How many of you have made it?

[washerdrier]

Another thread about spending money and saving for a deposit to buy a house got me thinking about how so many people seem to be in a situation where they're either renting and saving to buy, just married and saving to have kids or in some other way squirrelling money away for the next stage...

I feel like the generations before us didn't really live like this.

I just wondered by show of hands how many of us have made it... I.e. completed their family, in their forever home, pensions ticking along, fun money available each week. Vs how many of us are still striving to get there? Bonus points for sharing your age.

Financially I haven't really made it. However, recent events in our family have made me realise we have so much and I'm very happy with our lot. We have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, our health and 3 wonderful DCs. I'm worried about scrambling for the next thing, yet never really appreciating what I've already got.

Married happily for twenty years, together for thirty. Two older teens, no trouble.
DH is a high earner, mmm, my job is ok. I work pt.
Mortgage paid off at 44 due to inheritance (tragic) and comfortably off.
Forever home, absolutely.
Almost 50, both plan to retire at 55 and looking good to do so.
Everything can change in an instant though, my recent past has taught me that. I take nothing for granted.

37, married with two DC.

We moved into our forever home in August. We have never rented but our first two houses were cheap and cheerful as we knew would move up the property ladder. When I speak to the younger people at work now they seem to want their first house to be an insta worthy four bed detatched and then complain how expensive they are and how they will never get on the property ladder.

No financial help from family (both our parents do ok but no spare cash and I wouldn't expect it).

Happy enough with my job although it isn't my dream job it pays very well and is flexible.

I don't have friends though so I suppose that is lacking. Having my children floored me and I think alienated me from a lot of people I knew previously.

I have some back and muscular issues and have recently been referred for cancer investigation so my health status is 'to be determined' although I feel healthy and fine.

I feel as if I have made it and that is fine with me.

I feel I've made it. I'm happy with my lot.

55, dh retired at 58, I am back at work. Spent time abroad where we overpaid the mortgage here whilst renting there, and paid it off and all the debts before dh retired. Had the house since 1992.

One ds, who still lives at home, but pointless trying to rent when he could be at home and save lots. Have everything we need and most of what we want. No worries about paying the oil bill or the food bill. Ds has no student debt at all.

We have a good amount of savings, both drive second hand cars and we could live more frugally than we do.

We have the money to upgrade the house if needed as it was let whilst we were abroad, so there things that need doing. I'm working to pay for sash windows/make up my NICs to get as much state pension as possible, and to build up a third occupational pension.

Firesidefox
But 'travel and hobbies' for maybe 30, 40-odd years @ThelmaMadine ? I'd kill myself! sounds a bit drastic!

41 and likely never to buy as can’t save enough for a deposit.

Have lovely dc and Both have good jobs.

I am happy.

I feel like the generations before us didn't really live like this

Of course they did.

FFS.

OK, I will try not to be cross.

I am in my 60s and have always worked in the educational / charity sector. I am technically a baby boomer but I have no massive pension, and through saving and living thriftily now have a very modest terrace house.

Saved for deposit on my first tiny flat, bought when I was 28. It really was tiny.

Saved for my first car, couldn’t afford to run one til I was 36.

No work pension contributions until it became compulsory by law. Have been saving like mad in the last few years to be able to afford to retire on a bit above state pension.

My parents saved in order to afford to get married and didn’t do so until they could afford to leave their parents’ homes. They didn’t have a car until I was 5, saved for a colour TV when I was 14. And my Dad was a ‘professional’.

Oh PLEASE. It isn’t the same, please don’t pretend it is. Me and my husband earn over 100K but have a 4 kids in a 2 bed rental. We have only just got a deposit together (we are 38/39) and we’re having to move out of our town because we can’t afford to save 50k for a deposit while paying over 2k rent. Our mortgage will be 2000 because of our age, we can only get a fairly short one. We both work full time and nursery costs are 1600 a month each for the youngest kids. This is standard in the south. It was not standard even a decade ago, let’s not pretend it was.

@Lokdok

Oh PLEASE. It isn’t the same, please don’t pretend it is. Me and my husband earn over 100K but have a 4 kids in a 2 bed rental. We have only just got a deposit together (we are 38/39) and we’re having to move out of our town because we can’t afford to save 50k for a deposit while paying over 2k rent. Our mortgage will be 2000 because of our age, we can only get a fairly short one. We both work full time and nursery costs are 1600 a month each for the youngest kids. This is standard in the south. It was not standard even a decade ago, let’s not pretend it was.

I'm glad someone is honest. There's so much change I'm not sure why there's always house price arguments on MN with comparing today and our parents era. Other things were harder back then but it was different times!

Most families today cannot live off of one wage? Back in the days it was the norm that you live off your husbands wage what does this alone tell you.

I've made it according to your requirements. Would have done so at 34 when I had my second child and family complete. I'm now 36. I work pt husband works ft.

I bought my first house at 22 and I'm in Scotland so it's a lot cheaper. We have about 60% equity in our house it's 4bed detached worth about £230K.

I've never struggled for money but I've always been very sensible with it. Even when I started working and earned very little I was able to save and buy a £4K car when I passed my test at 18.

^^Most families today cannot live off of one wage? Back in the days it was the norm that you live off your husbands wage what does this alone tell you.

It tells me that many families had to live off one wage even though this meant no holidays, old, unreliable car, very very careful budgeting re food and heat, no new clothes for adults, secondhand furniture, etc. There was no childcare available and not much help, if any, from grandparents . It was the norm for many people though. It was for me , this was in the seventies and I can't remember feeling hard done to. Most people I knew lived in a similar manner. I don't think things are easier for young families these days though. Just different and harder in other ways.

We have a house that’s big enough and it’s paid off. We worked hard for it, but the challenge was nothing like what people face today because house prices have risen so much faster than wages.
Three quarters of the equity in our house is not from earned income, but from the change in house prices since we first bought. It’s not about hard work, it’s about luck.

I won't lie I'm very happy to live in my generation overall with everything considered, however, I'm increasingly seeing interest rates from decades gone as a reason we should be grateful, do people not realise how much more we are needing to borrow these days due to house prices and the wage stagnation alongside that. Proportionally house prices are so much higher vs wages than they used to be. It must have been incredibly stressful with rate rises, but it doesn't mitigate the difficulties of getting on the ladder these days.

@Firesidefox

But 'travel and hobbies' for maybe 30, 40-odd years *@ThelmaMadine* ? I'd kill myself!

You really, really need to get better hobbies.

@Lokdok

Oh PLEASE. It isn’t the same, please don’t pretend it is. Me and my husband earn over 100K but have a 4 kids in a 2 bed rental. We have only just got a deposit together (we are 38/39) and we’re having to move out of our town because we can’t afford to save 50k for a deposit while paying over 2k rent. Our mortgage will be 2000 because of our age, we can only get a fairly short one. We both work full time and nursery costs are 1600 a month each for the youngest kids. This is standard in the south. It was not standard even a decade ago, let’s not pretend it was.

I agree: housing is a much bigger issue for our young people than it was a generation ago. It has been very very hard in London for a long time and that has now spread.

BUT I bought my first flat on a mortgage that had 9% interest, and that rise to 13% at one horrifying period.

There were no free nursery hours when my kids were small. But we needed 2 salaries to run a family home. As I said, I had no pension contributions.

It isn’t the same, housing now is much harder, but the whole financial landscape has also changed, and it simply is not true that people didn’t used to have to save, or didn’t struggle, as the OP supposes.

Expectations have also changed. And whilst I look in horror at the housing lists and women in emergency housing and feeling unable to leave abusive relationships because of the lack of affordable housing, I also roll my eyes at the many posts about houses linked on Rightmove about ‘needs a new kitchen’ ‘bathroom tired / dated’ when they are up to date snd in very good condition, and the number of huge cars with expensive features like heated seats etc.

The goalposts of ‘made it’ have changed.

What hasn’t changed, snd seems to be getting worse, is the polarity between the struggling and the wealthy.

I own my house now, am grateful to have ‘made it’ in that way, and to have a standard of living that is perfectly liveable. But the massive inflated value of my house is no use to my kids, as I have to live in it. It will be really tough for them paying for housing, whether rented or bought.

@Firesidefox

But 'travel and hobbies' for maybe 30, 40-odd years *@ThelmaMadine* ? I'd kill myself!

Or maybe, you know, find something else you’d like to do…?

Surely you’re not so unimaginative that you’re unable to think of things that would happily fill your time but at your own pace?

Reading, pets, gardening, sky-diving, mentoring, foraging, volunteering, swinging, crochet… it’s a big world out there.

What are you going to do if you retire at 65 and live to be 95? How will you fill those 30 years?

I’m 53. 11 years left on a mortgage. Would have had enough to have no mortgage if we hadn’t sold at the very worst time in Ireland. But good salary now and ok pension, and like this house much better than the Irish one. Would love to retire. Feel tired after working fulltime for 27 years, but no chance for another 11 years.

We are finally there now but took us until our late 30's - I think about 38 or 39. 43 now and hoping it doesn't all go wrong!

When I was young, DM couldn't work because there was no childcare. DF had a company car and DM had a really crappy one (always very old and often unreliable, the worst had a plank across the back floor to prevent small DCs falling out through the 2 holes onto the road.....but even the best was quite bad). We went to the big city for our weekly shop as the company car had petrol and they could go to the decent supermarket rather than paying village store prices, and also go to the free library weekly. They would buy half a cow in the summer and freeze it for winter meat. We grew a heck of a lot of our own veg, and fair amount of our own fruit. And would buy apples in bulk from a fruit farm, and other veg in bulk from a local farmer. Cakes or buns were only ever in the house if DM (or a DC) had baked - never from the shop. We foraged in the hedges for wild strawberries, blackberries, damsons etc.

We did have a holiday every year - in a SC house in this country, with HM picnics for every outing, which were mostly trips into the countryside or to the beach near there. The first time I was on a plane was for my honeymoon.

DM sewed a LOT of our clothes, there was also a lot of hand-down clothes for younger DSiblings, and we also got hand-downs from DAunts as we grew big enough for those.

DF did the maintenance on the house, and when he needed to extend into the attic, he did most of the work himself with a couple of neighbours. Painting, plumbing, plastering, electrics, woodworking - he did it all.

We had times when dinner was bread and butter. And school lunches were an apple for break and another apple for lunch.

Yes, they had bought the house we lived in, but at interest rates of 17% and no hope of moving anywhere better or bigger. We didn't ask for money as we knew there was none there for books or toys or clothes from a shop or sweets - I had a weekend job to pay for clothes that weren't my school uniform and occasionally going to the pub when I was a teen.

And on nursery costs, mine were 1400 a month when DD was in creche - 15 years ago now. Yes, I was lucky it had changed that creche was available so I could stay at work, but that was still less than the cost of the mortgage (2400 per month) that DH was covering - for a very average 3 bed semi, and a full 25 year term.

So it's not so different for previous generations.

I'm retired.

Spent my 20s and early 30s saving for things I wanted, first travel, then to buy a house. Worked for several years at three jobs - one full time, another several evening shifts a week, another alternating one 12 hour shift at the weekend, next weekend 2 12 hour shifts. Didn't eat out, didn't have 'treats', or travel or have takeaway coffees, practically never bought new clothes, music, books etc (used the library and my one, secondhand, radio). Eventually managed the deposit for a mortgage. Made sure I owned my home and was married before I had children.

I've been told on Mumsnet I'm quite unreasonable to suggest that people should do this nowadays. 'Giving up a few coffees won't raise a deposit'. True, but the whole package will.

Well, I have made it to 63, we were lucky to have bought a terrace house for £14k in 1984 and then sell it for a 3 bed detached, bought for £65k in 1997 that we are still in, mortgage paid off about 10 years ago, we were lucky to have had final salary pensions so we could retire at 60, I am a lowish earner who has worked full and part time on and off, DH was middle income, one child by choice and can now afford to give him a little help to buy a house

We didn't spend much though on furniture and kitchens in our first house like people do nowadays, most furniture was given or second hand and a bit mismatched, kitchen was basic but clean and the previous owner left us the gas cooker

I feel like I have ‘made it’. Mostly because I am very happy and financially secure, and have nothing to really keep me awake at night (except my baby…).

I don’t think our house is our ‘forever home’ (if such a thing exists) but we own it, it’s a lovely house, and we are very happy here.

We have a perfect baby who we just adore. I don’t know if we will have another (currently feeling quite content with one), but we can afford another if we choose to have one.

I have a reasonably prestigious and well paid job. Have just been given a promotion and chunky pay rise. I enjoy my job and it is very secure.

We both pay generously into our pensions each month, save £500 (plus £200 in the baby’s savings account), have money for holidays / lunches / activities / fun things. Will probably send our child to private secondary. No debt save our mortgage. Have about 6 months living expenses in savings.

I’m 33.

I want to be clear that we have achieved this through enormous privilege and lucky circumstance. We’re both hard workers, but we’re as secure as we are because we both have wealthy parents who paid for our education, supported us through university so we didn’t have to take on debt, paid for our wedding, gave us money for our house deposit, gave us furniture and other support. We have also both had modest but very helpful inheritances which enabled us to clear debt and build up our savings.

I’m not saying this to brag, though it may come across that way. I just didn’t want to give the impression that this is a ‘pulled up by the bootstraps’ situation. Most people I know my age who own houses and are financially very secure had a lot of help from parents, like we did, and I am so aware of how lucky we are and how unfair it is for other people who work just as hard and are just as capable as us but don’t have the advantages we do.

I think OP you would put me and my DH into the generation that had it easier bracket.
We're 50, 5 years on mortgage, earn £80k plus. No childcare, free uni etc.
But trust me, when I was earing 8k full time wage and had to live at home it didnt feel easy.
I had to retrain, buy via housing association, work 2 jobs, return to work full time after 9 months. Work really, really hard.
We're ok now, but paid our dues.