blaming anybody apart from the government.”