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

Most people aren’t borrowing more than £200k. Thats a long way off the average house price, never mind the price of better houses. People I know have had to stretch to even get their first home, and that’s probably the best they’ll ever afford. If they earn more as they get older it’ll have to be spent on increased living costs such as childcare and raising kids - not on a bigger house.

I think people now have more expectations. When I was a child we lived in a 4 in a block flat (so had a garden etc rather than a block of flats), one car, holidays in the U.K. My mum worked part time when I went to school and my gran would look after us when she wasn’t around. Now people seem to want their forever home at a young age, multiple expensive cars, foreign holidays, plus (as in my case) parents are often still working when we have our own kids so we need more childcare.

We don’t have family money or inheritance and are now doing OK, I am in a professional role and my kids are teenagers so no childcare needed, but we’ve always had a modest house. It was hard when the kids were small.

I disagree with you, no family money or inheritance here and we have both known financial struggles. A combination of hard work, some sacrifices, sound financial plans, working as a team and we are in a brilliant position. We will retire comfortably by mid 50’s. 2 children and no help received either financially or practically from anyone.
We have successfully managed to change our lives, our daughters will now be in a position where family money gives them a head start, although it won’t be handed to them on a plate.
My 15 year old is already working (weekend and school holidays) and has a fantastic work ethic so expect she will mostly do it in her own as we did.

I don’t agree, we haven’t had family money or inheritance and we are doing fine. DH and I have both worked hard in our careers for promotions and op and have a decent income, we can afford our mortgage, nursery fees and bills comfortably and have decent disposable income. We made our own opportunities instead of relying on family money.

It's easier if you come from money. Social mobility does exist but it can rely on a fair bit of luck as well as choosing the "right" (and I mean that solely in terms of earning potential) career.

I come from a poor background but I had some dumb luck in my career (financial services), married a very hard working guy who has climbed the ladder rapidly and we now have the big house, kids in private school type life.

It can be done but I'll be the first to admit luck came into it as much as hard work (and I appreciate there are people out there who have much less than me and graft bloody hard) Even with the house, we're still more asset rich than cash rich, we drive modest cars and take modest holidays in comparison to some of the other families at the school driving their Lotuses and swanning off to the Maldives for 3 week over Christmas!

And been lucky.

I don't doubt you worked hard, but luck always plays a part too.

I should add to my post above that I don’t think we work particularly harder than anyone else, but we did deliberately choose careers that are well paid and offer good progression.

Not true, neither myself or DH has inherited anything, we don't live near our families and haven't had any help with childcare or with the fees. DS is now 11, we live in a very nice area in a 4 bed detached house on a very sought after street. We have just worked very hard.

The most sensible thing we did was choose high earning professions and not our passions. To be fair, we didn't have a choice as immigrants, because we would not have have been let into the country otherwise.

We do our passions on the side. At least one of my DC has chosen a high earning profession too, and will not be choosing his passion.

I’m not saying it’s easy for people nowadays, but that’s not true. We’re in our late 30s. Bought a very small starter home in our late 20s. Aged 34ish we had worked our way up in our respective careers so were able to buy a bigger, family home. Now looking to upsize again as our children are bigger and require more space, and are able to do this as we’ve continued to increase our incomes. No inheritance.

The same. I actually earned less working after childcare than if I had stayed at home. But childcare is a shared expense and it ensured that I stayed on a career pathway which would have ended otherwise.

I do think there is a lot of comment about previous generations without understanding. Our 1st home we didn't have a sofa for 2 years until we could afford it- we had 2 deckchairs. My children and their peers seem to expect to have the perfect fully furnished home from day 1. My parents had to wait 5 years until they could even get a mortgage in the 1960s as they were rationed, again they had no furnitures and used to share 1 pasty for supper to get the deposit.

No phones, overseas holidays, take aways, no online shopping, - so much less life pressure back then.

I would say social mobility is harder in the UK and when achieved people look askance at you. I know I was given a free pass as an eccentric non-native and the number of people who said "Ah, we knew you were one of us" when I went on an outing that apparently only one class partakes in; and the disappointment that followed when I went on a similar outing that only another class partakes in. The gossip about a family that moved from working class to senior execs was shocking! I think Oz and US root for the underdog whereas in the UK its seen as trying to put on airs.

I am an immigrant from a poor country with no social welfare. So is my Dh. We have no family money or inheritance or a house. We were both educated in our home country.; no Oxbridge degrees for us or red brick network. I am surrounded by other immigrants with the same background.

I have to disagree with you somewhat.

YANBU. UK has become very unequal, more so that the rest of Europe, largely because housing has been left to the 'market; and spiralled out of control.

Most people won’t ever have a decent house unless they inherit one. They might be able to stretch to a starter home but thats as far as they’ll ever get. The “housing ladder” only exists if you inherit money.

I have none of those
Had a good state education and went to a decent uni. My DH was 1st in his family to go to Uni.
We both work full time. I went back full time when my children were very young (13 weeks max) as we couldn't afford not to
I did get given about £500 once from a relative but that is all
Mid 50s now and I expect that I will be inheriting some money shortly but a bit too late to be life changing!
If we died tomorrow our adult children would get a decent amount from our pension/homes.

Plenty of people work hard, like nurses and teachers and their income is shit so I wouldn't say working hard will solve all your financial problems. I'd say it's more about the work you choose to do.

Your DH isn't earning enough and you have nursery fees. This is the problem, I think. What is DH earning? Can he get a better job?

I can remember working for £140 a month (!) after nursery fees were deducted from my salary. Ridiculous situation, but it kept my job open.

Kids are now adults. DH and I bring home about £6k per month and the mortgage is £235. Things will get better as time moves on.

Ditto @Fulshaw I’ve worked my ass off and made smart moves, plus luck - and have a totally different living standard

I disagree. If what you mean is that you expect to live a more comfortable life than your parents then that is down to all sorts of different choices (and societal factors). But the vast majority of people don't have family money or inheritance.

No family money or likely inheritance but have a good standard of living due to hard work, saving, doing up properties and always being in a well paid job. I chose not to have kids which has enhanced our income.

No family money or inheritance here but we have a much better standard of living than our parents did. The difference is education - both DH and I were the first in our families to go to university

Sorry, not in my case. I've sacrificed a lot, worked since I was 16 alongside university (got scholarships as well as the maximum amounts of loans and burseries. I'm on a good salary and so is my DH (wasn't when I met him, he didn't go to uni and started an apprenticeship at 17). We definitely live better than our parents did.

Second child is due soon and our salaries will be largely spent on that for a while, so that will require some cuts backs. Costs for almost everything are insane, so on that I agree and if we weren't going n both salaries we would be living more frugally. There's no way we could survive on one salary, but neither could my parents or DH's (my mum worked full time, DH's mum was a childminder). For context, I'm in my mid 30s.

Social mobility requires all parties to be fixated on the notion of class.

You're talking about two different things which is the level of comfort available. My parents weren't wealthy at all - we had a few nice holidays (more as we got older) but no private school, one car, both worked, neither University educated. Our house probably worth about £250k now.

I worked hard at school and am now comfortable. Over 200k joint income outside of London, decent property we can afford to heat.

My standard of living isn't the same because I work a very stressful job whereas my Mum's wasn't - she worked FT but finished at 4.30 most days.

The issue now is that people expect too much without having to work hard for it.

We don’t have family money or inheritance but have a good standard of living. We both work in professional careers. We’ve never had any family help with childcare so always had to pay for it, which was tough at the time, but now they’re at school it’s easier.
Most of my friends haven’t got family money and haven’t (yet) had any significant inheritances, but most have decent lives.