to feel screwed over by our society, can't afford a home, can't afford children, can't afford car

[Lauranda]

I'm in my early 30s, had a great up bringing, do a job I like and got married last year. I do feel very lucky.

However where we live in the south east, all we can afford to rent is a badly converted 1 bed flat with a damp problem. Can't really save much and are very economical with our money so can't see ever affording anything bigger and could never bring up a child here.

My parents managed to get a large 4 bed Edwardian house on one sallery when I was growing up and dads job level was about the same as dh. No way could with double sallarys afford anything near that lifestyle.

Parents keep saying my time will come, but looking at the statistics that seams very wishful thinking. Parents have kindly offered 15k to help get a house but to be any use would need much more than that and to pray interest rates never rose much.

Am I alone in just being unable to afford children even though we both work full time?

No 22, I pulled you up on your shameless attempt to make me look like a cunt.

I will pick posts apart though:

we are both unemployed at the moment and have a 2 bedroom house with a lovely back garden. All the rent is paid for us, life is pretty good and even when only one of us was working it was still very affordable with money for extras etc.

my dad, the only family member not to live in the country anymore, keeps in touch regularly through technology. It is NOT the same. There is lots of support he cannot provide (atm, he provides financially because its the only way he can support me)

It's rather insulting to infer that you are sacrificing anything at all though 22, what with your description of your idyllic life living close to family with everything paid for and your father supporting you financially.

Don't slag people off for making difficult choices when they had to - like I said earlier, I am working class, my husband is working class, our families can not afford to support us so we have to support ourselves.
We rent, we will rent until we no longer have to pay childcare at which point we will be in a better position to buy. We moved for work because we had to, and chose to.

AT NO POINT did I say people should live like that.

I repeat, again, that that was my experience and is what colours my world view.

I simply said that whilst hard, moving is NOT impossible.

Stop misquoting me 22honey.

22 I'm baffled tbh.

Like I said before we live in 1 bed flat in londonwith x2 children. Pay extortionate amount for it. Both of us work. We work long hours in jobs that require that to keep the roof over our heads.

If we moved north, we would no longer have jobs. We already work 7-7 most days so a long commute isn't feasible in terms of cost, health and our children.

If we moved north how do we get a free house you have, and not have to work? I quite fancy spending my time reading my kindle instead of working butt off to live.

We work because its what you do. Our current life is this and a few more years will mean we will be able to afford a larger house etc, but if we stopped working and just moved how would we ever progress?

22Honey Melonade theres nothing wrong with that lifestyle if thats what you want, you cannot propagate it as a universally acceptable way of like Scarlett has as many people would find such a lifestyle hell on earth...surely you can comprehend that?

See, the way I've always seen it is that I've got to pay my own way through life, and to do that, I needed to pass exams to get a good job, etc.. The more employable I am, the better paid I am, the better the life I am likely to have. Not saying that work is the be all and end all but unless you have great inherited wealth or want to live on benefits, its pretty obvious, isn't it?

Its not insulting to say 'you may aswell buy a caravan etc'- many people would think you might aswell if you move so often. Plenty of people do not want to move around here there and everywhere, if thats what suits you then fine but like the other poster you must recognise that such a lifestyle would tip many people over the edge.

Err, right. Again, I tend towards the living in a house kind of thing. I admit to a certain fascination with caravans, but I've always found rented rooms (when younger), rented flats and purchased flats and houses more attainable.

Thanks to this thread though, I do now realise the purpose of that baffling job application and interview question "Are you willing to relocate?" Well, I wouldn't be expecting the job to come to my front door, and seeing different scenery can be nice, along with meeting different people, so to me its something very do-able. More so if it means the difference between a good standard of living and a poor one.

I do commend your imagination on the traveller/caravan scenario though. I wonder if you do realise how the doctors who provide you and your family with health services manage to get trained?

Moving is nothing to be afraid of, really!

I honestly do wonder whether some people have effectively left home. Many of my friends live in entirely different countries or at least cities from where they were born and went to school. Both mine and DH's work have many people who are from overseas or different parts of the UK. Its hardly an issue of being "tipped over the edge".

What is this deep-rooted attachment to staying in one place? Again, it sounds like an echo of some imagined right to aristocracy, claiming an ancestral right to remain in one place, regardless of the need to work to afford it.

At the end of the day, we live in the times we live in, in the system that exists now, whether we like it or not and whether it is fair or not.
The OP has to live somewhere. As far as I can see, she can either choose to live where she is now, near family and current work. If she chooses this, she may have to stay in the rented 1 bedroom flat long term. She will be able to have a child but might have to accept just having 1 room. People can and do live like that. It is one option, which is the right one if being near family is so vital.
The other option is to decide to me somewhere cheaper and not be so near family. There will be the option for a bigger house in time, once savings have amassed, which will be possible with cheaper rents.
It is all well and good to say she should be able to buy a house near her family and people in the past could, but she needs to live now. It is a case of deciding if the priority is being near family or having a larger house. There is a choice to be made. Doing nothing is one option and is effectively making a choice, because there are alternatives.
I dont know what is the right option for her. Personally, if this were me, I would be looking to move away, live in cheaper rented and accumulate some savings, because having some savings always gives more options. Although it isbpossiblento spend your life in a 1 bed flat, the idea that there would be never be a prospect of something bigger would get me down, and for that reason I would move. Being without family is scary if you have never lived away from them, but it is doable and it is possible to build a new life elsewhere. If the OP moves and establishes a life, she may find the parents are willing to offer the £15k when they have visited the new area for a couple of years and realised it is actually a decent place to live. They may not, and in a cheaper area, the OP will be able to make her own way. It clearly isn't what she would most like, but the key thing to me seems to be making a plan now about what to do to make the best of the situation. A good and happy life is still possible, rather than having any joy sapped away by a sense of having been done over by society.

Never mind people's differences let us have the hard facts about Lauranda so we can see if we can house her in a place she can own. It may have been pout on the thread above but I'm working so haven't read every post ( yes those of us who do rather well actually work on bank holidays and believe it or not we tend to get on in life in consequence - we all tend to reap what we sow).

I feel a divides based on stoicism, strength, ability to cope, managing alone, emotional intelligence and those who don't have those things. Is it stiff upper lip, emotional resilience? I believe when recruiting people for jobs it is as important as exam results.

Scarlett, nowhere did I attempt to make you look like a cunt but there may have been a misread or misunderstanding of a post somewhere along the lines.

'It's rather insulting to infer that you are sacrificing anything at all though 22, what with your description of your idyllic life living close to family with everything paid for and your father supporting you financially.'

I've never said I have sacrificed anything, so what are you talking about? I stated speaking to my dad online and on the phone is not the same as being in his physical presence. This doesnt mean I think I've missed out on anything, I actually stated I was happy he left as I have been on many dream holidays and am financially supported by him because he can afford it.

'Don't slag people off for making difficult choices when they had to - like I said earlier, I am working class, my husband is working class, our families can not afford to support us so we have to support ourselves.
We rent, we will rent until we no longer have to pay childcare at which point we will be in a better position to buy. We moved for work because we had to, and chose to.'

I havnt slagged anyone off, infact I've expressed my uttermost sympathy for people who have had to make such difficult choices, you couldn't seem to make your mind up on whether you found moving away unpleasant or not, or whether it negatively affected your life or not. Currently I still am unaware of the stance you take on the issue?

Your choice is your choice, I merely stated that choice would not be the right one for everyone. Some people would fare better staying nearer home around family, that wasnt the case for you and theres nothing wrong with that either?

'See, the way I've always seen it is that I've got to pay my own way through life, and to do that, I needed to pass exams to get a good job, etc.. The more employable I am, the better paid I am, the better the life I am likely to have. Not saying that work is the be all and end all but unless you have great inherited wealth or want to live on benefits, its pretty obvious, isn't it?'

Some people are better off staying on benefits than getting a job anywhere in the country. Obviously what you say makes sense, the thing is in this economy being well qualified and employable isn't going to guarantee anyone a job. I have already said if I got offered a very well paying job away from home, a job of which I would never get in my home town, I would definately move away...the thing is this is unlikely ever to happen (atleast for the foreseeable future) and I am fine with that.

'What is this deep-rooted attachment to staying in one place? Again, it sounds like an echo of some imagined right to aristocracy, claiming an ancestral right to remain in one place, regardless of the need to work to afford it.'

No, it really isnt an 'imagined right to aristocracy' or about claiming an ancestral right to remain in one place. I really can't believe you cannot see the deep rooted evolutional reasons behind why many people feel like that. You also havnt and probably wont be able to address why living nowhere near family or support has such a negative affect on the emotional and mental health of many people.

My Gran had a saying "If wishes were fishes noone would ever go hungry".

What she meant was you have to accept the circumstances life throws at you and do the best with what you have got, not what you wish you had.

The OP has a loving partner, two salaries coming in, is fertile to the best of her knowledge, has a career. She has the opportunity to achieve some of what she wants in life without too much trouble - noone, not even the uber rich gets absolutely everything they want - look at Princess Diana as a salutatory tale.

I'm so grateful I come from a family where building resilience to life's knock backs was considered just as important as our exam results. With the way this country is going we are all going to need it in the coming years.

22Honey - I'm a bit suprised that you seem content to be unemployed, I've been on benefits over 3 years and still loathe it to the depths of my soul. I'm retraining so that hopefully in a couple of years I can work from home in the hope that in a decade or so, this period of my life will seem like a distant bad dream.

Fucking hell 22, do you ever stop?

I do not find moving unpleasant.
I cannot understand why people are so hell bent on staying near their extended family.
That is it.

I have nothing further to say to you 22Honey, you misquote, misread and preach about how unfair it is for people to have to move whilst speaking from zero experience on the subject.

Most people do not have rich fathers providing 5* holidays on a regular basis, and cannot afford to not work whilst living in a lovely 2 bed house with garden and spare money for extras; you do - congrats. This is not reality for most people.

Most people have to work to live. Sometimes you have to move to where the work is.

I agree with ChocolateWombat, we are living now, not 40 years ago - so waxing lyrical about the past is pointless. I also agree with JessicaMary, if the OP says where she lives and works we could find her an affordable house.

Artandco, I have the house I live in because..well why does anyone else have the house they live in?

I did work, and I will return to work at one point (I'm 25 weeks pregnant and on a course of study at the moment) and as said I WOULD move if a great paying good career opportunity arose, who knows in the future I may look for one. But if at all possible, I would rather have a job in my home area and I am lucky to live in an area where decent housing is not that expensive, so much that a nice 2 bedroom private rented house with a garden is all paid for by the DWP even when its just me and DP living here. We actually get paid more in housing benefit than we need once we have a baby, and I also find it quite depressing you can have a better standard of living on benefits up in the North than you obviously can working hard in London.

You've not been screwed over in least.youre both employed,have offer of 15k deposit as gift
I'd say you're pretty fortunate but feely badly maligned With no good reason
Adjust your expectations.no you'll not get breaks your folks did.so let that boat sail

And bochead put it best of all at 17:59.

I can't for the life of me see why 22honey is getting such a hard time. Seems to me that she is making a fairly uncontroversial point about the value of deep social connections that come from good family support.
The need for these connections is hard wired into our nature.
My life would be a lot easier with these connections!
There would be a whole lot less torturously lonely and isolated older people if we lived in family groups as we evolved to. Some people may get these connections elsewhere. But that doesn't change the fact that living in family groups is how we evolved and that these connections are important and valuable for those lucky enough to have them.

LOL at someone who has been on benefits for three years, but is 'retraining' (of course) so they can 'work from home' berating a poster who is also unemployed.

Scarlett if you look further up I stated in one of my first posts I am not happy to be on benefits and cant wait to get back to work, I am on a course of study at the moment to better my prospects.

Can you not accept some things are important to some people and arn't to others? Are are you really that narrow minded and believe only your opinions and feelings are valid?

I do have experience on the subject because my father left the country to better his prospects and succeeded greatly at the expense of seeing his child grow up, he is very well off, yet has told my mother several times (they are not and were never together) if he could go back and do it all again he would never have gone. He had nothing before he left for the USA.

I havn't been on a 5* holiday not for about 4 years due to life getting in the way and me losing my passport, but yes I went on one every year prior to that. Its not all great though, I believe it is and was my fathers guilt spilling out in a disney dad kind of way, he has said he will never have any other children because he couldn't handle the guilt of it as he wasn't there for my upbringing. Leaving your family does not come without consequences for some people, thats all I'm saying.

Of course people have to work to live, I do myself although we manage on benefits mostly due to extra support/outside influences and the fact DP is one of those people who knows lots of people and has lots of contacts, aswell as cheap good quality housing we have managed to attain. I find being unemployed very boring tbh and would never consider not working long term, for a start it wouldnt be a good example to set to my child.

expatinscotland who are you talking about there, lol?

Perhaps one of the attributes of the economically successful is that they are willing to move. They are mobile geographically and probably occupationally too.
An inability to move for whatever reason will always limit people's options. Some of it is a mindset. If you have always lived near extended family and your family have done this through generations, being away is difficult. Most Uni educated people have been away from home, so have less fear of moving around. I imagine this is partly a class thing, but as prices put many places out of reach, more people, from all walks of life will have to relocate.
OP would you prefer to relocate (despite the fact you don't want to) and have a bigger house or accept the 1 bed flat for the next 20 years, bearing in mind the £15k isn't going to be enough to allow you to live near family? How far away would be acceptable in your book? How far are your idling to compromise about size of property or family location?

bochead.

She's getting a hard time from me because of the way she has responded to, and addressed, me personally.

All I said originally was that moving for work was not the end of the world.

She is not 'uncontroversial' in the least imo, but deliberately provocative.

We moved out of the area to get a decent house, as did all my mates. Some people think laterally and solve their problems. Others don't. Guess who ends up with the better houses?

bochead, I am not content to be on benefits as I have said further up in the thread. I have only been on them for 1 year and have studied the entire time since then. You have been on them for 3 years so your not really in the place to comment tbh!

22 - I will repeat one more time:

I am not saying that my way is the only way.
I am saying that my way is my experience, so this is what colours my view on these situations, ie I, personally, cannot understand why people do not want to move for work.

Stop making up things that I have said. Thank you.