Outnumbered - is the lifestyle realistic?

[Mrsemcgregor]

So I’ve been watching Outnumbered on Netflix with my DS (he loves it!) and I’m wondering if the lifestyle they have is achievable in London considering their jobs?

Pete is a teacher in a secondary school and is yet to achieve head of department and Sue is part time in what I assume is an admin/PA type role. I’m hypothesising that their joint income is likely to be around £60k? Maybe £70k. Where I live they would be lucky to be on £50k but I’m adding extra for London wages.

The house they live in is huge! I am not sure where in London it’s meant to be, but their is a scene where Pete mentions problems on the tube so I assume they are within the underground network. It’s 3 stories and at least 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms, a massive kitchen dining area, a garden and a nice sized lounge with a big bay window. Even where I live that would set you back close to £500,000. That house must cost a fortune in London?

Pete’s mum and dad are still alive as is Sue’s dad so I’m assuming no large inheritance, and they mention a mortgage so they haven’t inherited the house.

Can any London mumsnetters confirm or deny that this is realistic?

(I know I have far too much time on my hands and have given this way too much thought )

@changechangychange re:Spaced

Yep, agreed. I meant it as another example of London property that was realistic at the time but in today's world seems completely bizarre.

@formerbabe

It's nothing to do with the dreadful, recent Karen meme and connotations. Regardless of that, it's an odd choice. I've never heard of a child called Karen.

Irl, a child born into that demographic and time frame would be more likely to be an Isobel or Matilda,

We're all the Karen's out there born age 18 and over then

It's a comedy, fictional! Do you think East Enders and Corrie are real life or Only Fools and Horses?.

That series is very old..... I remember it ten - fifteen years ago do I wouldn't even think about comparing it to 2020!!! Hilarious 😂

@rocketspin

I had to google. Karen was the second most popular name in 1974 and in 2019, a grand total of two babies were named Karen.

East enders used to annoy me because of the unfeasible amount of people that seemed to live in each house!

I live in zone 2 in a house not unlike the one they live in. I’ve never thought it or Motherland particularly unrealistic.

There are so many things on tv where the lifestyle the apparent characters are living doesn't seem possible. They can't all have had a substantial inheritance from their fictional relatives! So many programs where people wouldn't have a very high income from the jobs they supposedly do (and they have a few DCs as well) but live in amazing houses, have expensive engagement rings, AGAs, a lot of Denby pottery and White Company clothes....I know it's fiction but I do notice!

The unrealistic one that really got me was the single mother who cleaned buses at night for a living and could afford to send her toddler to Granny Murray's for overnight care in Me Too.

@Chicchicchicchiclana I loved me too!! It made me want to be a bus cleaner years ago. She made it look fun 😂

Entirely possible. We bought for £165 in 93. Worth £1.3m now. Close to the Thames. We’d have their size house if we’d bought in Wimbledon or Teddington types of areas.

@SE13Mummy

“SE London, 20mins walk from the tube and DLR but well connected thanks to four train stations that are closer....... it would now sell for something in the region of £850,000 (terrace, 4 bedrooms, big bay windows).”

Where is that? We are looking to move and that sounds great.

I think they could, if they bought it when they were very young and Sue was working full time before they had kids. Prices started to rise in the late 1990s I think and went up really steeply. I grew up in London but we bought our first place in a commuter town in Surrey in 1997- a small studio flat for just over 30k. Two years later we sold that for 52k and bought a two bedroomed flat for £80 which we sold in 2002 for £140k and moved north. There is currently one on the same street just sold for £275k that needs work doing and a fully done up one for £300k.

[quote NotAnotherUserNumber]@SE13Mummy

“SE London, 20mins walk from the tube and DLR but well connected thanks to four train stations that are closer....... it would now sell for something in the region of £850,000 (terrace, 4 bedrooms, big bay windows).”

Where is that? We are looking to move and that sounds great.[/quote]
I think the clue is in the username .

And as a fellow SE Londoner I'd have to say it might have been possible for the Outnumbered parents to buy that house in our neck of the woods in the late 90s, maybe, but Chiswick is and always was a whole different thing.

No way, on salaries like that no chance. I do not watch the series (no time) so not sure about their area or decor, but DH and I make almost 10x that between us and that's the size house we have.

Their money troubles are a continuing theme so I think that it's fine. It is fiction after all! Though I do love that Hugh & Claire are together in real life now

Maybe it was knackered when purchased and did it up

Agreed. DH and I both said that. They'd be lucky to earn 60k between them.

@NotAnotherUserNumber yep, clue is in the username! Lewisham, Hither Green - you'd need to be on the hospital side of Hither Green Lane, Catford (SE6) would be worth a look.

Given the age of their eldest child they probably bought pre 2000 so it would have been achievable then.

Post 2004 we had lots of immigration and a big surge in the buy to let property market - it has all pushed prices up.

Brackenbury village is a little area in Hammersmith. I worked in an office there for over a year when I graduated (on £13k a year in 2003). There are some lovely restaurants there which we had work do’s at. At the time I rented a 2 bed house in Brentford with 3 others for £1250 per month then rented a 1 bed flat in South Ealing with exH for £850 a month.

@Chicchicchicchiclana, @SE13Mummy

yes realised the username gave it away as soon as a posted!
I am definitely going to look more eastwards.

@MrsExpo

Eermm??? You do know it’s totally fictitious don’t you .... ?

No shit

Maybe 30 years ago but not realistic at all now.

@YogiBearcub

No way, on salaries like that no chance. I do not watch the series (no time) so not sure about their area or decor, but DH and I make almost 10x that between us and that's the size house we have.

What on earth is this post about?

You do realise that we are talking about a series starting 13 years ago?

You've come rushing on to comment on a series you don't watch because you're too busy earning your squillions. Why?