To not understand how other people manage whilst renting?

[mrscostello000]

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?

What about cycling your DS to work? It's a pain but saves a fortune.

If you've exhausted every option to reduce bills, then you need to think about moving further out- but obvs factoring in extra commuting expenses.

£800 seems high for food and expenses. I suspect this is where you'll find your real savings. Do you use you car to find Aldi/Lidl etc? I saved £60 today on driving to Aldi vs Sainsburys which is 300m away. Paid for car insurance this month (cheap, crappy car ). That was a month though, maybe 6 weeks worth of shopping.

Icic the OP cant change the rent she is charged but can lower her spending on non - essential stuff.

The situation is shit and she has my sympathies but she needs to get practical if money is tight.

I think it's ridiculous that my mortgage on a 2 bed house in zone 3 is now HALF what my rent 4 years ago in zone 2 on a very small 2 bed flat.

We have always rented (and bought, when we finally could) in a location that allowed dh to walk to work/public transport and/or dcs to walk to school, to hold commuting and insurance costs down. 2 miles each way is pretty far for little kids, about a mile each is a healthy walk that even a 5 year old should be able to manage. We have lived as close as the next street over from school (heaven) and my husband is nonplussed at walking 3 miles public transit is cancelled. I mean, he runs further than that for exercise.

Cheaper rent and better location may mean renting a less spacious or gardenless 2bR, but, that's what you do to save money.

Currently, it's a mile to school, but the subway stop is just past the school, and dh would rather walk and take subway than catch the bus or train from here, which gets me out of the morning school run.

OP I think you are getting a bit of a hard time on this thread.

Does it really matter if others cannot empathise with some of the OP's financial "mistakes"? Great to point them out and then it really is up to the OP if she wants to take the advice. There are some great ideas on here, such as moving somewhere cheaper.

I do understand, living costs are very high and when you are caught in the "rental trap" it often feels like you are living day-to-day (we are in a similar situation).

Renting can be great, but more often or not, it is expensive and insecure. I understand the OP's frustration. I am reading this thread with interest to see if I can get any ideas for myself.

For us, my husband earns a good salary. We have moved rental properties to somewhere cheaper, with far less commuting costs. We have gotten rid of the dishwasher, tumble drier, one car, and really cut back. But, we can do better, we are still not seeing much in the way of improvement (yet!).

OP totally sympathise. We had to move to a totally different part of the country to afford to live. At the time we both had good jobs but we're commuting and couldn't afford holidays, repairs, replacements if anything broke. We wanted children and decided to do something drastic! It is ridiculous and sad as we're now 4-5 hours from nearest family.

childrenaged 4 to16 are eligible for free home to school travel support if they live in Surrey and:
they attend their nearest qualifying school which is more than two miles from their home (for children under 8) or three miles from their home (for children over 8) measured by the shortest walking route (accompanied by an adult as necessary

^ were

So u qualify for transport if that is the nearest school

If it's the nearest school your child was offered a place at.

online.surreycc.gov.uk/esuite/esuite.nsf/openOnlineForm?open&fcunid=B020D6376227ADE88025716300580B2D

Argh I wrote a long message last night stupid internet crap so it got lost

Anyway in summary - op I think you are getting a bit of a beating on here. Yes there are things you can cut but really the answer is also not to just live isolated and alone with two small children and never do anything with them, particularly if you live in a more remote location.
I think you are doing fine. And yes you chose to give up work to be with your small children. I say well done - that must have been a hard decision. But it does mean you have to accept that for a while money will be tight. Hang on and ride it out and when the kids are at school you can get a job. If you are managing to meet your costs but have nothing left over then consider yourself lucky. You are better off than a lot of people who constantly live in their overdraft. Good luck

I agree you should be getting free transport to school if you accepted your nearest place. Although school distance for admissions is on straight line the walking route has to be acceptable and trudging across fields etc. isn't.

We weren't entitled when I called the council although I would be very surprised if we are less than 2 miles " the way the crow flies " or however they measure it so I will be checking this out first thing Monday morning so thankyou for the link.
I can see lots think I should have stayed at work and hardly seen my children as financially in 5 years time when he would be going to school we would have been better off however just to add to that his school doesn't have before and after school clubs so that then would have been a childminder picking up my daughter from pre school and him from school even at £5 an hour that would then cost about £60 a day for both children and far more through the holidays! Time isn't money that was my way of thinking and is the one thing I don't regret, absolutely right about the car being so expensive half of that is because of the accident and half is because my husband only learnt to drive at 29 so has no claims bonus etc he learnt when we left London as did I.

I'm glad its been confirmed that the distance criteria in your area for school transport is 2 miles in your area.
Get onto school admissions and put in an application.This can be done as soon as you have accepted an offer.

Squishing,
We are both currently always in our overdrafts ( £1000 each ) however that is for things like birthdays, Xmas, clothes as otherwise we wouldn't be able to buy that stuff but we do pay them off when we can when overtime or big jobs come up for my hubby.
We are surviving and are lucky for that and I'm extremely lucky to have had the last 4 years with my son and no amount of money would have taken that away so I am very thankful even though it's been hard it hasn't been a matter of eating or not.
The rent just kills us :-(

I think people underestimate how much childcare costs in the SE, unless you have a well paid job it does actually cost you to work!

I would get your ds a maxi scooter and start getting him used to using it everywhere. Even though he should get transport for school it means you can start walking other places and it becoming the norm not to drive.

It's difficult when you can't afford to do "treats" with your dc such as swimming and softplay but sadly that's where you are at the moment. Try and research as much very cheap to do stuff as you can etc.

I would apply for council tax and housing benefit as you never know - we once got £1.33 per week council tax benefit even though we had a mortgage so no rent to take into account when calculating our income.

Hi,
Yes no doubt it would have paid off come 8 years time when my youngest starts school but that's a very long time to be earning hardly any extra along with having no time with the children.
How does the free transport work? I've certainly never seen a school bus or anything since I've lived here I wonder what that means.
Anyway I hope however they measure it we are over the mileage as before we put in the applications I did ring the council to be told our first choice ( closest ) didn't fall into that criteria but second and third both do as one 3.7 and one 3.9 miles away

mrscostello000 it's not the rent that is hurting you, it's your other wastefulness, those phones, the peculiar choice of location (I'm very intrigued what surrey town has 3 schools in it with nothing but fields 2 miles between you and it and a station which is another 2 miles in a different direction)

How do you know what school they'll be going to anyway if they're only in preschool, aren't surrey admissions not announced until april?

Your car costs are not half because of the accident etc. that might be the expensive insurance, but it's not the really high petrol costs you're putting in, you must drive loads more than you've described...

I could weep for you all. Life should not have to be this hard.

Where did it all go wrong?
I've just been looking at photos of my old school, where I was a child in the late fifties and early 60s. We were all from council estates. There wasn't a private house in sight or built but we we were all well fed, clean bright smiley children. Rents were about 25 shillings a week or that may have been a month. Rates were low . Water rates were practically nothing.

Somewhere we got sold down the river.

I manage two houses for elderly relatives. One is the ex council house . That has three double beds, two bathrooms, living room and dining room and small kitchen , garden and front garden has parking for two cars. That's £425pw . The other is in a private area. There are three beds, one bathroom, huge sitting room, smaller living room, big kitchen, garage. Big garden to rear and pretty little garden at front. That's £600 a month. Rents have stayed the same for three years. I have good tenants so am happy to keep it this way.

My son wants to move from renting from the public sector to the private that house would be ideal but I just can't kick out another family like that. However, they have found another house in a private area on three floors. A new build for same price. It doesn't have a garage and only a small garden at the rear. I do worry though as they are going to be paying another £180 a month.

I wish I knew what the solution was.

Dowser
That's very caring of you to worry about the tenants
It's very hard, to be honest the instability is probably worse than the financial side of things

Thank you. I'm not a business woman when it comes to people. When the relatives die then I will sell and that will break my heart but until then they have a roof over their heads.

I've lived in my own home for 40 years to have to live with the uncertainty that you might have to move every six months must be so u settling.

I know the easiest answer is to say move to a cheaper area but it's not the simplest solution. The cheaper areas don't always have good jobs going. Do you really want to pull up your roots and leave your families.

I'd love to live in south Wales or the south west but leave my children and grandkids.......no way.

What's life without the people you love in it? I'd just pine away.

That's why I feel for you all having to make such hard choices.

Yes it was heart breaking moving this 20 miles from my parents but we did it as we thought it would be a cheaper way of life of London , how wrong we were!

I still say go further out.
You definitely qualify for free school busses here. (Dorset)
I feel you are out of London, with none of the bonus.
It sounds really tough.
Look in to travel costs further out. Rents *are much cheaper. Also on your salary, (when debts are cleared) you make enough for a shared ownership round here.
Similar areas would be the same.
We got trapped like you, although we did own (in London) we took the money from our house sale... To an economy that collapsed. This took all our down payment from the house.
At (older than you both) we returned to the UK, and started over.
Good luck...

We work 50 hours a week, each as freelance engineers. It involves shift worj which is undesirable and I am often tired. But we have the means to rent in a nice area and save for a decent deposit.

It is what it is. It's hard, but I don't think many have it easier.

*work