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

All the posters saying “you should have thought about the COL/renting before having 3 kids”
I feel the massive leap in costs has been so rapid it’s caught so many of us out!
We are having a rapid lifestyle downgrade compared to what we were doing/planning just 5 years ago.
I feel parts of my financial life are unrecognizable from 2019!
mortgage, bills, food and transport and tax are sucking about 75 percent of our earnings, compared to 45 percent 5 years ago, and, as we are self employed our earnings took a battering in Covid and have not recovered, so we have also ended up taking on loads of extra borrowing to “get through”. Get through to what though, god knows!
So, OP, YANBU. And it’s dawning on you that your good salaries are not that good any more. Depressing…..

I look at SM and the life styles of people living there lives out on such mediums and it's no wonder people are living beyond their means.

People find it hard to accept that they either need to cut back or get into debt, as they see their peers "having it all"and think that they can also have that lifestyle.

£50k in London is a relatively low wage

I've just sold my flat and agreed to go into rented as we've not found anywhere to buy. I was shocked when I realised how expensive renting now is. I thought it was expensive when we were renting 10 years ago. Has we not been able to buy, we'd never have lasted in London this long.

Most parents work in the summer holidays and rely on holiday clubs to manage that time.

So your wage is left to use as you wish? Not exactly what your title suggests then.

How much does it cost to buy a house where you live? Because housing costs and childcare are probably what take up the majority of salaries in London.

Rents are ridiculous. I can't imagine trying to live on £50k here and that in itself is outrageous.

£3k a month for a flat where I am and it isn't central London.

We have 2 kids in London, if we only had my DH’s 50k wage then it would almost entirely go on essentials so we are a 2 income family to avoid this.

Well I have just read that someone is paying £2,900 in rent in London. Paid for by UC. That is crazy.

They said in the UK it was a low amount.

This.

I mean, how is this news to you now ?

Also, if I've read it right, you seem to still have all of your wage "spare"

You are in a position of real privilege.
For the first 18 or so years of our marriage, I was literally checking and double checking where every penny had gone. I do mean literally. The concept of having a "spare salary" every month and moaning about it is wild.

Buy time DH - in HE - had permanent job and wouldn't have to move on in few years time - and I'd save bulk of deposit we were early and mid 30s - we had two kids already and wanted the family house.

My Il were outraged we weren't buying the 2 up and 2 down they did then trading up every 5 or 6 years . It would already have been too small for us and as luck would have it 2008 crash would have meant we were stuck for best part of a decade anyway in somewhere too small to start with and we wanted a third child.

They had wanted us to wait to be parents - unlike them parents at 19 and 20 - MIL thinks few year earlier would have been "right" time - DH just turned 50 and I'm only a few years younger.

Different decisions

Yes, younger people didn't need student loans if they just make different decisions 😆😆

Well - it does when you are on your high horse about your ‘choices’ being superior to others.

The point about accumulating equity by the time you were 30… well, yes this is the problem buyers have, silly price inflation meaning the later you get ‘on the ladder’, the more expensive it has become.

As I say different decisions, because I bought at 21, I then sold that house and bought a 2 bed house at 26 with a deposit from the equity of my flat, and then bought a much bigger house at 30 with equity of £200k because house prices have gone up.

Also never took out a student loan, cause I worked flat out whilst at uni to pay for everything so I'd have no student debt.

Different decisions 🤷

As I say different decisions, because I bought at 21, I then sold that house and bought a 2 bed house at 26 with a deposit from the equity of my flat, and then bought a much bigger house at 30 with equity of £200k because house prices have gone up.

Also never took out a student loan, cause I worked flat out whilst at uni to pay for everything so I'd have no student debt.

Different decisions 🤷

Yes,it's horrendous! I don't even have kids but still have virtually nothing left at the end of the month. It all goes on rent, utilities, fuel etc! Bloody depressing 😕

@MidnightPatrol Definitely not the norm but nor is leaving uni with savings.

You can believe me or not, doesn't affect me. I'm telling you how I bought my 1st property, it was a very straight forward process, maybe it varied in different areas

We've ruled out living in London due to costs as long as 20 years ago - despite DH loving it as a PhD student - and large parts of SE or part of midlands I grew up in - just unaffordable house price wise and other costs.

London been losing kids a while now - schools are closing because of it. Kids are expensive - London is expensive - unless you have a huge income/money you can't easily have it all - or not all at same time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2k9l8vjk8o

How did you get 5x a salary of £18k with a 5% deposit in 2012?

That sounds very unlikely.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant

I worked at uni to support myself, my loan was exactly the same as my rent. I didn't buy till I was in my 30s but my deposit was more than 95k...

As others have said it's all about decisions people make to be able to save and go for what they want

We will just have to agree to disagree.

Pretty much both our income goes on bills. We're each left with about £200 "fun money/savings" a month. Fine until something needs fixing/replacing. Never any holidays, never any treats and I'm so overdrawn from making ends meet.

Exactly @MidnightPatrol I would skip the flat stage too if I was a FTB now.

I worked out if I didn't go to university & worked full time in my weekend retail job and if I was just 1 yr older I could have bought a cheap flat in London on a 95% interest only mortgage with a small deposit & I would have made a mint! By the time I left uni and was over 18 things were already different. Plus many people were just very lucky that things worked out & post 08 wasn't like the 80s. Who would advise a young person now to borrow their max on an 100% mortgage or interest only one? There's a reason not many of these exist now!

I bought straight after uni, had £5000 saved and bought a tiny flat for £95k.
I bought in 2012, got 5x my salary of £18k.
I paid rent for 3 uni houses, but it was pretty cheap as the landlord has such a low interest rate, obviously that's harder now as I can imagine rents are higher. But I worked 2 jobs throughout uni to fund my life at uni and save.

As others have said it's all about decisions people make to be able to save and go for what they want

This isn’t a ‘choice’ in quite the way you think.

A one bed flat isn’t much use if you’re 35 and wanting to start a family.

I’d have far preferred to buy a one bed flat in my twenties vs the series of HMOs I lived in - but it wasn’t affordable to buy one, due to both income level and lack of deposit.

People in their 50s now were still able to buy themselves a one bedroom flat on one wage in their twenties, often with 100% mortgages and far lower prices.