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 )

We bought a house in Wandsworth in 1992 for £370,000 - I had equity from the property I sold and used to be a banker. Sold it in 2015 for £4m (ish).

The house I sold for £178,000 and bought for £117,000 in 1986 is worth about £1.5m now.

They wouldn't have needed big deposits for flats in the 80s to have made that house possible.

DS went to few parties with Tiger thingy - similar ages.

I loved Outnumbered. I could certainly identify with the family and the things that went on and adored the children. They reminded me very much of my son and his friends. Karen was a gem.

Their house wasn't huge, it was an ordinary end of terrace with no garage. Something they would have been in for years and improved.

What I find unrealistic is the way they follow the children's lines of thought and never say oh do be quiet.

The house in 2.4 was in Chiswick wasn't it? Bill and Ben did manual jobs as well. Don't ask me how I remember this stuff 😂

We bought our first house in chiswick in 1991 - 3 bed victorian terrace and cost £165,000. Its recently been extended into the roof so 4 bed with large kitchen/diner last marketed at £1.3m a couple of years ago.

I think DH was earning about £60-70k when we bought it.

2.4 Children*

Tv houses are always really spacious so they can fit the cameras in. You see it on early Come Dine With Me where the cameras are about 2 inches away from peoples’ faces in a normal sized house

typical bbc

I thought there was a mention in one episode of them having started out as squatters in the house, or am I imagining it?

So in 2007 it didn’t seem jarring and fantastical?

Very interesting how things have changed. Not just in London, that house in my area would only be achievable by people earning £100k plus and I’m nowhere near London.

@Mrsemcgregor - no. Our DC went to a lovely leafy cofe in that area in the 2000's. There was a clutch of similar parents earning quite similar who had been given a leg up by mummy and daddy, quite left wing, not very organised and frankly a bit chippy and whingey.

I love the house in outnumbered but even here in slightly unfashionable se london it would probably be close to a million. They might have bought it cheaper years ago, but irl, those people usually sell up, release equity and move out to zone 6

I think it is possible. All of my parent friends who are pushing 50 got married/had kids around 30-35 so had careers and homes separately before they met, so two properties for potential mortgage and reasonably well paid jobs before kids allowing for one of them to either stay at home for some time or go back part time to either the same career or something different.

We on the other hand got married and had kids younger and don't have a house like that in spite of a similarish income now.

@OrigamiPenguinArmy

My BIL and his wife bought a three bed semi ex council house in Hays in the 90s. The had three children and would have been on the same kinds of salaries as Sue and Pete. That would probably have been more realistic.

"Hayes" Middx?

They won't have had student loans to repay.

Do we ever find out what Sue did pre kids? I bet it was full of potential and got them a big mortgage... and then she had kids. 3 kids, and buggered it all up. Just like many of Mumsnet!

I can imagine, as others have said, if it was bought in the 90’s, maybe before Jake was born so Sue was working full time then it is doable.

We love Outnumbered but we also used to have the conversation about the characters not being able to afford the house.

However a few years ago a young family moved into a house in our road which was £1.5million. Hes a uni lecturer and she works p/t for a consultancy. They have sent their dc to private schools. Dh and I are forever speculating on how they manage it.

I live in a fancy bit of London, everyone I know lives in a 2 bed flat!

People who have big semis (that sounds rude ha) inherited money. An average sized family home around me is a million. I don't believe all of them have millionaire style jobs!

Our household income is well over 100k and we rent 😅. Hope to be on property ladder in next 5 years.

If they bought in the early/mid 90s, then it would have been possible.

My DC are in their early 20s and we have lived in the area since before they were born. We are/were both public sector and friends have similar occupations.

Young couples moving into the area are clearly a lot better off. The first thing they do is get the builders in and start ripping out walls. Smarter cars, second homes, different eating out lifestyles, nannies and automatic decisions to head for private schools.

They are different, and seem to belong to a different, more monied class. I don't know how they earn their money as "consultant" does not tell you a lot, but they are clearly not from the public sector.

We survived bringing up children in central London, but until our (low) mortgage was paid off, we always felt we were living like students. Essentially till the age of 50. Even though we have been in our house for over 20 years we still have the previous owners kitchen, baths, and curtains. We only replaced the carpets and wallpaper recently. Shabby chic rules.

That said, friends of DDs are often amazed that she lives in an actual house. They assume we are rich. Property rich, cash poor perhaps.

I'd always assumed that they had both separately owned smaller properties/flats that they had made good profits on that gave them equity towards a house - I made 30k on a one bed flat in a grotty part of zone 5 buying in 1998 selling in 2000. DH made about 50k in about five years on his ex-council two up two down - that is how we were able to buy a three bed house together.

I was coming to mention Catastrophe but see others have noticed the same too.

Lots of my local friends moved to where we live now after growing up in Chiswick as it’s unaffordable- these are people 40-55 in age so it’s totally unrealistic to me.

Maybe they inherited from grandparents?

I don't think it's realistic- not on a history teacher's salary and a part time admin staff salary. The work done to the house is quite extensive too- so no I think it's far fetched.
Not the right thread I know, but when I watched Afterlife, I remember questioning how someone like Ricky's character could afford a lovely house like he did, with the job he had.

In the 80s if you lived in a Housing Association property you could get a "grant" (can't remember what it was called now) from the government to encourage you to buy somewhere and free up social housing.

We got a substantial amount - it was about a quarter of the cost of our first London flat which we couldn't otherwise have afforded.

If you sold within the first three years you had to pay back a proportion on a sliding scale, but after three years you didn't have to pay back a single penny.