To not understand how people afford home improvements

Our household income is £110k pa and our mortgage is £700pcm. We have no other debts. We have one 10yo vauxhall and went to a caravan 2hrs for our house for our one holiday this year (same last year). We are vegetarian, don’t drink and are fairly frugal. This is how we are saving to incrementally renovate bits of our house.

I had a 20 year investment mature that I took out age 32 when I split up with a boyfriend. £200 per month for 20 years gave me £80k a couple of years ago so I spent £25k on new kitchen and tucked the rest away into ISAs and other savings.

I thank that ex in my head every time I chop a vegetable on my lovely quartz worktops. We had a relationship-ending row about how I chopped celery and my ‘fuck-you, you controlling twat’ was to move out then open a long term savings plan 😜

Took out extra on the mortgage and bought all the fixtures and fittings on Facebook marketplace for sweet FA and did all the decorating myself.

We have in the past used interest free credit. This time we kept some equity back from the profit from our last house to pay for our kitchen and bathroom in this house. The other bathroom will be savings and it'll take a while. Obviously depends on income / outgoings etc. We do a lot of the work ourselves. All the decorating and other minor jobs but have payed for kitchens, bathrooms, electrics, plastering.

It's like families with 3 4 5 plus kids saying how do families afford holidays. I have one child and 2 jobs as a single parent.

Paid for a bathroom in interest free finance.

Sometimes it depends what your priorities are, maybe they don't go on holiday and you do, maybe they don't have pets or children, maybe they drive an absolute banger, maybe they are extremely financially savvy and budget very well.

A friend commented when I spent £100 on new plates and that she never has money for new things for the house, but that evening she went out and spent 60 in a restaurant, where as I almost never eat go out for food or eat take away.

We extended the mortgage to pay for a loft extension once our youngest child started school - all the childcare saving went on the extra mortgage payments.
Once the main part of the mortgage was paid off, plus no going out during Covid, we had a bit of spare cash and have had double glazing put in and a new boiler in the last few years. The in-between time, which was from when DC3 was 5-21, we've had only very urgent repairs done , and I've done some decorating myself. The bathroom and kitchen are looking very tatty now, and if I spend at least 10k on each ( and it'll probably cost more tbh) then that's 20k I'd rather give to DC2 to get him on the housing ladder. So I think I'm going to have to put up with it for a while longer.
We have helped support 3 DC through university, haven't ever had a 2-week family holiday, and only 3 or 4 short family holidays abroad in that time. No new or nearly new cars.
With hindsight, we should have moved to a cheaper part of the country when the DC were little, but our jobs were London-based and at least one of us would have had to have retrained.
OP, if you don't have the money, learn how to do some of the work yourself. Painting is doable by a complete amateur if you look up how to prepare surfaces first.

Someone I loved very much died.
The money he left me bought new double glazing and a safer patio.

I would rather have him here but there we go

You can get low interest loans and things to finance home improvements or it’s just a question of saving what you can and waiting for the cash to build up.

If you’ve got literally nothing at the end of the month, it might be worth figuring out ways you can save money so it can be put aside if something really needs doing to the house (much easier said than done in the current climate though I know!)

Many people take out additional mortgages. That's how we have done our renovations. You do have to have enough money to pay the additional repayments though.

Higher salary
Loans
Saving
Inheritance
Remortgage
Gift from parents
Sold a property with equity
Won the lottery

We'll do our kitchen soon with bonus money plus regular savings

Exactly.

Or they prioritise spending differently.

I find it more scary that 10 thousand pounds gets you a kitchen / bathroom that is cheap chipboard and poor quality fittings and wears out in 10 years. With labour costs getting higher I'd like to see things made to last longer.

HA put ours in.

In the past I've funded work via personal loans and rent from lodgers.
My last major work was funded when I cashed in a pension
Next work is being funded from a pension lump sum and then that's it. No more significant work

They have more money.

I’d guess I earn more than you? We have had our kitchen done (£24k) 2 years ago and we saved about £1500 a month to get to that. Then, we’ve just spent £25k on a 3yo car that we saved for over 2 years.

Because I'm considerably richer than you?

The same reasons as every other thread about “how do people afford x”.

They earn more money, they take out loans, inheritance or family help

It depends so much on people’s circumstances. Those who earn more can do more. Some will also be using loans, inheritances, family help etc.