If I could I'd scream in the PM's face....

[mamafridi]

ARE YOU TRYING TO SEND ME OUT ONTO THE STREETS?!!!!

I have had ENOUGH!

I sold up and moved to the UK (London) to be near family. I am in my early forties and me, my husband and DD are stuck in a small flat paying an outrageously high rent while my husband commutes into central London (another horrific expense) to a job that barely pays the rent so all house bills, council tax, food, etc are deducted from our savings (precious money from the sale of our home). We have no chance of getting a big enough mortgage to help us buy a place big enough to live in and if I work full time too we would have to pay the stratospheric fees for nursery.

I can't believe that anyone in government, especially Cameron, Clegg, Osborne, can continue to make things so hard for so many struggling, hardworking, people like us and then on top of that say that it is actually helping Britain's economy and getting it out of the financial mess it's apparently in.

Are you suffering similar difficulties? What are they? Is there anything we can do to make life easier? Is there a solution or do we simply resign ourselves to life on the streets sometime in the near future.

Am I being unreasonable? Please tell me that I'm not...

If your husband is on MW and commuting into London, surely you'd be better off living elsewhere, where he could still earn MW but not pay the travel costs? I know you'd then have the travel costs of going to your mum, but surely that would be less than daily commuting costs?
If he works in a random MW job, he does not need to get into London, there are MW jobs everywhere (well, I know there arent loads of jobs, but my point is that if he was say a banker, he'd have to get into London. If he works in Asda, he can do that just as well anywhere)

Or... Could you move in with your mum?

How is your poor forward planning the Government's fault? If you sold a house elsewhere, you could have bought further out of London for a lot less, got a job where you were and made time to see DM.

I have trouble mustering much sympathy for your choices not agreeing with you when there are people struggling much more than you through no fault of their own.

You don't like London? Move!

Cameron isnt responsible for your life choices.

Nor for most of the shit that is going down now in fact. He inherited the situation from Labour.

We are in zone 5 so we are not central London, but the commute is slightly cheaper than if we moved further out. And yes we could live further away, but like I said before the reason I came to this part was to be close to family. And at 73 my mother is not going to budge from her flat, she's been in this area all her life.

I have checked rents, but I'd have to live a good 45 mins away by bus if I wanted to see family.

Just two years ago there would have been childbenefit, tax credits to help out no doubt and now there isn't. On the upside those house prices should come down soon as more and more people fall into arrears.

TheSecondComing

That is a fair point but the OP has to recognise the situation they are actually in.

It does concern me, and I am worried about what some of the changes to HB etc will mean for some parts of London. If there wasn't social housing in some boroughs the population mix would become very skewed indeed.

Out of curiousity, how much is your rent?
My sister has a new 2 bed flat in a suburban london area for £800pm

Which isnt that much more than what I pay in dead south wales for my house...

Ok - we've given the OP a rough time of it about her choices.

Op - I do ahve to ask though - in your 40's and DH doing a MW job - does he have no professional experience or qualifications he can fall back on? Is there any career progression within the organisation he works for? (even McDs pays rather well)

Yes I agree it's tough.

The cost of housing is astronomical compared to when your mother was young.

My parents bought their house in inner London for £16,000 40 years ago. They were public sector workers in their early 30s and a 4 bed townhouse in London was well within their reach. (Even though there had just been a boom: 3 years earlier they would have paid just £5,000 for the same house). The man they bought it off paid £1000.

It's now worth the best part of £1,000,000, and it would be unimaginable for a couple of young public sector workers to afford it.

It is absolutely the fault of government (this one and the last) that ordinary working people are finding it so hard to pay for basics like housing, as it is within the government's power to do things to change it.

If they cared about the quality of life of ordinary working people, a good policy would be to embark on a program of building social housing. This would be an investment for the tax payer, it'd bring down rents and house prices overall, create jobs, ensure many children are properly housed (rather than living in insecure accommodation, which has been proved affect physical and mental health, educational progress and ultimately life chances), help with the ongoing homelessness crisis, ensure key workers such as NHS staff can actually afford to live near the jobs, and overall make for a better society for pretty much everyone (except perhaps the landlords, property investors & big business - although they could just invest their money elsewhere!).

So YADNBU to put the blame on government for rents being so high. They could do something about it but they choose not to. (They, their friends and big business make a lot of money out of the high rents and house prices though, hence the lack of interest in such policies IMO).

Yes there are choices you can make to improve your particular situation, but it goes beyond that - the choices you face are symptomatic of a wider problem.

Anyone saying it's just down to you to make better choices either just wants to pick a fight doesn't really understand the role of government IMO - or believes in just leaving it to market forces, which I fundamentally disagree with.

I got my first mortgage on mcds wages

I had started this thread in the hope of joining forces with any one else that wanted to to express their anger with what is happening in the current economic climate.

I know there are worse off people and it would seem that more are joining their ranks. This was not meant as an anti conservative or anti labour rant, but more of a shout of anger at what is happening to so many people in the financial arena (or so I thought).

I will certainly take on board what a few of you more objective ladies have said and let the rest of you boil in your own bile.

Thank you aufaniae for writing so eloquently what I couldn't.

umm ok...

A lot of people are struggling. I'm angry about a lot of people's situations for a lot of reasons.

You've chose to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world when it was clearly not affordable.

You haven't found yourself in this position because of something someone else has done. Yes London is an expensive place to live and that maybe the fault of previous government policies etc but you chose to put yourself in the middle of it.

I dont see why you are being so snarky to people who have just pointed out that this is your own choice.

45 minutes by bus is how long it takes to get to my local hospital! If you have said three hours then fair enough, but less than an hour to see your mum isnt that big a journey.

I rather think that you dont actually want to do anything that will make your living costs lower, you just want an easy solution that doesnt involve any work or sacrifice on your part. Sorry, but that is how you are coming across.

I'm also very angry about what's happening in the current economic climate but unfortunately what you're missing is that it's your choices have led you to this position. And you still have choices to make, like moving further out, or your DH finding a job in another place, or you going back to work. I don't see you as vulnerable, sorry (I mean that sincerely, not in a PA way). You have money in the bank and places you can go.

What I am angry about is my DM who has worked all her life and recently become disabled and can't get any benefits until she's gone through three different levels of tribunal. I'm doubly angry about it because she believed she'd be able to claim her pension by her age, but can't because she now has to wait till she's well over 60.

I have sympathy for you, I really do. But you can change your circs. My DM can't.

I have checked rents, but I'd have to live a good 45 mins away by bus if I wanted to see family.

But 45 minutes isn't a long journey if you're going to visit someone surely?

I currently commute an hour to and then an home so 45 mins on days you choose to fist is a pain but can be done.
Aufaniae - you want to live in a better world as do the rest of us but I don't think it is quite as simple as you suggest. Lower house prices would benefit many but also leave many in negative equity and therefore stuck - would that be fair? I think we have to accept that as a society we have all been living beyond our means and we all have to take some responsibility for this.

Don't know why I have a 'fist'!

I'm sorry that you are finding it tough at the moment, but I do agree that the situation in which you find yourself is self-inflicted. You chose to change countries. You chose not to find a job for your husband (and yourself?) before doing this and take a chance on what could be found once here. You choose to live close to your mother when you could live elsewhere more cheaply. And yet you want to agressively and somewhat nastily shout at the PM for this. I think you need to take responsibility for your own actions.

It is absolutely the fault of government (this one and the last) that ordinary working people are finding it so hard to pay for basics like housing, as it is within the government's power to do things to change it.

I'd argue the point on that. It's not the governements fault per se. The raise in house prices and rent coincides with the equal pay act, equal rights and banks having to give a mortage on a double salary rather than one salary. That's what pushed house prices through the roof. that was of course compounded by silly lending of 5x combined salary in an upwards market. Even when the bubble bursts, house prices don't come down that much because people sit tight for as long as possible, thus there is very little selling to off load a property which drives prices back down. The market no where near as stupid as it was at one point.

The only way to drive prices back to a realistic level would to be going back to one salary taken into account for a mortgage, but I'd have a wager there would be an out cry about that insomuch as it would reduce a womans right to equal purchasing power with her husband/partner and would leave her in a very vulnerable position.

People also forget the Right To Buy scheme drove up property prices. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, that was a massive mistake - but the country was bankrupt again, due to a labour government and it's profligate spending - councils had no option but to sell off their assets. Housing was one of those things -the maint bill on council houses did not make them viable. They should have been sold off to associations rather than individuals, but as I said, benefit of hindsight n'all that.

The poor old house owner has been screwed over so many times in the past 30 years: firstly they suffered the exorbitant interest rates; then they watch as council houses are sold off at a fraction, the new owners then making massive profits for absolutely no investment; then at the last knocking having to sell off their assets (ie homes) to pay for care homes. It is disgraceful.

This has nothing to do with the PM, and everything to do with the fact you CHOSE to live in a very expensive city. My wife suffered stupid rents and long commutes for a few years, then moved to Wales, and was really financially disadvantaged as a result. She moved to Wales on lower pay, but with the benefit of hugely cheaper housing and has never looked back. You need to get out of London and make some smarter choices. YABU to blame everybody else for a predicament which is largely of your own making.

Nope, sorry just can't see how this is the PM's fault.

London has been a ridiculously expensive city to live in long before David Cameron became PM

YANBU to want to scream in DCs face. I would like to too. YABU for your reasons though. There are loads of places I would love to live but I can't because I can't afford to whilst living the life I want for my family. If you want a different life you need to move out of London and find somewhere you can afford to live the life you want. I would LOVE to live in London. Buts its never going to happen while me and my family desire a certain lifestyle and while I choose to work very part time hours now I am a mum. We all make our choices.

I find it weird that people think it's acceptable that it is now more or less impossible to live in our capital city unless you are rich.

I can't see how a decision you made is all the PM's fault - surely it came as no surprise that London is a bloody expensive place to live?!

IMO a 45 minute bus journey to see your mum every week/few days isn't exactly a hardship if it means your household budget will go further.

I'd love to live closer to my friends/family/nicer shops (wherever!) but it's just too expensive when we factor in the cost of buying/renting in the desired hotspot and travel to and from work etc. We live where we do to live within our means.