in wondering what this generation of enforced renters are going to do

[mustbetimeforacreamtea]

When they reach retirement and can't afford commercial rents on a pension? What happens then?

True enough, mine doesn't - however quite a few in Cambridge, where we both work, do.

That's fine. Nothing wrong with cycling to work if you can get clean and fresh when you arrive. I just don't think people should be cycling to work if it's more than a couple of miles and they have no means of getting clean when they arrive.

People make all sorts of excuses about why they cannot get on their often fat bottoms to cycle to work. You can cycle a long way without a shower - you just have to tolerate difficult circumstances in life and when you do things ofte come good.It is what I call being a Jam Tomorrow person - you sacrifice loads, holidays, meals out to afford that awful one bed place in an awful area putting off today good things so you have better ones tomorrow.

You can apply the same principle even to your teenage years - I did not go out and get drunk or watch TV instead of studying. Instead I worked very hard (for jam tomorrow) to get the best A levels in the school. You can test toddlers on this - do they want the 1 marshmallow now or 2 later. If you can defer gratification buy in the grotty area which involves a nasty commute whilst your friends rent right near work you tend to do better in life.

A lot of this comes down to whether you were lucky enough to be born into a household where everyone works very hard, expects nothing from the state, will take on two jobs and wear second hand clothes or whether you live in a take take take home where people are pretty lazy and expect meals out and holidays and feel hard done to. If you can change your mental attitude from the latter to the former life including housing and careers gets easier and you tend to be a happier person too.

I would like to point out that Scotland has now ended the right to buy, in large part because of issues over vanishing stock.

JaneParker both my parents were working parents and I work as well, as do my siblings. It still wouldn't make me smell fresh as a daisy after a ten mile cycle ride to work through commuter traffic if my work had no shower facilities.

JaneParker unfortunately having the best work ethic and the biggest PMA on the planet doesn't make someone immune to redundancy, disability or the vagaries of the economy and the housing market.

Perpetuating the myth that all you have to do is work hard and give up holidays and new clothes for a while and everything will come good is naive at best and insulting at worst. Some people do those things for years and still end up in crappy circumstances through no fault of their own, still can't afford to buy their own home, still end up having to top up their hard-earned income with HB or tax credits. It doesn't make them lazy or somehow "lesser".

JaneParker - I did work two jobs and bought in a grotty area. I also came from a (at the time) work shy household.
It didn't stop me from having a very severely disabled child who needs two carers when he is away from me which means I am unable to continue working due to it being unaffordable (2 specialist carers = £30 per hour). Plus the inevitable regular unpaid absence I would need to take from work when my child is sick.
I know that getting on the property ladder prior to getting married and having children was the right thing for me to do, but I am fortunate that my husband works full time and we can therefore pay the mortgage.
Not being afraid of hard work sadly doesn't mean that everyone can work. Although I know that I am working harder now then when I had two paying jobs.
Some people have circumstances beyond their own control.

SignYourName I couldn't agree more - there are so many people who do all that has been suggested and will still never be able to afford a place of their own. The jam, like tomorrow never comes!

Of course the inclination to defer gratification does not guarantee good outcomes in life.

Then again ceteris parebis those who opt for that strategy will do better than those who don't.

We get where we get through a combination of luck and judgment, no one is suggesting that the former can be controlled but that is not a reason to neglect the latter.

Yes, JaneParker - my dad did all that: saved every penny he could and economised whenever he could. You'd call him a Jam Tomorrow person.

He died at 55, before he had chance to benefit from any of it.

It's always a gamble, live for today, or make sacrifices for a tomorrow that you may never see!

I am very much a 'jam tomorrow' person.

I respect the right of others to choose jam today but I feel pissed off when the jam today people land on their arses and I'm the only one available to pick up the pieces.
They've had their jam and now they want my jam too
:( :( :(

My point is that instead of reducing economic inequality 'right to buy' has increased and entrenched the gap between the haves and the have nots.

A kind of 'I'm alright Jack, pull up the ladder' policy

that's what it seems like to me.

I am glad that we live in a society where people don't easily go homeless, that there is a safety net there so people just don't find themselves on the street. That's great. But it should stop there, ESPECIALLY since it such a lottery system. It is such an incredible deal (or used to be), it reduces the public housing stock, and is patchily applied, and of course reduces the capacity for the state to help those worse off. By trying to help people into middle class lives and secure home ownership, the state has allowed huge queues for state housing to build for those who need it more.

Suzanne, there are enough people, like my dad, who never live to benefit from their forward planning. It's their jam pots that are used, surely?

Tanith, I have to admit I wandered off on a bit of a jam tangent there and I was thinking in more general terms about people who never save for a rainy day and then lean on their frugal friends and family when they dont have the funds to cover emergencies.

Your dads unused jam would have at least benefited his surviving family, assuming his estate was passed to them?

I don't think the deferring of gratification makes you unhappy though. I thikn you get immersed in your work (or hard work caring for disabled children or whatever) and that that itself makes you happier than year of lotus eating spending as you earn.

Yes luck comes into it too but as Suzanne says the deferment of instant gratification so that you work harder than anyone in your class, get the best exam results in the school, don't get drunk all the time at university, do your work experience, research whih jobs pay highest rather than going into some low paid work - all these things help improve people's chances to buy a property and you can plan these. I began planinng them when I was about 10 or 12. I agree bad things can happen to you all the same (some have happened to me) but you can usually pick yourself up and keep on and on the whole things can come good.

I suspect you mean my ILs, Suzanne. Took out the equity in their house every year to go on Caribbean holidays. I quote "We live today as though it is a gift, that is why it is called The Present" - I do hope those are lyrics, I'd have to revise my impression of SILs intellect otherwise.

Their jam today became a hopeful jam from us for tomorrow, when BIL was under threat of redundancy. They actually asked if we could give (not lend, give) them whatever they would need to tide them over , as we were so well off and all that!

Flea was introduced to ear sharply. They have spent the intervening 6 years telling all and sundry how selfish we are, how we left them in the lurch... and no, he wasn't made redundant.

So I do think that, for some people, the hardships and worries and self inflicted. But as a jam tomorrow person, one who has weathered lots of redundancies, losses and setbacks and managed not to lose heart but to keep on plugging away, I would say that, wouldn't I?

Nomama, I have relatives like that, 'life is for living, spend it while you've got it'
And yes I can think of a couple who are currently spending the equity in their house and the jam tomorrow daughter will be expected to save them if it all goes pear shaped.
Isnt it weird how they overlook the very reason that you have spare funds, ie because you saved it up instead of blowing the lot

My strategy is to keep my jam hidden, and live in a manner which suggests I have no spare jam

Jane I wish I lived on your planet. There is very little that makes me "happy" about the caring I have to do for my disabled DH. It's just a pretty fucking relentless grind of doling out his tablets, dealing with all the household paperwork as he doesn't have the mental capacity to do it (on top of working full-time), fighting with the frustrating bureaucracy of the DWP on his behalf, dealing with his night terrors yadda yadda yadda. I do it because it has to be done and because I love him. Nothing is going to change, I'm not going to be magically handed the keys to my own house because I've put the hard yards in juggling full-time work with my caring responsibilities.

And as for judging people who don't research and choose high-paying careers; do you not think nurses deserve a place of their own? Or care workers? Or cleaners? We'd be in a hell of a mess (literally, in the case of the latter!) without them.

It simply isn't as black and white as "study hard, work hard, save hard, buy house".

We did hide our jam... I was born Up North, about 4 miles from the jam Butty Mines, so I have experience in that area

They made assumptions based on our jobs and fact that we do not go on Caribbean holidays! They are a species unto themselves!

Always hide your jam. Irish labourers working on our garden asked if we wanted the cars towed away (our cheap cars which get us from A to B which cost about 1k and are the reason we live fairly well.... others think they need a 15k car taken out on finance).... Jam tomorrow people can come up with all kinds of simiar examples.

I am not saying if you do the jam tomorrow thing from age 10 you will always buy a house but it definitely is a good strategy and one many people could adopt today.

None of us jam tomorrow people would say life is easy for those with disabled children (although we all do know women like Nicola Horlick who had to cope with full time work other children and a sick and then dying child - if you earn a lot as a woman you can defnitely afford more care for the disabled child so I really would emphasise the importance of women picking higher paid careers if they can or at the least passing that advice on to their daughters).

Also be prepared to slum it. We lived in outer London and commuted in. The first house we bought costs 275k today which is not too bad for London if you have two professional salaries coming - obviously part of my jam tomorrow was not taking maternity leaves so I have worked continuously for 30 years now. Not surprisingly I have more jam than had I not ever worked in those 30 years. We tend to reap what we sow in life.

all this jam subterfuge is mind boggling :o

God I worry about this loads. but no chance of us ever getting a mortgage

I've not read the whole thread, but people saying "look at our grandparents' generation - nobody owned, everyone rented".. I don't know if you're ignoring facts on purpose or what, but private rent, massively overinflated rent prices compared to earnings and btl are all relatively new. My grandparents both actually own their homes, but their parents didn't, they also didn't rent privately. Social housing, if done properly, works fine. The government doesn't WANT us in social housing or there'd be a lot more of it available.

My husband and I are 28 and earn average wages working full time, in September when our tenancy is up, we're moving back to pils to save for a deposit as it is our only option. This means putting having a family on hold, let's hope we can still get pregnant when we've got our house, as the govt are always reminding us, "the longer you leave it, the more your fertility declines". Can't win!