to think if young people spent less on clothes/beauty treatments/gadgets,

[loftladder]

they would be far more likely to be able to save for big things like deposits for a house. I work with people of a wide age range. Those in their 20's and 30's bemoan the fact that they cant afford to buy a house/car/other large item. however, these are the people who visit the beautician regularly for nails/waxing/highlighting/tanning, buy at least a couple of items of clothing per week, and go on expensive holidays/change their phone as soon as a new one comes out..............have they never heard of saving, will the world end if they dont get their nails done, or use a good old bic razor. And are a couple of holidays a year essential. I may be a bit old fashioned, but i managed to do without any of these things, and it never did me any harm!!!

Sorry I meant many people, not most people

If £23k is a 10% depost, you'd have to be on over £70k to buy the house!

This is not most people's reality.

Think yabu. My friend was lucky she et her life partner at 18 and started saving, however things were cheaper 10 years ago! I started saving in last few years however unfortunately my job payed shit and due to a lot of mobility probs it seriously limits the jobs i can do.
I spent young years studying to try to get a good career and now bad health has ruined that.
I am trying so hard to save however am starting to accept i will never own my home.
I dont have all gadgets or spend shitloads on beauty. Iv had my nails done 3 times in a decade!i got my phone free on contract that isn't a lot every month. Get my hair done every 3 months and sometimes even do my roots myself when i feel up to it.Most costly thing i buy a month is my buspass!
Not all youngsters spend all money all time.
Now been made redundant so little savings i did have are now been swallowed up.

Most luxury i consider to have a month is my medical prescription card!

"Those in their 20's and 30's bemoan the fact that they cant afford to buy a house/car/other large item. however, these are the people who visit the beautician regularly for nails/waxing/highlighting/tanning, buy at least a couple of items of clothing per week, and go on expensive holidays/change their phone as soon as a new one comes out"

This is what I am angry about, yet you seem to be ignoring my posts. I am one of those in my 20s moaning that I cannot afford to buy a house etc, yet I don't spend money on any of those things you have mentioned.

of cause i know what generalising means. But there is eveidence to suggest this is not such a generalisation. I live in a small market town. A large proportion of the local shops are beauty focused, ie hairdressers, tanning shop, nail bars, beauticians. This is also reflected in the nearest big town. They are obviously all making a living, so people must be spending their money there. 10 years ago there were 2 or 3 hairdressers, and nothing else. It is a bit of a standing joke that as soon as a shop closes down, it will be filled with another hairdressere/nail bar, but actually this is usually what happens. So this suggests that people are spending far more of their disposable income on these things, which wasnt happening 10 years ago.

As other posters have said, property ownership is just so out of reach that saving up just seems unrealistic. Factor in the effect of inflation over that long, long period, and its no wonder that lots of young people feel they may as well spend what they have. They're not stupid.

I'm actually smiling at this statement "23.5K saved over 2 years" because to be able to do that, is very very uncommon. I am in my mid twenties, my closest friend is on £40K and even she cannot save that much. I have a frugal bunch of friends - think dinner at home in front of the TV rather than meals out and the cinema and only 1 person has been able to buy a property - 2 bedroom flat in the middle of nowhere and only because she put down a 10% deposit between her and her husband. All my friends are degree educated and a bright bunch generally. OP, you are not in the real world.

OP, I think my post demonstrates why the sofa surfing comment does NOT detract from your first post. If I could sofa surf and not pay £550 a month on rent and bills, I would. If I also knew it'd only be for 2 years, I'd also cut out the fripperies, thereby reducing the time saving. But as it is, I'd rather have fun. And yeah, I have 2 holidays a year (foreign too!!), I go to see my grandfather. So that's another £500 a year I could save towards my £13k deposit (oh and don't forget the solicitors fees and van hire and furniture purchase!!) oh and also dint forget the fact I can't buy anything bigger than a one bed flat where I work because the wages/mortgage lending rate is so fucking mismatched they'll only lend me enough to buy a one bed flat, even if I could prove I could afford to pay 2x the mortgage every month... (They base on paying £400 a month on my salary. I could afford £700 a month if I tried.)

YANB totally U OP and why are people giving the OP such a kicking? Yes, it depends on where you live but generally a lot of people I know are shit at budgeting and going without stuff. They want everything they want RIGHT NOW!!! (Disclaimer: Where we live house prices are reasonable.)

Two e.g: former colleague in work. Spends a fortune on hair / fake tan / clothes. Traded in her nice normal car for a second hand Audi costing £14K because it 'made her feel good driving it'. All fine - until she whinged about how she was never going to get on the housing ladder.

Relative who bought her first house with husband. Owner offered her furniture etc free to save hassle of clearing it. Perfectly decent furniture, just needed a few throws over the sofas because they were a bit old fashioned. No way! Everything was bought new and on credit. Cue massive debt, dug their way out helped by family. The same couple have recently taken out a loan to cover bills - and are using it to fund holidays, weekends away and shopping trips.

It is really hard to balance having fun in the now against saving for the long term but some people really are shit at managing both their money and their expectations.

Mad as a box of frogs. Of course your son saved his lovely huge deposit while not having to pay any normal living costs. Forget the luxuries! Hell, he could afford luxuries while saving all that money on essentials!

Real world, loftladder. Loftladder, real world. I think it's time you meet

But I feel compelled to add: it is easy to be older and think this way because as others have said, a lot of people benefitted from being born in the era of the cheap council house. I'm younger than that and there was a period where I thought I would never own my own home.

Frogspoon "Coffee and a sandwich 5 days a week (£5 x 100 = £500)" doesn't add up! Shouldn't it be £25 x 100 = £2,500?

Sorry, 80sMum, you're right it is 2,500,

Bringing the total up to about £25K over 2 years, which is still not enough to buy a house!

maryz yes some people of all ages do spend or waste alot of their income on things like the OP suggests but I think its very ignorant for the OP to assume this is all people in thier 20s/30s.
I am not begrudging anybody to spend money on any of those items, weather they are struggling financially or not.
But what the OP doesn't seem to be able to grasp is that a lot of people in not only their 20s and 30s but in their teens, 40s, 50s and so on, can't afford to save for a house or other large items because they are having to spend their incomes on rent, bills, food and other necessities. Not because they are spending money on "luxuries".

lj8893, sorry, not ignoring your posts. Dont know how to say this without sounding patronizing, but here goes.........if i knew how to use smileys i would put embarrased smiley, as i will be embarrassed if i patronize you. You are similar to so many children of my friends, and my other DCs (and indeed me and DH when we were young, but we dont count as things were different). Its people who are genuinely struggling who i feel for, people who work hard, but who cant save. My other DCs dont have the option of sofa surfing, as they dont work in an area with handy relatives, so they are exactly in the same position as you and lots of others who have replied. I didnt mention this as will prob be accused of drip feeding, (and actually, wish never mentioned DS, so forget about him), i absolutely know how you feel, i think this is why i get so frustrated when i hear work collegues saying what i mentioned in my origonal post, knowing that so many people dont have the option of all these things, wether through choice, or not having the money in the first place. That was the gist of my OP.

OP I am not trying to be nasty at all but you are really out of touch.

I did exactly as you think so many young people fail to do. I come from a working class background and dealt with living under the poverty line for much of my childhood. From the age of 14 I was doing one job or another and from the age of 16 I saved like crazy for the next almost ten years. I always have something in the bank for a rainy day and if my balance dips below what some may consider a healthy sum, I panic. My childhood has left me in fear of poverty. I was the most frugal teenager you could ever have met and never allowed myself luxuries preferring to save every penny (I have a penny jar too).

I live in London and now I am on the older side of my mid twenties with a 2 year old DD. When I became pregnant all my saving paid off as I had enough to comfortably buy everything I needed for my baby and a little left over for emergencies etc.. But using my money for that meant I had nothing for anything else. Despite almost a decade of saving, it would not have been enough to make more than a 2 percent dent in a mortgage deposit.

I have had to pay rent and bills since the age of 16 too. What background ones family belong too makes a huge difference here as all my friends who have been able to get on the property ladder, and they are only very few, have done so through living rent and bill free at parents homes while having had decent enough educations behind them to secure fairly well paid jobs and they are always in a relationship so have two incomes. This sort of family support is not the norm for many young people. In fact two of the few people I know on the property ladder had their places bought for them by wealthy parents which whittles the numbers of people I know who have been able to afford to buy independently even further down. Those I know who have bought are now struggling to keep up mortgage payments.

If anything your OP highlights the growing disparity between the have and have nots.

Now I actively try to treat myself every once in a while after spending my entire adolescence constantly stressing over money.

In fact two of the few people I know on the property ladder had their places bought for them by wealthy parents which whittles the numbers of people I know who have been able to afford to buy independently even further down.

I would second this. The only young people I know who have managed to buy property had a lot of help from The Bank of Mum and Dad.

Others are right when they say it is so unrealistic to think someone in my age group can achieve buying their own home now that they give up and spend the money on other little treats. Its almost like a consolation prize.

Believe me I know plenty of twenty and thirty somethings who would love to know they could actually realistically buy a home in the near future and who would sacrifice the little things if it was actually attainable.

I really need to learn to use commas

Thank you for responding OP. You don't sound patronising at all, that's all i think a lot of us posting on this thread wanted you to understand, that it is only some people that you are talking about in your OP and not the majority of people in their 20s and 30s.

Sorry OP but I hate this attitude - the idea that youngsters are so entitled that they can't live a year or two without luxuries to save for a flat deposit as my parents did.

If only it were that easy.

The disparities between wages and house prices us just do vast that professionals on a reasonable salary don't have a prayer. The insanity of house prices is so damaging and destructive and has created this horrible generational resentment. Even my 69 year old mother who always viewed rising house prices as a good thing has now twigged that her beloved grandchildren won't share her good fortune in terms of how riding housing stock has given her financial security.

And you think cutting back on the Starbucks and a few clothes will make a significant difference? Is your way of justifying the huge wealth disparities between your generation and today's twenty and thirty something's to say its all due to poor financial self discipline? Really? Really ?