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?

In the UK
It was called the Marriage bar

I’m a single parent, my one wage is enough to run my home, feed and clothe all of us and afford a decent standard of living. It has to be cos that’s what I’ve got coming in.

I was born in the 50s into first a private rent and then a council house.
Husband and I bought our first 3 bed terraced in 1979 with 2 wages. Moved to 3 bed semi in 1988 on one wage and still here! Brought our 3 children up here.
I do think we lived much more frugally than people do now

When people started expecting to have constant takeaways and meals out, foreign holidays, mobile phones, central heating, loads of clothes, paying to have their nails and eyebrows done, wanting the latest car, buying ready meals etc etc.

My mum was thrown out of her STEM job in 1959.
I think secretaries were deemed acceptable as married even by then, cos it was “women’s work” …ironic as secretatires in Victorian age were always men !

I was a sahm to my firstborn in 1998 until she was 4 and it was manageable. Her dad was on a fairly good salary ( self employed builder) and we lived in a cheap area though. Different story in 2016 when last child born , mind you we had upgraded to a nicer more expensive area. Felt worse off with two salaries than it seemed 15 years earlier on one.

Mid eighties maybe as I had a reasonable job and struggled when not living with a partner who also worked.

My MIL lost her job in the early 50s because she married.
She was a legal secretary in London

( something MNetters conveniently forget about when there’s a thread on pensioners and lack of private pensions. This sexist crap was still happening into the 70s for some )

Mother in law was always a SAHM and father in law didn't even have a well paid job.

My parents ran a business together, dad was full-time (oversaw day to day running, managed the staff etc), mum part-time (did the wages, VAT, invoices, fetching stuff). They were both always talking strategy and business planning (back of envelope costings).

I have an auntie 10 years younger than my mum, she had children in 1993 and 1995, she returned to work part-time after both of hers. Her husband worked full-time. Perhaps it was mid 90s it changed.

My parents were always broke, in the 60s. My mother would have loved not to have gone back to work, but my father didn't earn enough so that was that. So she started working again in about 1970, once my sibling was at school.

What really didn't help was tax credits when they were assessed every six months. Why do overtime because the government will give you the extra.

Took away the ability to deal with sudden financial emergencies. Made people dependent on the state.

Working tax credits made things worse.

And now everyone is on sick benefits by the sounds of it.

I had an interview for a clerical job in 1976 - the vacancy had arisen because the previous (female) worker had got married. Leaving work wasn't being forced on her, but it was still considered a reasonable thing for a woman to do.

This!

our expectations are so different. The average young family wants what my parents only gained in their 60s after working towards it

we shared bedrooms, couldn’t afford piano lessons and had 1 holiday a year. Probably ate out not more than once a year. That’s not how people live now

very cheap clothes if any

I had never considered naturism as a money-saving option until I read your post.

So true.
Our ‘eating out’ was the Golden Egg in Watford. So basically a cafe that did knickerbocker glories.
We probably went 2 or 3 times in my entire childhood and never anywhere else.

Holidays were to Ireland to stay with grandad so my mum could clean the house for him. Train to Holyhead, boat and train to grandads with all the cases and us kids. No running water or bathroom at grandads so not exactly a relaxing break for mum. We weren’t unusual, all my school friends did much the same.

So ,yes, expectations were definitely lower

Secondary Head Salary is generally over £100k

Yes I just can’t help but observe all the people I know who say they both have to work more often than not have a four bedroom house with everything finished to high spec and one child..several holidays a year, 2 brand new cars and it goes on

my parents house wasn’t able to financially be finished until they were in their 50s and 60s and they are baby boomers

I know house prices are really distorted in London

but I do thing expectations are off the scale..just look at what we eat and how much!

*our expectations are so different. The average young family wants what my parents only gained in their 60s after working towards it

we shared bedrooms, couldn’t afford piano lessons and had 1 holiday a year. Probably ate out not more than once a year. That’s not how people live now*

We were the same, no extra curricular activities that cost money, no weekends away or regular holiday, no nails done, eating out was exceptional and takeaway was fish and chips on payday.

On the other hand I pay for dog walking and grooming, tutoring, a costly stage class for my DD, parkour for DS, we have a takeaway once a week, days out here and there, we have a streaming service for tv. I have weekends away with a hobby I do, have plans for Easter and summer break. We don’t live extravagantly and it all comes out of one salary but my life and my kids lives are very different to mine growing up, and it all costs money.

Yes our eating out had to be earned also and we had to be on best behaviour, eating peas with a fork one by one almost. It was such a well earned treat

totally understand about the knicker blockers

that’s another thing - kids seem to now go to LEGOland a farm and probably something else all in one half term break..we probably did that over our entire childhood

In my primary school class in the 80's only two mums worked out of a class of 30. It was so unusual I still remember and know the circumstances. One was divorced (only one in the class) The other had a cleaning job because the father was unemployed, again only on in the class with these circumstances. Both had noticeably 'different' lifestyles 😔

No idea. All the women in my family worked outside the home. My DM was the higher earner at times, this was in the 1980s - 2000s.

that’s another thing - kids seem to now go to LEGOland a farm and probably something else all in one half term break..we probably did that over our entire childhood

It’s the run up to Christmas that gets me. Starts with Halloween and pumpkin picking, haunted woods type thing, lights display at a local stately home, fireworks display, Christmas market, breakfast with Santa, winterfest type thing, panto, advent boxes, Christmas Eve boxes, elf on the shelf, cinema visit. All costing a bloody fortune and if you don’t do it all you’re not making magic for your kids.

The highlight of my Christmas was driving into the city to see the lights, with maybe a hot chocolate and a movie at home. Christmas was very homespun - making decorations and mince pies, board games with quality street. The pressure now to do all kinds of organised, costly, experiences is ridiculous and puts pressure on finances all year round.

My mum earnt the average salary, and dad had NMW part time work (he had illness so couldn't work long hours). This was 2000s to mid 2010s but we lived a very frugal lifestyle and relied on tax credits. I was an only child too and we lived in a cheap part of the country.

No holidays, takeout was a rear treat and we only went out for meals on birthday, I had a couple of low cost hobbies, never any branded clothes.

Both my grandmothers worked after having children, as teachers. This "mothers didn't used to work" idea is a myth.

Things that have forced house prices up and have nothing to do with women wanting the financial security of their own income include:
ø Overseas "investors" buying houses and flats and renting them out, siphoning off the profits to other countries. The absolute lack of any control over this means that this accommodation is not available for purchase.
ø Lack of housing supply, particularly of council and social housing.
ø Increase in population without a corresponding increase in land availability. Without land, we cannot build more houses. If we build on farm and forestry land, we make our food and energy security even more precarious than it already is.

The answer is limit the number of kids you have because it will take a long-term fall in population to fix this.

My kids were born between 2000 and 2005 and we didn’t do any of that in your first paragraph.
I think it’s all changed in terms of childrens expectations and parents need to …….I really don’t know……more recently.

or maybe I just lived with my head in the sand