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?

Probably the 1970s. Even then, you would struggle at first. Bought my first home in 1984 and 5 we struggled at interest rates were 10% and by 1990 15%. Very little childcare provision and nursery took my entire wages, working for the civil service. I think the lack of social housing and reasonable rents was a huge factor. However my parents couldn't get a council house in the 1950s though.

Slow creep. Somewhere in the noughties houses started outstripping wages.

How would a person without a job or income be credibly considered able to assume responsibility for a mortgage?

There is no reason they couldn’t have been on the deeds. My grandmother owned a house and a small shop pre WWII, in her own name.

You can still do that on a head teachers salary. Your childhood was not average, as head teacher salary wasn't an average salary.

We bought our first home, a 1 bed in South East, in late 1978 and we both had to work to pay the mortgage which had high interest rates. Money was very tight.
We moved a couple of times in the 80s still with both of us working but as we progressed in our jobs and interest rates fell things became a lot easier.

Whilst women could own property in their own right from the late 1800s.
There was a lot of discrimination

See this after a quick Google question.
Shocking isn’t it

Of note. My dh was added to my bank account as we decided to use it as a joint account. This was about 2005. His name was put first on the account. After I’d held it on my own since 1985! Plus my surname begins with a D and his a W…..so not alphabetical then!

I also bought a property just a few years ago and after two years added dh to the deeds. Again surprise surprise his name is put first again.

I bet if you all look at anything joint and if you have different surnames
the man’s name always come first. Whether it’s mortgages, banks or utilities they are all the same!

The waiting list for a council house in glasgow in the 50s was 20 years.

I dont think many families ever really managed on one salary. My mum always worked throughout 70s and 80s as did all my friends mums. Perhaps professional families did but certainly not working class.

My parents struggled on one wage in 80s - so DMum found work round school hours - at one point having 2 and short while 3 p/t jobs.

It's about when house prices started to climb due to economics of time - I think it was easier to borrow than previously.

The situations hard to quantify as there's been a flip - in 80s the consumerables and electronics and eating out were expensive relative to wages - and housing and other essentials cheaper - that's flipped.

So when people go on about smart phones and avocado toast it's based on past when similar items were hugley expensive compared to wages - and not having such things could be difference between buying and not - where as now it's not as clear cut.

I've seen some economists say it also consides with us selling of state assets - so over time the profits have gone to private share holders and governments have had to increasingly raise taxes. Plus now we have aging population higher medical costs with NHS - and decreasing worker base to tax - plus we previously had a housing crisis in UK and poltical concensuse for decades was private sector won't meet so build social and encouage more houses build - that went in 80s as well.

Since then it's been slow boiled frog sitiuation with some upturns and big downturns 2007/8 I don't think UK economy has every recovered from.

It was obviously going that way in the late 90s I think.

Intergenerational wealth plays a huge role in people’s standard of living and complicates things when you look at an individual level.

If your family can give you a deposit, or cheap/free accommodation to save one, your mortgage will probanly be less and you’ll be on the ladder quicker which makes it much easier to sustain a family on one wage when kids arrive.

I think the 90s were when things really started to get tough and two salaries were needed. My parents lost our house in 1994.

Then the crash of 2008 followed by the huge rise in house prices meant 2 salaries by then were vital. Whilst we did live on DHs salary alone from 2011-2019 it was incredibly hard and we were barely above the breadline despite DH having a good career in the police.

We didn't get comfortable until I started working again.

My parents bought their first house on the early 80’s. It cost £9k and was a three bedroom terrace. My mum went back to work when I was in primary 3 part time and stayed part time until she too early retirement to care for my Dad. We had very little disposable money but they bot were heavy chain smokers and my dad was a functioning alcoholic so we might have been better off if they didn’t smoke and he didn’t drink.

My working class grandparents - one in council house - one owning a quite expensive house by time of their deaths - both worked full time - the home owning one there were two full time jobs and GF worked an evening one as well.

That was late 40 and 50s - and both my parents had to work from 15 - 16 and hand over wages and get given pin money back. They had us late 70s and it was Mum working and saving that put togther bulk of the house deposit - we left home later due to education and entered full time work later as well.

My parents were both latch key kids from from my eyes very young ages. So in that respect DMum working p/t round kids - was a step up.

Is it definitely true that it wouldn't be possible now though? In the 80s when it was possible, we had no mobile phone bills, no subscriptions to netflix or amazon or Spotify, we had one actually-new set of clothes per year and the rest of the time made do with handme-downs, second hand/charity shops etc, and a takeaway was a rare treat, it was very rare for a family to run two cars and the car you had certainly wouldn't be on one of the lease-deals that are so common now with monthly payments of hundreds of pounds, and I remember my mum spending a lot of her time carefully comparing which shop sold the cheapest of each thing we needed and would take a long time doing the rounds of different shops to get the week's shopping at the lowest possible price. Leisure activities were always "free" things - no bowling or softplay centres or laserquest, we went to the cinema if it was someone's birthday but not otherwise. Very few of the modern comveniences that make life nicer but cost a bit, and they all add up.

It does take two salaries to sustain our 21st Century lifestyle but I do think if we eschewed all the extras that simply weren't available in 1980 we might well be able to make ends meet with just one.

My parents bought a three bedroom terraced house, and later a semi detached with gardens and drive whist raising five children on a single tradesman salary during the 80's/90's. Not a huge amount of money spare, but we managed a couple of UK breaks every year, lots of cheap days out etc.

It just depends on the job. My MIL and FIL, who would be well into their 90's if they were both alive, always both worked as tram drivers, even in the 1950s. My mum didn't, ever, DF earned quite well. So many things to consider. DH never had childcare - as a four year old he was expected to keep an eye on his baby sister if parents hadn't been able to. Frequently lost her too (she survived). I bought my first flat in 1984 for £55K (London), I was so broke, earning £14,000, I think the repayments were about £350 pm. Expectations of a life were very different. Credit conditions were looser though, if you had a job you could get a mortgage a you felt compelled to. Until the crash, obviously.

@MarkWithaC not sure what your parents were doing but a deputy head should have been able to keep a one-child family. Unless you were at private school?

I was a teenager in the 80s, one of 6. My dad was a local government officer and my mum a part-time solicitors' clerk. Not sure of the exact figures but I'm pretty certain that between them they earnt less than a deputy headteacher. (My oldest sister got a full grant, and as number 4 I got 90%)

I was pregnant at 29 in 1995 and gave up work for a couple of years. Bought a four bed semi in South London for 90 k his salary - he earned around 29K at this stage. I chose to go back to work when DD was 2 but we could have managed financially if I hadn’t. Retrospectively I’m very glad I did as now have decent Teachers Pension. When I did go back full time childminder was only 65 pw so on two salaries totalling about 42 k we felt pretty well off.

But how does your friends lifestyle compare to that of your family? As an old person it seems that now families expect to have more, tech, eating out, holidays, activities and so on. A family in the early '90s would probably not be eating out except special occasions, would not be sending for take-away meals regularly and would have one holiday, UK or abroad, per year.

Your parents bought their house in 1968 for £14k on one salary
Mine bought theirs in 1966 for £4k but needed two salaries
Dhs parents bought in 1964 for £2.5k on one salary ( but had income from a previous sale as well )

Im guessing your father was on a good salary ? To afford £14k

What’s interesting is the price increases
£14k is now worth £600k
£4k is now worth £450k ( but this area, ie my parents, has become more of a London commuter town )

Any idea how much your grandparents bought for the the 40s

Apologies for the derail here but this is so interesting as we rarely see what houses sold for this far back.

When women were expected to also work ft

Even free childcare - once kids are here can help as well.

My MIL went on a lot when our kids were young about how she was working full time when DH was very young but forgets to mention the free family childcare she had access to which we just didn't.

She cut back once DH was in infant school - as that fitted less well - but could do so with less impact on their lifestyle as had two wages longer.

I very definitely didn't go to private school!

'should have been able' is kind of my point; I think it's simplistic to say that back in the past one salary was always enough, and now it never is. I don't know the details of any debts my parents had, or if they were paying over the odds for the mortgage or anything, but they're both quite sensible with money, so I don't think they'd screwed anything up.

During my childhood, we moved from a fairly expensive part of the UK to a cheaper one, and after some tough years things did get better. But you would think that salaries would reflect the area we lived in. And we certainly didn't live in a fancy house; it was a fairly crappy new build that I can't see being all that expensive.

Are you certain your parents bought their house purely on their own income? An inheritance or helping deposit etc from family could have made a massive difference to their security and you wouldn't necessarily have been aware of it

you could still do that now in south wales, if one of you earnt a decent wage. Mainly because you can buy 3 bed houses for 100k.