Roughly when did one salary stop being enough to comfortably sustain an average family?

[keswickgirl]

I realise there won’t be one exact year of course. All I know is that my dad bought a very nice 4 bedroomed house on a headteacher’s salary in the early 90s, my mum didn't work and my sister and I had very comfortable childhoods. UK holiday every year and abroad every few years. Pets, dancing, swimming, piano, tennis lessons.

30 years later, it’s such a different story. Roughly when did things change?

Early 90s up north plenty of friends bought in their early 20s on a single salary, no degree or student debt though. Later 90s more difficult.

I’d also say the 80’s.

Credit cards were introduced in preceding years (barclaycard 1966) and by the 1980s there was a different expectation of what life might be like. LoadsaMoney mindset. Right to buy started in 1980. There was tax relief on mortgages. House prices have climbed like this…

One salary sustaining an entire family was a pretty short lived period probs around 1900-1990ish. Historically women and children/teens have always worked to support the family, its just their jobs were often in the home or undocumented - taking in laundry, looking after other family's babies, sewing etc. Piecemeal work that nonetheless was crucial to a family's survival. It was very normal for teens to be sent out to work at 14 and to give their wages to their parents to contribute to the family upkeep.

We bought in the 70s and they did take my salary into account. My parents and my DHs parents could never afford to buy, We were the first generation in our families to get further education and more middle class jobs.

It's very location dependent. You could do that now where I live, 4 bed detacheds start at just over 200k. Most people don't want to live in rural Scotland though.

You could do that on a headteacher's salary now in many places.

People's expectations of normal spends are so much higher now too, a foreign holiday every few years wouldn't be normal now, people take multiple weekends away as well as 1-2 bigger trips annually. Eating out & takeaways / deliveries have become far, far more prevalent, houses 'need' updating far more frequently and with more expensive stuff (no make do and mend), phone costs, TV costs, volume of clothes most people own, gym membership, beauty spends, days and nights out, the list of increased outgoings is tremendous.

ETA - car costs - so many expect a new car (each), on the never never, every couple of years rather than saving up, buying second hand and making it last.

Sorry image here

And only applied to the relatively wealthy then, many people lived in abject poverty, slums, no education and child labour.

When people started expecting to dine out/get takeaway weekly, wear contacts instead of eyeglasses, have lots of clothing and footwear, tattoos, elaborate hair and nail art, own cars, travel abroad, have tech and gaming consoles, pets with costly vet care, expensive sport & extracurriculars for kids, homes with newly fitted kitchens, tumble dryers, and myriad other lifestyle enhancements that were unheard of in the “days you could support a family on one income.”

None of the above was the norm back then. People led far more modest lifestyles. Now the one described above is what people consider baseline normal.

I take your point that I was much luckier than average. But a trend is a trend?

If thinking of headteacher standards of living isn’t very meaningful to you, there are probably parallel examples where families that needed a dual income 30 years ago to buy a house, would today be working multiple jobs and still not be able to get on the property ladder, or even rent a big enough place.

I was just wondering when things changed and why.

Thie sounds more like lifestyle choices. A headteacher salary is what - at least £80k? Well above average salary level. Two incomes in that ball park shouldn’t be a struggle unless they bough a very expensive house:

But you can’t economise in the same way now. Rent is extortionate. Goods are not easy to repair. Cheap clothes etc are not well made . If you have money you can buy good quality stuff that lasts but if you are skint you have to buy the cheap toaster, not the Dualit.

More than one TV and landline phone, basic dog grooming and foreign holidays were perfectly normal for a middle middle class (head teacher’s) family in the 80 and 90s.

Childcare is essential for two working parents, it’s not a luxury.

Dog walking other than for emergencies is still seen as a luxury, as is fancy dog grooming. Most people don’t have them.

Exactly. My grandmothers born 1910 and 1917 always worked for pay, as did my mum born 1938 and every other woman in my extended family. And still had modest lifestyles.

What non-wealthy people expect nowadays is off the charts in terms of lifestyle and spending.

I guess you don’t live in London or the South East.

My parents both worked in the 70’s and we took in student lodgers for a number of years. Most of my friends parents worked too.

I would say 80s as well. Dad worked hard, mum looked after us two, but she was doing a degree at the OU too, to get a better job. She did the course for a reduced fee because we didn't have a pot to piss in. She started working when I was 8, so about 1985-ish. It improved our lives by taking us on holiday to Spain and getting the house refurbished.

I'm on my own, and I struggle. I'm moving to a cheaper area to get more for my money.

It depends very much where you live.
Around here, you can buy a well-maintained or new 4-bed detached on a single HT's salary.

In London. not so much.

I think late 90s. I worked pt after having DC, husband had a good salary and we could easily have afforded for me to give up work.
Late 90s I realised we needed my pt salary not just for holidays and treats, but to live quite comfortably.

House prices are the major factor. They have risen exponentially since the end of the 1970s.

This is from Financial Reporter in 2023.
"So far this decade, the average house price has hit £286,489, 318% higher than the average seen throughout the 70s. While the average earnings has also increased to £32,432, this marks just a 94% increase in earnings.

As a result, the average homebuyer today requires 8.8 times income to cover the cost of a home, with this income to house price ratio more than doubling since the 1970s (+4.7)."

Literally tonnes of well made tailored clothes are available in charity shops, Vinted, etc.

Rent is what the market will bear. People in past generations would rent rooms as lodgers, not expect all mod cons with an extra bedroom to use as an office, on one income, in their 20s.

Growing up in the 80s both my parents worked full time. We had a family of 4 in a 2 bedroomed house in a cheap part of the UK. For them buying a 4 bedroomed property was not achievable even then on their combined wage. A headteachers salary back then certainly wasn't an average salary.

I’d say around the time we got married early 2000, we could have afforded our rent maybe on a 45+ salary but from then onwards with children and costs we’ve both worked, I had no choice to be a SAHM and we were in the south east.

DH and I bought our first house when we got married in 1996. We calculated the mortgage we could borrow based on three times one salary because we knew we wanted to start a family within a year or two and didn't want to be reliant on two salaries. The plan was for me to take a formal 5 year career break ( this involved going into the office for training once a year to keep updated with systems and processes)

We could have borrowed much more and bought a bigger house or one in nicer area. We were both account managers in a high street bank on very average salaries at the time. We bought a small three bed semi with a 10% deposit.

It all seemed so easy back then compared to what young people have to go through these days. I don't even know how my son will be able to buy a home on two salaries let alone on his own.

How many more people are there compared to 1970?