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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand how other people manage whilst renting?

248 replies

mrscostello000 · 20/02/2015 14:54

We have rented for years, never could save enough whilst renting for any form of deposit.
Have had to move 9 times in the 11 years of renting due to rent going up / landlord selling / re letting to friends and family which is hard enough but how do people afford this crazy private rent??
In Surrey where we are, we are paying £1150 for a 2 bedroomed house ( 2 children so share a room and will be for foreseeable future which is not ideal as 1 boy / 1 girl and eldest is approaching 5 )
My husband earns £2300 a month so too much to claim anything and I'm a stay at home parent caring for my baby and pre schooler. How do people do it when bills / food takes up a good £800 a month which leaves us about with £400 a month for everything including petrol for the pre school run 2 miles each way 5 times a week so a good £200 a month goes in the car to get us around and we are then left with hardly anything.
Is everyone in the same boat or am I missing something?

OP posts:
Original poster
mrscostello000 · 20/02/2015 15:32

South London rents would be about £1700 a month for a 2 bedroomed place so not something doable plus my husbands job is here, he was made redundant when we left London but he's done well here.
The car we would still need for visiting his family ( seaside ) and for days out so that would be more expensive having it insured in London.
Yes £70 a month for phones is expensive but that does include internet which he needs for work on his and I use for various job hunting on mine ( have been looking for evening jobs for years now with no luck so maybe won't renew this contract when ends in December though )
It's the rent that's doing it no 2 ways about it.
You have to live in the borough for 2 years before applying and then it's estimated a 12 year wait for council accommodation on this band ( lowest band as working AND housed already )

OP posts:
BarbarianMum · 20/02/2015 15:33

Its perfectly fair to ask a 4 year old to walk 4 miles a day - honest! They get used to it really quickly and it was normal a generation or 2 ago.

A scooter can also help.

BrieAndChilli · 20/02/2015 15:34

Do you need to visit your family twice month? Could they visit you? We love 2 hours from family and probably see them every couple of months due to cost and time.
Insurance seems very high?? Ours is £32 a month and I have only been driving a couple of years.
Phone contracts seem high too. Mine is £28 for an iphone4s with loads of minutes and unlimited texts.

Original poster
mrscostello000 · 20/02/2015 15:35

Either of us drink smoke or go out socialising believe me!!
The children do go on the odd play date here and there which of course all adds up and parties they're invited to but again nothing I would deem extravagant

OP posts:
DixieNormas · 20/02/2015 15:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Feminine · 20/02/2015 15:36

What is your food bill alone? :)

Original poster
mrscostello000 · 20/02/2015 15:37

Insurance is higher as he has an accident a few years back although was still £80 a month before that but that was in London.
The scooter idea wouldn't work as the walk is through a cut through of fields / pepples etc otherwise it would go up to 3 miles each day.
Someone suggested an Icandy pram as supposed to be quite big but second hand they are £300!!!

OP posts:
Skeppers · 20/02/2015 15:38

We're in the same boat. Thing is, even if we scrimped and saved (we both earn prob above national average) we could probably put together £300 a month savings. Sounds like a lot, right? That's £3600 a year. Average prices around here for a modest 2-bed terrace (all we'd need) start at 170k (not London). A 10% deposit (plus fees, etc) and you're looking at £20k. It would take us 6 years to save that. 6 years of basically putting our lives on hold to buy a house...sod that! Neither of us are getting any younger. I've made my peace with my choice and the fact that I will probably never own a house. I'm going to enjoy my life instead. The biggest issue isn't necessarily rental prices, it's house prices and the stupidly high deposits required to get a reasonable rate. Sometimes it feels like they are intentionally pricing people out of the housing market. The biggest irony being that we could easily afford mortgage repayments each month, just not the deposit! Everyone I know had either financial help from family to get on the property ladder or got in when 0% deposits were still an option. The schemes available (help to buy, etc) have so many caveats and additional fees attached to them that it's not worth it. Often the houses which are part of these schemes are outside of our budget anyway.

Renting is ok! It does have obvious benefits, like having someone else pay for repairs, being able to move catchment areas/to avoid bad neighbours, etc. But there is always the risk that the landlord may suddenly decide to sell up and leave you with nowhere to go, and that does suck.

I would be seriously tempted to move 'oop North' if my job/friends/family/heart weren't in this part of the country. My friend recently bought a huge 3 bed detached house for £150k... sigh

Original poster
mrscostello000 · 20/02/2015 15:39

Food bill alone is probably about £350 excluding toiletries and nappies.
We buy all frozen meat, no alcohol in that as neither drink or cigarettes

OP posts:
ilovesooty · 20/02/2015 15:39

I felt sympathy for you until did the hostel nonsense for two months

Yes, sure. I'm sure the other woman lied through her teeth and had a brilliant time living in a hostel with her children for a couple of months. Hmm

poocatcherchampion · 20/02/2015 15:40

My small suggestions are

  • leave the car at nursery and walk back and too with just the baby in a pram.
  • take your dh off the insurance and do all the driving for a year or two.

Desperate measures though!

MrsKoala · 20/02/2015 15:41

I actually think that rent is quite reasonable. I doubt you'd get a mortgage for somewhere in surrey like that for less. So it's not the fact it's renting that's the issue. More the cost of living where you live - whether you rented or bought it would not be any cheaper. (the constant moving is costly and shit tho - but then again as you don't own you don't have the costs of the house maintenance so it could balance out)

The only option is to cut something massively (i would not walk 4 miles with a 4yo) or move area. Sorry. It's crappy. I speak as a Londoner totally priced out of the area i grew up in.

DixieNormas · 20/02/2015 15:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

googoodolly · 20/02/2015 15:43

A four year old can walk for two hours a day. Lots don't have a choice due to parents not driving and manage perfectly fine. Yes, it might take a while to adjust if they're not used to it, but it's perfectly possible. They won't melt in the rain or fall apart with a bit of exercise. So you can easily save money on petrol by walking. By all means drive if the weather is really bad but there's no need the rest of the time.

You're spending a LOT on phone contracts. DP and I pay £30 pm between us and we both get unlimited texts, 2gb of data and at least 500 free minutes. I would look at getting cheaper contracts.

After rent you have over 1k to play with, that's PLENTY of money. Lots of families only bring in that much and have to pay rent out of it, so I really think you just need to adjust your outgoings and learn to live within your means.

balancingfigure · 20/02/2015 15:43

I do sympathise but I don't understand your travel costs. I don't know if you've just underestimated the distance but an hour seems like a long time to walk 2 miles. If it is 2 miles I don't think it would hurt your 4 year old. Even if you did it a few days a week or just mornings it would help.

For your fuel to be £50 a week you must be doing a lot of other trips or your car is pretty inefficient!

We live slightly less then 2 miles away from school but at the top of a long hill! We nearly always walk to school (downhill) and I walk home. I do often pick her up especially in the winter in the car. How far else I drive in a month varies but it's unusual for my fuel to be more than £50 a month!

BarbarianMum · 20/02/2015 15:43

The thing is OP, you'll only get your deposit by making big changes (moving area, you working shifts) or by a whole series of small, painful ones - basically saving a bit here there and everywhere. If you go down that root you'd be best off direct debiting £100 (or whatever) into a savings account each pay day and then spreading everything a bit thinner in order to afford it. And it will mean less - less expensive food, fewer smartphones, fewer occasional bottles of wine, less car trips to see family etc etc

Its hard to do it the second way, which is why I'd give serious consideration to the first if I were you.

Original poster
mrscostello000 · 20/02/2015 15:44

Oh yes I'm not holding onto a dream of buying, I'm mid 30s now, gave up my career to stay at home with the children and know when I do return to work it will low paid job that fits around the children

OP posts:
fredfredgeorgejnr · 20/02/2015 15:45

70 quid a month on phones - absolutely ludicrous, 5 quid on home internet, maybe 5 quid a month for calls each (which is quite a lot) and there's 55 quid a month.

200 quid a month on petrol - again, absolutely crazy, how does a 2 mile trip take over an hour? Your 3-4 year old on a scooter should be able to do that much faster with you. But even if you drive it, that shouldn't be costing more than 15 quid a week (fag packet maths based on 10mpg!) what's the rest of the driving?

Moving to the central location near the train station you said was 200 quid a month more, yet you're claiming you're spending way more than 200 a month travelling back and forth - move there and ditch the car and you're immediately 150quid a month better off.

I'm not suggesting it's easy to save money, but there's easy ways in what you've described to save you a fair bit.

layla888 · 20/02/2015 15:46

hiya, we were in the same situation, live in surrey and basically i know it sounds crazy but we couldn't afford to rent, our mortgage is half of what our rent would be. We lived with family for over 2 years (worst 2 years ever!) and saved basically £20K to buy with. Could you do something similar? We did move to our first flat about 40mins away from where we wanted to live, but that was to get on the ladder etc, now were back in Surrey. Sometimes you have to go through not eating out and having nice things to get a house lol

ThatBloodyWoman · 20/02/2015 15:46

Walk one way.
Walk part way.
Share drop offs and pick ups with another.
Buy less meat.
If you have a garden,grow some veg.

amicissimma · 20/02/2015 15:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

babygiraffe86 · 20/02/2015 15:48

Even with an accident the insurance seems really high - what annual mileage are yiu putting in (I used to work in insurance and this is what people massively overestimate and can knock a few hundred a year off) I had an accident myself and insurance only went up to about 500 a year! Otherwise I think you need to maybe list your spends so people can try offer best advise?

MrsTawdry · 20/02/2015 15:50

OP you might think the 4 year old won't manage the walk but he will..if he has to. A scooter helps. Either way...I can't drive and can't afford a car and by the sound of it neither can you! Is it really worth all that money every month? 200 pounds!

Buxtonstill · 20/02/2015 15:51

£1700 for a two bedroom place in South East London? Where are you looking - Blackheath Village? You can easily find a 2 bedroom place in South East London for £1100-1200. Have you thought about getting a weekend job?many of the supermarkets are looking for weekend staff.

babygiraffe86 · 20/02/2015 15:51

Plus the petrol costs do seem very high - I drive 15 miles a day 5 days a week, and put £20 a week in the car. I think you may be under and over estimating some spends which is where a thorough going through of the bank statements should show wastage (we all waste, it's just how much which may need to change)