To be fed up at being poor

[Witco]

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?

If the op put her figures like they often do on credit crunch, we might be able to help.

i think it's nice when people don't gang up on posters for choice of words and tone.

agreed. IMO quite a few of the vipers are just jealous - when there is no need to be.

Well this is a nice thread.

OP I'm in NE and whilst we can still afford our payments, it has had a very large negative impact on me. We were really sensible, had a 15% deposit, bought under what we could technically have afforded and even allowed for issues such as future maternity leave, SAHM scenarios. Our house is worth halve what we paid for it.

Prior to buying the house I had worked my arse off for 3 years to pay off debts and save some cash. I feel both devastated to feel like I am in such a financial mess. Also with the value of 20/20 hindsight I feel unbelievably stupid.

It's easy to say that it's ok if you can still afford your house but it is scary and it can limit your options quite substantially and make you feel very financially precarious.

I also have moments where I just can't believe how unfair it is that we lost so spectacularly on the property market when all we did was buy a home at the wrong time.

Sorry to hear that msmoss

Really good post/point mildred

It does annoy me that both my dh & I are in 'career' jobs with a combined salary of 65k & two dc but we have not much left at the end of each month. Mildred quite rightly pointed out that the bills, rents & childcare costs are adversely affecting everybody but the few at the very top. Those few are usually the ones who directly benefit from bill rises and privatisation deals, while the rest of us are furiously paddling.

George Osbourne has recently negoitiated a £50 discount off our utility bills, £50 for ffs to keep us quiet for a bit. It is something but not enough, my cm had a £650 heating bill last winter and is expecting similar this year but £50 off wont be much of a saving to her.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/

I did expect it to be better for us by now as we are late 30s/ mid 40s but we arr paying the price of circumsyances I suppose. A combination of factors made for the 'perfect storm' is the only way I can describe it. Both graduated, spent time building career, got married, scraped & bought house at the height of property boom but within our means, recession happened, I had 2 dc in quick succession. I had to take extended unpaid leave as one has health issues & suddenly found everything has increased in price and that childcare after housing is our biggest expense. We need to move house but cant afford to so we are stuck, to upgrade to a 3 bed house will cost an extra 100k in the part of the SE where I live.

Everybody is becoming worse off than before apart from thpse at the very top.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/