to be scared of the future? what will become of people like us?? pensions / housing related

[applejacket]

dh is 42, i am 34, we don't own our house, and never likely to (bad credit in past plus not high enough income for mortgage and barely any savings for deposit etc). we rent a council house atm

dh has worked FT consistently since 15 but he has only just started paying into his company pension as they have to now. but will probably be worth fuck all when he retires

i am a SAHM with 2 dcs, 4 and 7, and one on the way , i worked from 16 - 26 full time and last couple of years have done a bit of self employed cleaning work but hardly anything really and not doing it anymore now i am pg.

dh earns ok money but not enough to either get a mortgage, or save anything. we don't struggle day to day at all really, but dont really have anything to save. and recently i have been really worried about the future

i am intending to go back to work when the dcs are older but god knows who would employ me, i have no qualifications other than some average gcse's and a levels from nearly 20 years ago. and i can't afford to re train in anything either

what will happen to us when we are older?? when we are still renting and retired? will we be homeless? tbh its the fact we are renting that scares me the most, i would feel so much more secure if we owned our house.

i honestly sometimes feel that our only hope is a lottery win or something

Quite Sixtiesqueen We own our own house and have never inherited / been given large deposits etc.

I will acknowledge that we were lucky to have bought in 1999 and DH didn't want to go to uni so was happy to work FT while I did. However, we had to sacrifice a lot to be able to do that - I worked 22 hours a week doing all of my study in evenings and at weekend, we could barely afford any luxuries, couldn't experience the 'typical' student lifestyle and worked FT during my gap year to save for the deposit, rather than travelling as I had originally planned.

Apart from the occasional short term loan from my parents to see us between student loan checks, we got no help at all.

OP - you say you are in council house - do you have right to buy? Might be worth checking that out and making a plan to work towards it. If you are outside London, you should be able to buy for £75000 - £7500 deposit with a mortgage costing about £380 a month (less than £100 a week) at 5%.

Even with a bad credit rating now, you should be able to get back on track within six years (so buy the time the kids are at school) - check out sites like Money Saving Expert to find out the best ways to improve your credit rating.

You say you have done cleaning before - why not start planning on how you can set your own cleaning business up when the kids are at school? The couple who run the cleaning agency we use did this - started off with a couple of cleaners and washing linen etc for local businesses (they had six washers and six dryers in their garage) while the kids were toddlers and babies. They are now doing so well they have moved to some swanky new offices now that the kids are at school.

You just need to be a bit more positive and come up with a plan rather than being so defeatist and worrying about what will happen in 30 or 40 years time. If you sit back and do nothing things might be shit, but you've got plenty of time to do something about it and having a plan - even a long term one - will make you feel better.

Having young children doesn't stop you working.

As I've already said, you could work, accept you will have a period when you are just covering your childcare bill and then look at getting experience and retraining.

As for being miserable working, do you think every working person loves it? If you want financial security you will have to work for it.

The National Insurance pension has existed since 1911. People appear on the census as "Pensioner".

Average life expectancy was 54 for women and 50 for men.

There's an interesting snapshot of 1911 life here: 1911census.co.uk

FourAndDone-if the OP is comfortable now, but worried about the financial future, it would be a lot easier if she was able to start saving from their income immediately. She has recognised the problem, but doesn't seem keen to act on it.

I can understand you feeling crap about it. I think a load of people will be in the same situation though. You won't starve, you will have a roof over your head but realistically I think anyone relying on the state for their retirement will be in for a bleak time: it'll be the basics but no more.

I'm not meaning this to sound harsh, but we all make choices and I think being a SAHP for 8 yrs as you have already, and then planning to stay home for a few more years is unrealistic if you want more security long term. In your shoes I would get back to work before child number 3 starts school. With the two older ones in school they won't need as much childcare and even on a minimum wage job you should find a childminder who is costing you less than you'll earn. The thing about childcare is its very 'front loaded': you have to fork out a lot, sometimes all your earnings, short term but in the long term it pays off in that you're more employable, you've been paying into a pension etc Also in low wage jobs you will be entitled to financial subsidy with childcare.

I think if you take 12 or so years out of the job market then yes it will be very hard to come back from that

Op i get the impression that you have enough money coming in to get by on but not enough to make a difference to your future. Can I suggest taking a look at Martin Lewis Moneysavingexpert site and filling out his budget planner. If anything it makes me feel more empowered to find out what we are dealing with. I also have started to write down what exactly we spend money on. It is surprising over a month how much money you spend on things that with a bit of thought and planning can be reduced or even got rid of. I also go thru a cash back website for anything I need to buy new or insurance / utilities etc after I have looked through the comparison websites. Clothes come from EBay, and I sell anything that we don't use through Gumtree. Also Shopbots are a useful tool.
Also Tesco vouchers are good when eating out. We have also been on holiday to Egypt and Turkey through them. Tap water only at dinner as it is free. I also am known as the voucher Queen. It is surprising what you can save on when you put your mind to it. Even 20p per week on something adds up to £10.40 over the year. 20p on 5 things per week adds up to £52.
Remember every little helps.

We will all need to think about what we can afford and plan accordingly.

e.g., have the number of children we can afford to raise and NOT take 8 years off work during our prime physical health.

Tbh don't know why you're worried. You've got a council house, that's more secure than most.

'As for being miserable working, do you think every working person loves it? If you want financial security you will have to work for it.'

This is a lesson that my children are having to learn now. Most people would rather not work, given the choice. Most people are in jobs that are on the edge of bearable, few enjoy their job 5 days a week.

Well, I think you should only put into a pension what you can afford to lose; imagine if your pension plan only paid out half of what is projected to be on the safe side. I honestly don't think the government will be able to continue to pay into pensions with an ageing population as much as they do now.

I'll have my Navy pension (only 10 years worth) and so will DH, a state pension (ha), a joint pension with DH and we each have a small personal pension that might pay the leccy bill if we're lucky. I'm banking on all of those paying out perhaps half of what they're estimating now.

I'm working towards saving in small chunks, and buying small plots of land to rent out as allotments/investing in whiskey/wine/art etc. Commodities that the government can have no input in. Also, if you're switched on and do your homework; you can do quite well with this. You can also invest relatively small sums.

As an aside, my uncle does the investing in whiskey thing. He bought a few bottles of whiskey for £600 each a few years back. He then sold them for £8000 each recently. He then bought some land with the profit, which he rents out in chunks to local people as allotments, giving him a small (but not negligible) income each month. Obviously this depends on the area you live in!

It's going to get worse.

Google have recently bought six or seven robotics companies with a view to creating robots which can work in warehousing and delivery. They are planning to have these available in the next ten years. If successful, it has been estimated that they could remove up to forty per cent of the workforce, replaced by machines.

I don't think the economy will be able to survive if this does happen, there will just be too few workers to support everyone else.

some fab advice from some, thank you

and that story about the cleaning business is inspirational bloomingnora

and blousy we can afford our children. and i have had them in my 20's and ahem 30's as i wanted to have them young precisely BECAUSE i am in my prime physical health, no ofence to older mums but i never wanted to start having babies in my 40's. they knacker me enough now :o
and yeah i might have a council house but what if we can't pay the rent? it won't be "secure" then will it :o

i will have right to buy my council house in about a years time, but honestly i don't think anyone would give us a mortgage

Ziggle my dh does the investing in whisky thing, my on going fear is that the dc will drink it when they are in their teens during a house party without realising it's value, and we shall be skint!

Plan meals, and make shopping lists and use only the main big supermarkets for the stuff you cannot get at Aldi/Lidl type shops.

Definitely look into buying your own council house if you are able. Df rents from the council, she pays twice the amount I pay in mortgage.

There's a couple of you that need to be a little less defensive and engage brains, I was talking about people I know. Obviously they are the only people who try to give me their opinions and tips.

Sorry to derail OP, my post was meant to let you know you are not alone, not to start a debate how people have managed to own a property. Sometimes feeling a little less alone can be a comfort when things are looking bad.

Enjoy your children and make the most of your time with them.

Haha sofaking I would skin my DS alive!!

But seriously, it's a better return on your money than the banks. Even a Glenfiddich special edition £120 a bottle job will be worth a decent amount in 10 years. Better than an ISA!

Just make sure you have the correct home insurance

applejacket sorry if I am completely wrong, but I would have thought that if you are pushed into a situation where your income was so low that you couldn't afford your rent anymore, you would be entitled to housing benefit?

I do sympathise, but I also think that people and I know some of them assume that if you live in a nice big house that you are buying, not renting, you are therefore rolling in it. The reality is that you probably have a big mortgage to go with that big house, that you have to work bleddy hard to pay, and that you are no more 'secure' in your home than anybody renting is - for all the time you still have a mortage, that is - which for me is a long time to come.

Sorry sounded a bit ranty there!

I am disabled so will just get the state pension for myself dh will get his works pension he got his projection (is that the right word) and it is worth not a lot

Soverylucky- it really is very pointless starting argument.
The government invented all these benefits. Not the op.

But sovery has demonstrated why there won't be pension facilities in the future. There is far too much coming out of the system, with not enough going back in.

laregina I have a big mortgage to go with my tiny house, I live in London, and my mortgage is still half of what my friend pays to the council and we both moved into our respective homes within a fortnight of each other.