Budget: 'I can't afford to leave home on £1,500 a month' and other claims.

[dessertz]

The BBC are focussing on a few brave volunteers to see how they will be impacted by the budget. Today's headline focuses on a 23 year old apprentice who is hoping for a rise in pay so he can leave home:
BBC News - Budget 2024: 'I can't afford to leave home on £1,500 a month' - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyv8y68e25o. Surely £1500 would be enough to afford a flatshare in Newbury? I mean, it might not stretch to a batchelor pad, but a flatshare should be affordable. It's more than most students live on at the same age. He is being paid reasonably for an entry-level job, and his pay will presumably go up when he qualifies.

The other one I didn't understand (in the same article) is the single mum earning £150k who thinks she is being punished for having children because she's earning too much to qualify for child benefit. 🤔

Hopefully the beeb just took their comments out of context. 🤷‍♀️

Why are people setting the bar so low? A young man of that age should be able to afford a private one bed flat. He just should. People have got so used to our awful housing situation they think it’s normal to pay hundreds to live in a HMO!
The housing situation in this country is an absolute scandal. Go back forty years- 23 year olds in low paid jobs were often married with a baby and managed to live in a small terrace or council flat.

I’m almost 20 years older than him and nobody had their own flat at 22 when I was his age unless they were being subsidised or spending most of their salary on it. We all lived in house or flat shares. So no it’s not a given that someone aged 23 in the south east should definitely be able to afford their own flat.

Similar age to me. I had my own flat at 21. It was cold and old. But I’m in the north where housing used to be more reasonable.

Apprentices and students have always struggled financially.

But the main point that cost of living has increased hugely and it's a lot harder than it used to be, for everyone, is of course valid. We all know that.

Has anyone ever been able to comfortably afford to rent a one bedroom flat, especially in the south east of the U.K, on a modest income? I know I certainly couldn’t back in the early 00’s, which is why I house-shared.

I dont know how far back you are going but 20 years ago as a graduate in my early 20's, no, i couldn't afford a private 1-bed flat? I shared with a couple of mates? And that was entirely the norm. My sibling 7 years earlier likewise lived with friends at this time in his life, it was completely normal?

Why does a 23 year old need a full 1-bed flat to themselves, its good life experience to be living in a 2 or 3 bed learning to co-exist with others.

Yeah I agree it’s probably different in the north. I went to uni in the north in the early to mid 2000s and my rent was dirt cheap. But the north south divide is real and Newbury isn’t cheap. In 2007 when I was living in London, 40-year olds were living in house shares because having your own place was out of the question. I remember when I had to move out of a flatshare and advertise my room on spare room to find a replacement. One of the applicants was a divorced mum. She said that was all she could afford and that her kids were living with their dad because he had a bigger place. I just remember feeling really sad hearing that.

Indeed - and frankly why spend that sort of money to live in an HMO/shabby digs when he can pay an equivalent or less to remain at home and contribute to family/parental finances rather than a grabby landlord/property company?

We’re fully expecting ours to remain at home until midd-late 20’s if they can commute to jobs (London) and focus on saving as much as possible. The token rents we’d ask for will help with the last few years of our mortgage post-retirement, meaning we also get to keep our home for a while longer. Once settled in careers/relationships, we’ll downsize and release some funds for their first house purchases.

DH and I were 27/28 when we bought our first flats each. We’re hoping to scaffold our kids to that.

Back when I was in my 20s I was either living with a partner or in a room in a house.
I lived in Guildford in the mid 90s and was in a couple of houseshares there as was my boyfriend at the time. I didn’t know anyone my age who lived alone.

Also 40 years ago 23 year olds might have left school at 16 and been working 7 years full time and saving up for stuff like a rental deposit. Todays 23 year olds arent comparable, many might have done a gap year til 19, 3 years of uni then a further year doing a masters and be starting a first job aged 23.

Will they take that guy?

For instance, my neighbour let's out a room in her London home for 350pcm including bills. A steal, right?

She will only rent to women she thinks seem conservative and introverted. She doesn't mind your very quiet mousy friend staying for a cup of tea, but you couldn't ever hang out at hers.

Lots of places now interview prospective tenants. Not for their reliability when it comes to finances and cleaning, but to see how up they'd be for board game night on a Wednesday.

Finding a place to live these days can be like being on a dating app. You need to come with your credit score, your best conversation and make early long term commitments.

Also yes a 23 year old with a child might have been in a council flat in the 80s and that’s still the case now. It’s because they have a child and that would make them a higher priority need.
And if we go back really far then that 23 year old might have left school at 14 (my stepdad did and he was born in the 50s) and have been in work for nearly 10 years so owning or renting their own place for their family wouldn’t be surprising.

I guess we have to decide what the standard of living should be for someone earning minimum wage, and work from there.

Do we think that someone on minimum wage, alone, should be able to afford to rent a 1 bed flat? A Bedsit? Or a Room? (note that we'll need a lot more small housing if it's the full flat)

As an apprentice, he does have a reasonable expectation to move out - is it a reasonable expectation to live alone though? I'd say not - I think most of us lived in house shares at that age.

And the high earning single mother does have a point - potentially (depending on how her life with the kids works) - I'm a single mother, with low input from the father, and I work through a limited company for exactly this reason - keeping my salary at a level that optimises my tax burden/other inputs (and my pension benefits as a result). I have no physical support, which gets expensive, but I do get maintenance (which isn't counted against anything) - so I'm in a good mid-spot. A woman with no maintenance and no support is going to have a hard life, no matter what she's earning. I just don't know how you can sensibly legislate for that - which is why I would actually fall on blanket provision without means testing. Means testing is so expensive, that removing it will likely save money, and make plenty of people's lives better - and I don't mind if some of them earn a lot of money.

He isn't in the southeast

DS left home and was taking home that in his first job aged 22. His rent was £500 bills included as a lodger of someone who had a spare bedroom to let.
He also ran a car.
Hr budgeted by setting aside each month what he thought he could get by on. That went into a different account and the rest he saved.

Sorry I thought it said Newbury? That’s in Berkshire right? The link to the article doesn’t work unfortunately so I can’t check. Unless there’s another Newbury in the north.

Dh's father lived with his parents until he married which was 34 years old. He bought a flat in London with his new wife who was 26 in the 1980s, same age as me when we bought our 2 bed tmlondon flat (dh was 29).

What is the difference is we can't really upsize to a terraced house as job stability is an issue (we would rather our mortgage is only 15 to 20% of combined household income) and would only upsize to a slightly bigger flat. Tbh DH's father had lost his job in the 1990s recession so they only upsized cos they needed to with 3 kids and they had help from family to do so. Our generation doesn't have that help plus we have fertility issues which makes the financial risk of upsizing more difficult.

Most people who do apprenticeships, do so straight from school and live with. Mum and Dad for a couple of years. This man was different as he chose to do one later after trying low paid jobs. This small sample of people from the BBC did of course include a trans woman.

She says go back 40 years, most 23 year olds were married and had their own place. It's true just look at your own parents/grandparents I'm not sure why people feel the need to insist rents always been this high.

I'm appalled by this country's housing situation & the HMO's. House sharing used to be for the young/student/just starting out phase but now it's the only option for some. My BIL is in his 30's & working in a factory & pays £675pcm for an admittedly nice room in a shared home. In 1998 I was a full time student with 2 part time jobs & paid £72 per week for a lovely 1 bed flat in the same town (in a nicer area). I appreciate a lot of time has passed since then but as a nation we are going backwards in terms of standard s of living!

Yes north south divide is massive. I grew up in the south and moved up north because it was so much cheaper. But now even in the north, prices seem to be going crazy. We need way more social housing built. Right to buy was a huge mistake or at least poorly implemented.

Yes! We are going backwards.

Yeah right to buy was a joke. There are whole estates in south west London that were originally council housing and are now 100% privately owned, mainly by investors and are let out for extortionate rents to investment bankers, often from overseas, who are in the country for a year or two.

Also not everyone likes the idea of flat sharing house sharing I suffered a few of those in my 20s bloody horrendous and I will do everything in my power to ensure neither of my two ever have to be in a situation where they have to share with anyone else.

Our country has gone to the dogs salaries in the 90s were far better and able to stretch more these days even those on considerable higher salaries are struggling to make ends meet.

And looking at my own they didn't live in the north and they had pretty shit jobs all married with kids and their own place at that age 🤔