Is anyone else's full wage just going on living expenses?!

I agree things don't seem to last, but part of me wonders if that's because our use of them has changed.

People now have the heating on 24-7. We have instant hot water. We use washers and dryers every single day (or multiple times a day). I suspect in previous generations things weren't used as often or as much?

@CurlyhairedAssassin like you say, there's a difference between basic standards of living going up, and wanting to have everything.

It's normal to have to make sacrifices - lots of families stick with two children, for example, or move out of London, or decide to buy the smaller house if it means a cheaper mortgage and more money to save for holidays.

Having three children in London is never going to be the cheap way of doing things, especially when you're stuck in private rentals. There's a reason so many couples move out of London before having kids!

Well I wouldn't choose to have 3 children whilst renting in the most expensive city in the uk to start.
Sorry op but what do you expect?

On the other hand there is the argument that it's natural for standards of living to get better over time. My parents didn't have central heating growing up. My mum had an outside toilet. She had an inside bathroom but there was no plumbing to it. 😏They NEVER had any sort of holiday whatsoever, never mind a meal out in a restaurant, even for a special occasion. The generation before that would have had an even more hand to mouth basic existence. Times change thankfully.

I guess there's a point, though, where you can only have so much improvement in standard of living before the cost of maintaining it outpaces the average salary. Many people will always aspire to have the kind of lifestyle of the people at the next income bracket up. It's why people on ordinary salaries are willing to pay a fortune to go to a beach club in Ibiza instead of just paying 10 euros for a couple of loungers and an umbrella on a public beach for the day as happened in their parents' generation. More fool them, I say....

I find things dont last as long as they used to. Things like boilers, washing machines, hoovers, ovens etc.

I'm very pro keeping things a long time thougg and most if our stuff is second hand, but we have to hunt out properly old stuff. Sofas are OK at 20 years old, but you don't want foam older than 1988 due to fire risks.

It is, but most other things PP listed aren't - they're choices.

Someone upthread scoffed at me for saying my parents had twenty year old sofas, for example. So many things don't need to be replaced as often as they are.

Internet is a nessary thing nowadays.

I don't think it's that secure housing is a luxury, I think it's more that buying a house in one of the world's most expensive cities while also supporting three young children is a luxury.

Unfortunately, very few people can have everything they want when it comes to family size, career, earning power and location - you generally have to make some sacrifices somewhere along the line.

No the gist is that Op is surprised that her outgoings bills/rent etc add up to one salary and that she's surprised, with 3 DC she can't afford a house deposit in LONDON

Well no shit Sherlock
To everyone else on the thread it's bleeding obvious!

But the OP is in a dual income household - one salary is £50k (top 20 percent of earners) she’s got 3 kids, not 300!
and the gist seems to be she’s got an expectation that’s waaaaaayyyy beyond reasonable. In the 80s and 90s thousands of people with 3 kids in slightly above average earning roles were buying houses, even in London. So secure housing is now considered a luxury???
It’s not the OPs expectation that’s wrong, it’s the housing market. And back in the 70s and 80s most families had 2 or 3 kids. Only children were much rarer.

Back in the old days you only had to compare yourself against Mary from down the road with regards to the latest home designs. Now we are bombarded with stuff on social media.

Absolutely agree with this. It's much easier to be satisfied when you're not comparing yourself to thousands of other families.

The tech industry has increased massively since the 70s and 80s. Everyone wants the latest phones, gadgets, laptops, games, Sky TV and streaming subscriptions, all of which didn't really exist back then. And on that tech we are marketed at CONSTANTLY. BAck in the old days you only had to compare yourself against Mary from down the road with regards to the latest home designs. Now we are bombarded with stuff on social media. People feel the pressure to keep up with the Jones' much more. Add to that agressive advertising of material objects, there are also the lifestyle pressures - eating out at the latest restaurant or going to the latest trendy bar, instagramming yourself at overcrowded scenic spots on a foreign weekend away. etc etc.

I agree with you, people's lifestyles expectations have got too much really. I am sad, however, at the fact we seem to be heading back towards only eating out for dates or special occasions like people did pre 2000. I miss the days of early evening menus which were actually affordable to do regularly "just because".

Yep, my in-laws too

I remember when my grandma died in her nineties about a decade ago and we had to strip her house - except for the oven her kitchen was straight out of the sixties, lol.

All worked perfectly too!

@biscuitsandbooks a kitchen straight out of the 70's and a very retro avocado coloured bathroom suite with very fetching green carpet, lol

My in laws house still has those!

Who said anything about sitting in the dark eating smash?

The point with the sofas is that even though they were old and a bit battered, they were functional so replacing them wasn't necessary. DH and I didn't even own a brand new sofa until five years ago - we just had second hand.

They can aspire to anything, but don't constantly claim we boomers and GenXers had it better. In general we made do with a lot more basic lifestyle.

Agree, but I still feel the threshold at which people feel hard done by / what they feel entitled to, has changed dramatically.

God forbid anyone might want a bit more from life than working and sitting on their 20 year old sofa in the dark, eating fishfingers and smash 😆.

@BettyBardMacDonald I've been called smug on here before for saying DH and I can both afford to work part-time while paying a mortgage and running two cars, but I can also guarantee that most of those people wouldn't even consider buying our home in the location that it's in (or in the state it's in!).

I see the RightMove threads on here and do wonder about the reality that some people seem to live in, lol.

To be fair people under 40 are just as likely to be renting as owning, and op says rent is a major cost for them. so I am not sure they will be putting in new kitchens and bathrooms in their rented homes.

Well said, @biscuitsandbooks

You raise another point about kitchens and bathrooms. Many people consider a 10-15 year old one as in need of costly upgrades. In the "good old days" people made do.

Lifestyle expectations have risen massively in the past 20-30 years.

I got ripped apart the last time I said that on here

I was raised in the nineties and my parents were good earners, but we still had sofas that were 20 years old, a kitchen straight out of the 70's and a very retro avocado coloured bathroom suite with very fetching green carpet, lol.

Days out were bike rides, or walks along the river to play pooh-sticks. I'd occasionally get an ice-cream from the shop but otherwise we packed sandwiches and had hot chocolate from a flask. I remember my dad taking me on a bike ride in one of those kiddy trailers and my mum giving me half a pack of fruit pastilles to last the journey!

If I'd suggest a paid activity on a weekend my dad would have said "when you're paying, you can choose what we do", lol. We often did baking, or "camped" in the garden in a tent, or I played in the wendy house. There's no way they'd have indulged all these trips to zoos or farms or whatever else.

DH and I are quite similar ourselves - modest terrace with an old (but functional) bathroom and kitchen. Old cars that we'll run into the ground. But we have plenty of spare money and no stresses. Our town often comes up on the "shit places to live" threads though

Lifestyle expectations have risen massively in the past 20-30 years.

As a pp said, all this "days out" spending was not a thing for boomers and GenX. We stayed home or visited relatives for the day at weekends.

Food was more basic and takeaways almost unheard of. Clothing more basic. We didn't go abroad. We didn't shop as recreation other than perhaps the occasional boot sale. There was one TV and one phone, of course no internet or streaming subscriptions, no expensive sport or lessons for children and teens, no housecleaner. Pets didn't receive state of the art medical care.

Many families now take all of the above for granted. And feel hard done by if they can't have these things plus a big house and SUV.

Comparing affordability of this lifestyle to some decades ago is ridiculous. (Also interest rates were a lot higher in the past.)

I feel the massive leap in costs has been so rapid it’s caught so many of us out!

Surely it's always been expensive to have three children, especially when you rent and live in London?

Oh chinny reckon!!
What nonsense.
Having 3 children is expensive , feeding, clothing and childcare not to mention the potential drop in wages if one goes PT.
It's infinitely more expensive and difficult to save a deposit - you would have to be from another planet not to realise this.