Where did I go wrong financially?

We should be mortgage free by 50 and that's only because we bought house 1 15 years ago then the lender for house 2 would only allow us a 25 year term (help to buy). Lump sums are being whacked into these friends' mortgages from somewhere!

Well I’m the best part of a decade older than you and among my friends I only know one couple who’ve paid off their mortgage already, and to be fair, they live in a very cheap part of the country! I’m quite surprised you don’t have more than £4k of savings though on that salary.

Yes agree Letsgotitans. OP seems fairly clueless for a 4K monthly take home. Only 8% pension contributions. Doesn’t spend money on expensive clothes. I don’t think high food bills explains How she’s only got 4K in savings. I’d be very worried not to have substantially more. What if the roof needs replacing?

Oh well you'd despise me massively then.im hugely older than you with limited means not through lack of effort but certainly by being single and a teacher.living in london does not help. You earn 68 thou and u are moaning.This is what I find hard about mumsnet.Thr constant comparisons....the materialism...is this all you are? So what about paying off your mortgage? Do u have very well off friends? If you think you have messes up God help the rest of us.Get perspective.

Stop comparing yourself to others. We can’t all be in the same position so what’s the point in feeling badly about it? Carry on acting sensibly with your finances and enjoy your life.

I think the 'everybody you know' are those people who start out in life with an inheritance or gift. They have families (or in-laws) who have contributed to their almost mortgage-free status.

Meanwhile, you've been paying off your student loan, acquired £180k in house equity and have no debt interest so you're doing very well and you've done it yourself! You should be proud of what you've achieved, which is a lot more than many people your age.

Do you have any kids @ogfs ?

Around the same age. I earn 52k, have equity of about 80k, savings of 10k and my mortgage term lasts til I'm 68. I have done it all on my own without a partner though, although I am now in a relationship (we don't live together and don't share finances). I have a crappy car but I manage okay and I'm much better off than others. I don't know anyone other than those who have inherited or bought something for 90k 15 years ago who are anything close to mortgage free. I know many who will never be able to buy and some who have mortgages of 400k to service. I also know some who have done pretty well out of having a wealthy and older partner, parental help and who struck it lucky on the property market. I didn't have any of that so I'm okay with it. My boyfriend got fucked financially from a divorce so at least I never had something and then lost it. He's also got a long mortgage and same sort of savings as me. He earns 66k so similar to you and isn't any better off than you. We live in the SE so maybe that makes you used to being over stretched.

Surely most of the mortgage free people will be due to inheritance or similar? It’s definitely not the norm otherwise. In fact, home ownership isn’t even the norm in my peer group, lots of us still renting (either council or private) and unlikely to get on the property ladder.

There’s no secret to paying off a mortgage by your 30s that you’ve missed - your friends almost certainly had family help. When you can’t make sense of someone’s financial situation the answer is always either debt or family money.

Why don’t you buy a second hand car? That’s what I’ve always done. It’s considerably cheaper and they work fine!

In other respects, well I’ve messed up financially but people who’ve done well have worked full time at the well paid jobs. They’ve married people who are high earners. And a lot of people have a lot of help from their parents and grandparents and don’t always admit it.

As a fellow accountant I think we are notoriously bad with our own money! Probably because we spend all day thinking about other people’s money so the last thing we want to do when we get home is think about our own…

I read sn article recently in the FT that said lots of younger people are gifted money or homes by their parents or grandparents yet don't want to admit it to others as they fear being seen as overprivileged. Perhaps this is what's going on. And/or two people engaging in the same behaviours as you on a similar salary in the same property and thus acquiring equity twice as fast as you.

I'm not sure I know anyone who has paid off their mortgage. We are in our mid 40's so some of our friends are about 5 years away from paying off.

We earn about £40,000 each, have about £90,000 equity in our home. We have about £7/£8,000 in savings and only debt is our new car (about £16,000).

We have good public sector pensions.

We would both like to have more savings but are spenders. We are at a stage where we could save £500 a month but don't always buy try and spend it on longer terms things like holidays, diy, white goods rather than on daily living.

The ‘not normal to be mortgage free’ surely depends on where you bought and when? We are (well before 50) but that’s largely because we haven’t bought a bigger house even though we could afford it and bought a house for 85k in 2000. We paid that off (interest rates went from 6% to 0.5%) and then had mortgage of 120k 15 years ago on our second house which is now worth about 450k. We overpaid what we could but had some luck along the way plus there were 2 of us.

Then if you have no mortgage saving is easy. I’ve also never had a car on finance, and keep them till they are about 10.

It sounds like you are doing really well to me OP.

Why don't you stop comparing your situation with that of others? They might not be telling the truth. Also this is meant kindly but count your blessings. You earn so much more than many who will be struggling to pay bills.

Why is it that OP isn’t prepared to say if she has kids? She’s been asked at least 4 times.

Someone with 4 kids will have considerable expenses. They are likely to be in a much worse position than someone with none..and especially if they started having them young.

This vital but if info is needed to be able to make any sense of the OP’s position. But the key Q has repeatedly been ignored. Why is that?

This. Bloody hell

I'm really surprised everyone you know (if they're a similar age) has almost paid off their mortgage. I think still having a relatively large mortgage at that age is normal, and not a sign of financial mismanagement. I don't feel the same about car finance though. I think getting a car (or anything else) on finance is unwise. Cars don't need to be expensive, you have savings of £4k, that could get you a pretty decent car. Then when you've bought the car with cash, keep saving some money every month so you can get a new second hand car, when this one dies. Depending on milage, that's going to be 10-15 years, so plenty of time to save for another. I would question if you're that financially savvy if you've gone down the car finance route rather than buying what you can afford in cash.

this is the thing, I rarely buy clothes etc and if I do they are from the supermarket so v cheap! I do spend quite a bit on food I guess?! But I honestly don’t think I spend too much. The only subscription I have is Netflix.

How can you possibly be a decent accountant without knowing basics like where your own money is going? You earn 68k, only overpay on your mortgage by £150, can’t save towards things like a car but somehow think you have low spending despite getting into debt too.

Why not read the FIRE books?

I'm 20 years older than you and have only been mortgage free for 2 years. Have only ever bought SH cars and was the sole income in a marriage.
In my 40's I was maxed out on my credit cards and overdraft.
But TBH I never felt hard done by & in the next 10 years got my act together and paid everything off, sadly my partner died as a consequence of their medical condition 4 years ago.
Financially I'm very well off now but still miss them so much (I am in a new relationship that is great)

I know you work in the financial sector but money isn't the be all and end all of happiness.

Thinking about this as well: you have a £450k house - if you have a 60% LTV ratio and 180k equity i.e. 180k = 40% of the house. So your mortgage is £270k, which is pretty massive (especially given interest rates now), at 4x a pretty high income, and you are presumably therefore paying over £1500 on your mortgage plus your £150 overpayment, potentially could be £2k a month, depending how long your term is. Add on a car loan of even a couple of hundred a month and your costs are racking up.

With pension and student loan repayments (I know you said they have just finished) your take home was presumably down to £3,400 (Vs nearly £3800 without student loans).

It's actually then fairly easy to see how you might not have savings - you've maxed out your borrowing for a house worth nearly half a million quid, got more debt for a car on top - that's going to eat up your monthly income.

I have paid off my mortgage. It was 4.5x my salary when I took it out, and my salary has nearly tripled but I never upped my mortgage. My house is worth 200k. Is it possible the people you're thinking of just had much smaller mortgages?

I’m 41 and only have one mortgage free friend -oxford graduate… her dad gifted her £300k 10 years ago.

don’t compare to others but do use it as an opportunity to review finances and boost the savings. We currently have £30k in savings but that’ll reduce dramatically when we buy our next car.