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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be fed up at being poor

132 replies

Witco · 05/12/2013 22:43

DH and I have worked hard since leaving school, taken parenting seriously and find ourselves poor in our late 40s and in negative equity. WTF?

OP posts:
Alibabaandthe40nappies · 06/12/2013 09:31

Bogey it is but I find it totally disingenuous when an OP moans about being poor and is clearly not.

There are people genuinely struggling to put food on the table and pay the rent this Christmas, never mind give their DCs any presents.

This thread has sickened me, but for a different reason.

UmpireOnCall · 06/12/2013 09:33

No, it is worse than that. If u know that the people next door are paying half what u r paying it is demoralising and distressing. It is not "fair" and that gets to people.
Also people buy a flat or small hse andfive yrs on it doesnt suit them or is near the primary school not rhe secondary school.
People in NE also live in morbid terror of losing their jobs because the sw contribution to mortgage wpuld b a drop in the ocean... although they would genuinely give a dig out to people with proportionate mortgages on a hse bought pre boom.

People in NE not only live in permanent fear of losing their job and their investments but theie HOME with all the diy and work to the house that would also b down the drain if they lost the hse.

Thete were hotlines to counsel people through the distress and anxiety and practical financial concerns of being in NE.

And this was where people had the "comfort"" of knoeing their entire generation was in the same crappy leaking kayak all paddling furiously ....

Bumblequeen · 06/12/2013 09:37

Upcycled that must have been a difficult time. Sad

Expatin very true. We want to move but do not have enough equity and no savings.

randomquicknamechange · 06/12/2013 09:38

I don't think the OP is being unreasonable, she feels like she is poor and whilst her poor mught not be anyone else's poor she is still unhappy.

Going off topic a bit, I I don't really understand how so many people are in negative equity, I know when we bought our house we thought very hard about loan to value and actually put off buying until we could get a mortgage with an LTV we felt protected us from negative equity at least a little bit.
I often wonder if the people who had 100% mortgages or higher understood the concept?

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 06/12/2013 09:39

random property prices in Ireland fell hugely - 40%+ percent. If your house had fallen in value that much would you still be in positive equity?

jammiedonut · 06/12/2013 09:40

Op Yanbu, being poor sucks, especially when others decide you have no right to be upset because you are not the right type of poor! I was truly poor as a child, didn't eat for days, no heating, electricity as we couldn't always afford it despite my mum working all hours. Now I am 25, good job, dh has a good job and at times he gets all 'woe is me' because we can't afford to buy a house or have a takeaway once a week. It annoys me after all I've been through, but at the same time he's never experienced rock bottom. Maybe post on one of the other threads, you won't get much sympathy here!

Mrswellyboot · 06/12/2013 09:46

Live in Ireland and owe shit loads on a house worth nada
But so is everyone, I don't worry about it.

YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime · 06/12/2013 09:47

poverty in the UK is almost always relative and this is just another example.... but in MN terms this OP is the BAD one.

Witco on a frugal thread, you said "Marking place! Lack of discipline results in wasting money every month so this month I am going to be organised"

I think you are correct. you need to work out your priorities.

randomquicknamechange · 06/12/2013 09:48

alibabaa I have just done some sums and yes we would just about still have equity in our home if it had dropped 40%.
But we we wouldn't have done a couple of years ago so I take your point.

UmpireOnCall · 06/12/2013 09:49

Any kind of distress sucks Yes

I dont get the lack of emotional intelligence sometimes. Becauae this is on tbe wrong board?
If u ring Mind, they dont say "fgs, ring MABS"

UmpireOnCall · 06/12/2013 09:51

Mrswellyboot, i admire your positive outlook.

youretoastmildred · 06/12/2013 09:52

randomquicknamechange, that is not a very fair post.
everyone was told to "get on the ladder", that houses couldn't help but go up in value. People did what they could, what they could afford, and it was (still is really) treated as a form of insanity not to buy, whatever the leverage.
I am a miserable pessimist and left it very late because my circumstances meant that I couldn't have bought without a degree of risk and leverage that I was not happy with. people thought I was nuts. perhaps they were right and I was wrong - I don't know, but I lot of people would have thought I should have got a 100% mortgage or even more and I think now I could maybe be a lot better off if I had. Or maybe I would have lost everything. who knows

TotallyBenHanscom · 06/12/2013 09:57

I think I've stumbled into a Monty Python sketch...

Golddigger · 06/12/2013 09:58

op. You say that you both work 40 plus hours a week.
Assuming you are both on at least the minimum wage, can I ask where all the money goes.
Pensions? Savings? Debts? Large house? You both have several children?

Agree though that I dont think that many people are at fault for being in negative equity.

randomquicknamechange · 06/12/2013 09:58

mildred I see what you mean but for me the time between 15% mortgage rates with repossessions and the people getting 100% + mortgages was just too short for people to have forgotten what could happen.
Maybe it was watching my parents struggle and a friend losing her home made when I was a child meant it left more impression than on children of an older generation.

Mrswellyboot · 06/12/2013 09:58

It is normal here. Tonnes of half built houses, unfinished estates. Totally the norm sadly. People got too carried away. I am lucky as I only bought a little terrace and I will get myself out but some people won't. Lot of sad stories here in Ireland.

WeileWeileWaile · 06/12/2013 10:09

Chipping in on the negative equity.

My brother bought a house at the height of the boom - a two bed town house in a commuter town, out in the sticks in Ireland, for 370,000 euro. On the same street, eight months later a much bigger four bed with large garden sold for 120,000.

It's a new build estate - the developers pulled out midway through building. There are half finished houses on the estate that had tools just left in them for months (until they were stolen). The promised shops and creche haven't appeared. There aren't enough school places for all the children, so they're being thought in a portacabin in a church car park until there's money to build an extension to the school. He doesn't want to live there anymore, but he's in no position to sell.

His house is worth about 100,000 if he's lucky - who wants to live on a half built estate with no facilities? It'll be years and years before he's out of NE and even then it'll be because he's paid his way out, not because values have risen.

Rpeg · 06/12/2013 10:16

*RPeg if the OP cannot afford to buy food because she has developed a taste for Wolford tights, Lancome mascara and Liz Earle skincare, then that is a situation entirely of her own making.

Who in their right mind buys those things when their mortgage is more than their house is worth?*

OK, if you have some knowledge about the OP from elsewhere then fair enough. I was going by just what she said in her OP. I still think that there are some truly warped priorities on MN. People seem to get massive amounts of sympathy for being completely unreasonable about incredibly trivial issues like school plays, whether a teacher has spent enough hours looking for their lazy DCs PE kit etc. etc. etc. and yet others who certainly don't appear so unreasonable on the surface get flamed. Even if the OP has wasted some money on luxuries, and used some exaggerated terminolgy, there is no need to suggest that she shouldn't be stressed about money. Anybody at all in this country is going to be better of than somebody in the world. Seems to me she was stressed, posted about that, and got flamed because she isn't as badly off as others and/or doesn't have a DC that is so so sad she hasn't been picked to be Mary in the school nativity play for the 3rd year running...

Callani · 06/12/2013 10:28

YANBU OP, it really sucks feeling poor and I can't imagine how stressful it must be living with negative equity.

We're yet to buy and are struggling to save up for the deposit with rents being ri-dic-ulous but one thing I've found really helps is You Need A Budget. It's helped me to allocate money so much better that it feels like I've been given a raise and I'm now actually managing to save money towards a house rather than living paycheck to paycheck.

It might not be suitable, but it's so helped us that I'm a bit of a convert! Hope things get better for you Sad

ophelia275 · 06/12/2013 10:32

Unless you expect to sell your home for a profit why worry about negative equity? It is your home to live in not an asset. At least you have your own home. Most people would consider you to be well off if you are a home owner.

YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime · 06/12/2013 10:42

Unless you expect to sell your home for a profit why worry about negative equity?

because you are at a high risk of losing your home.

Golddigger · 06/12/2013 10:55

Rpeg. You have a point. But the op has chosen not to back up her plight on this thread.

ophelia275. But what if the person wants to move? The average person in the UK moves every 4 years I read somewhere.

HawthornLantern · 06/12/2013 10:56

If you can keep up with the payments on your house then negative equity should not affect you. But it will affect you if you can't pay the mortgage or if you want to sell your house and move because at that point you will make a loss and may not be able to afford a new place.

UmpireOnCall · 06/12/2013 10:57

Youaremyfabouritewasteoftime+1

Whentheredredrobingoesbobbobbo · 06/12/2013 10:58

I get sick of being sensible and just feel like going wild