To think it’s very hard to live in the uk without inheritance or family money?

We were very fortunate in that we bought property at the tail end of the 1980s. I had a one-bed flat in NW London, and DH bought a cheap Georgian terraced house with no garden or parking in Cornwall. Both cost £60k, and both were a stretch on one income. When I moved into his house, I let mine out. It cost me £250 a month, every month, to subsidise the tenant living there, and it took a decade of me subsidising the rent before interest rates fell enough that I wasn't paying to not live in it. When prices starting rising again, everybody wanted to buy it. When I did sell it, a few years later, I sold into a rising market. But there are always sharks circling; I asked the letting agent to get a valuation from their sales team on it, and they came back with a price £40k under the market valuation. They clearly thought I was zipped up the back!

my point is that WE ( me and my DH nor any of my siblings) have not and will not receive any ‘family money’ we own our homes because we prioritised that over other things. Yes we have nieces and nephews but we aren’t in a position to give them money we are only in our 40’s and could live into our 90’s

Ten years ahead? Most people graduate uni at 21 not 26.

And even then... isn't a university education supposed to mean you are earning more money and so able to afford a home?

Have you missed the bit about property being vastly more expensive than it was in the past?

Thanks for clarifying! The homes are both lovely homes and in a desirable street. You sort of wonder why they’re not at least rented out but I can see why that’d be troublesome too.

It was quite sad, last year I saw (I walk
round the park at lunchtime) the elderly woman who lived there with her daughter (she was calling her “mother”) and handling her a bit harshly and roughly and the poor mother looked upset and confused as it was probably the last time she’d see her home. I knew the mother a bit as when my cat went missing for a week about 3 years ago I knocked on doors with fliers and asked them to check garages and sheds and she invited me in for tea and I popped round to see her a few times after that for community and neighbourly reasons (there’s a local WhatsApp group for the area). She was really sweet if a bit elderly and frail. Apparently her daughter (seemed quite upper class) rarely visited her or rang her. The woman did say, I tentatively asked, that her DH had left her very comfortably off as he was a businessman but she got lonely and the house was getting a lot for her to manage. She told me she didn’t want to go into a home but said her daughter was pushing for it.

Many over 35 year olds went to uni possibly took a year out and only started earning in their mid-twenties. Many over 65 year old left school and went straight into work at 16 so were nearly ten years ahead with their savings, salary levels etc.

Care home fees must be paid for by the person, if they have the means, until they run out. Then once you are down to around £22k the council starts to pay some I believe. They do allow you £9kish, to pay for a funeral I suppose. Our parent pays £3400 per month for a basic care home, nothing luxurious but nice and a good location.

You seemed to say your entire family had bought their own homes. No children for any of you? No nieces or nephews?

Nope no children so will go for care home fees in the end I imagine

Although you now have a potential inheritance for your own children.

This is true @Poppysmom22.

I’m fairly lucky as I have savings and also income from some properties (not a huge portfolio!) for me and DM and DB plus my own home. So have assets to sell for care home fees. But we planned carefully to get the properties when they were cheap and DM has a reduced teachers pension from doing a job share for part of her career and DB didn’t pay NI for some of his early working life (he does now) so his pension won’t be good. He can’t afford to pay into a private pension.

But we appreciate we are lucky and it’s only through a generous inheritance years ago that we’re in the position we are now. There’s still the question of ensuring whatever we do is taxed correctly if we sell.

On another topic, there are 2 nice houses overlooking a park in the street next to mine. Both were owned by single old ladies and they’ve both gone into care homes. The houses are falling apart a bit and the garden of one is a foxes den. I’m assuming there’s money to fund the care homes but the fees must be astronomical unless the council funds all or part of it. I know my best friend’s DM is in a care home partly funded by the council
and partly funded by my friend and her DSis but they’re lucky to be able to afford the fees. Her DM didn’t own her own home, long story, divorce and other parent moving abroad to his home country.

My point is that we all live on what we’ve earned no one has given us anything in terms of financial help @Tiredalwaystired which is what the thread is about. There’s no ‘family money’ it’s just your pay check and you

I am so sorry, it's devastating to see them change, and so unfair to all involved. Your story resonates as my parent is very impulsive on purchases and then doesn't understand cash anymore, they just buy what they want, so am at the stage of enforcing cash withdrawal limits etc.

Thankfully their parents owned a home, which my parent inherited, God only knows where they would be otherwise as they chose not to really work.

But having your own home doesn’t mean you haven’t got a pot to piss in. You could sell up tomorrow and live on the equity you’ve gained unless you’ve bought really recently. If you own your own home you have that choice. If you rent you dont and can still have the same as you are living on day to day.

Dh's mum, pre-dementia, was all about financial savvy. Once dementia really hit her (quite hard and fairly suddenly) there was no choice but to pick a nice care home, and she turned into a prima donna. I want, do this. She was latterly really demanding. It was a sudden regression to her being two years old and stroppy. She could still be lovely, but unless with family, her unhappiness at being left untaken behind was angry. It was one of the most miserable episodes of my 67 years.

No one in our family has got a pot to in but we all own our homes and work hard to pay for the things we want and if something is going to go wrong then it does for us you just plan for shit to hit the fan then when it does you are ready

Thanks, I think alot depends if the person has choices at least, which thankfully my parent does, but those with little to no funds left will be put wherever there is a space, and often this is in a rush rather than the luxury of time to plan and choose a place. So I consider us lucky that funds are available and we had time in that sense.

This must be hard, because you know you're not entitled to anything and inheritance is a bonus, but my parents would certainly hate to think all their hard earned savings were going on keeping them alive with a poor quality of life.

Completely agree, my parent has dementia and all funds are vanishing, we got a helpful amount after a property sale many years ago (sadly years after we'd already bought but still lovely to get) but the vast amount of her wealth is going to care, will be enough left for a funeral

I tend to think that blaming society for not being a millionaire with everything you ever coveted is more to do with the individual's wishful thinking than society stopping them. Only the 0.1% with the ideas and talent and guts and grit get the really big wins. 99.9% of us don't, so don't beat youself up over it!

How can you say hardworking has zero to do with a good life? My cousin worked his way from zero to a multimillionaire by sheer hardwork. Not university educated.

Hear, hear.

Interesting how the wealth divide is splitting families, too.

Generations composed of those who inherit v. those who got parents with dementia, fr’instance.

Hard work has 0 to do with a good life. That’s wrong.

i am a follower of gary's economics. For me the life experiences of the people I knew (from non-rich backgrounds) was the nail in the coffin. I am in my early 30s now and DH has family members scattered across several countries and it is becoming blatantly obvious from the home ownership rates/finances of this generation that there is a wider problem.

The summary is the only people who own property in this generation are the cousin who has inherited + work in IT, DH who works for an investment bank + married an international student from a rich family with no student loan debt (me), BIL's brother who married a plastic surgeon. The previous generation were pretty ordinary people with a wide variety of jobs but who all basically owned their homes by this age. Some like DH's mum were actually quite poor. and for the one sibling with a young baby, its actually gotten to the point where they have to move back home (and they both have graduate jobs and established careers in their field!)

Basically as gary said, the only people who would own are those who inherit and who work directly for the rich in a job which the rich values i.e. banker, project manager, doctor (for the rich). Its already happening. I live in London but this is absolutely not just the case in London and other capital cities, as DH's family live in a wide variety of places.

@nodramamama I’ve recommended Gary’s Economics on a few threads but no one ever seems to want to educate themselves. I’ve shared the key messages too and been shot down. Yet it’s absolutely clear cut that the rich are getting richer, poverty is rising astronomically and the standard and cost of living for ordinary people is becoming unmanageable.

There are a lot of subscription services around today that wouldn't have been in the past.

A console (ie. XBox or similar) is way cheaper than a PC of similar spec, and can also be used as a DVD player and as a streaming media player. They're quite good value.