To think I'll never own a house?

[HotSun]

I'm 29, I have a DH and 2 lovely DD's who are 4 and 1. We have some debts, probably around £5,000, due to a family issue a number of years back. We are now paying this off. We have no savings.

We have £1200 a month after our bills, this is for food, fuel, any things we might need and then spending money.

I'm not working just now but will be in the next year or so but realistically, I won't be a high earner. I really expected that by the time I reached this age, I'd own a house or at least be a lot closer to it. I'm feeling rather deflated about it all to be honest and I just want a good future for our family but it feels like we'll never get there. Anyone been where I am and ended up getting to where they wanted to be? Hoping for some success stories to make me feel a little more positive.

£1200 a month AFTER bills??? You are doing way better than half the population!

I never will, it doesn't bother me at all.
I have a secure tennancy.

I fear this won't go well...

That's a good amount of spare cash! I think ( based on my same-age family outgoings) you could aim to save £500/month. If when you go back to work you can add another £500/month you could have a good deposit in five years or so. Good luck!

I have about 1609 before bills so.... Yabu

I'm 33 and doubt I will ever own a house but I'm ok with that. Dh and I have made the choice to work in low paid jobs because they are allow us to be around for the dc as much as possible. But living in the SE, an average 3 bed house is 10 times our joint annual income.
You just can't have it all in life, no matter what anyone says.

You're a lot closer to owning a house than a lot of people with that amount of cash spare a month. Wish I was in your situation!

What do you have left after food and fuel?

What do you spend that £1200 on? Break it down and see where you could cut back, to help you save for a deposit.

Of course it is far harder for people now to buy than it used to be. In the 1990s XH and I were in poorly paid jobs, and able to buy a lovely Victorian house for £55k in Brighton with a £2k deposit. Today that house is probably worth around £500k.

I guess you have to decide whether you want to live frugally and increase your chances of home ownership, or to rent and be positive about it.

We're in a similar boat but have a lot less money left after bills and childcare than you do.

We've made peace with the fact we'll most likely never own our home. We have a lovely little family with a roof over our head and we're okay with that. Sometimes thinking about how much we're 'wasting' on rent each month (South East) gets a bit sad, but it's a necessity.

You have waaaaaaay more than us and we own our home. You need to do a budget and save.

You might be able to buy at some point.
There are schemes such as shared equity and help to buy available in some areas- but you should clear your debts first then start saving for a deposit.

If don’t expect to be a high earner, would a career change be a good idea? If you plan to go back to work in the next year if so, in the mean time could you look at what evening/distance leaning courses would be available for you to gain a new qualification?

YABU.

Grow up and save up.

Google help to buy

You don't need to be a high earner to significantly boost your disposable income by going back to work. If you (plural) can survive on your DH's salary then every penny you earn and more could go into savings - that's masses more than most of us manage!

We do have a mortgage, but we've never been able to afford for either of us to give up work. And looking at our friends, that's really normal.

You need to be as frugal as possible to pay off those debts for a start off. Children get more expensive as they get older. With £1200 a month you should be able to do this, surely?

Some months we have £400 after bills including food and end up using credit cards (that's not the norm but I've recently had a work setback, will be on around same as you in the near future)
We aim to own by age 35 (we are 28 atm)
It can be done you just need to cut back, prioritize and save up.

I was 32 when we bought a house. Tbh, I was never really bothered about buying one before then. Admittedly, we had no children at the time and got a 100% interest only mortgage, which made it easier but I really don't get all the fuss about home ownership.

If you're not working atm, surely you'll be better placed to save for a deposit once you start. There are also other schemes where (I think) you can rent a new house & buy parts of it iyswim.

We bought our current house in 2007 at the height of the market. It went down a lot in value shortly afterwards and is still not worth very much more than we paid for it. The original plan to to move again before ds2 got to 5. He's now 10 & we're still here!

I missed out a really important piece of information. We're renting at a massively reduced rate just now so our outgoings will hugely increase once we own so our left over money will then be way less. This option won't be open to us forever, but it is at the moment and for the foreseeable.

Lifetime ISA. You can pay in 4K max a year and get 25% gov bonus annually. House must be less than 450k I think. Go stock and shares rather than cash and you’ll get investment growth on top of that.

Or, you could choose to be life time renters and throw as much money into your pensions as possible. Tax relief plus employer contributions and ni and tax savings through sal sac will give you a decent amount provided you start saving now.

As others pointed out, you may have to make sacrifices. But short term pain, long term gain.

Well, with the dripfeed, I would suggest many of us would rather rent at a "massively reduced rate" than have a mortgage, especially if that rental is assured/long term.

How much rent do you pay and what would the market rate be?

We pay £300 a month. Would otherwise be £750/£800 probably. I didn't mean to drip feed, I stupidly forgot that was relevant. I'll have that option open to me for another 8 - 10 years I'd imagine. But I want on the property ladder so we can climb it over time, if that makes sense.

The really important piece of information doesn't change the fact that you could be saving massively NOW. Live exceptionally frugally, aim to save at least £500 pcm (and more if possible). You'd save a minimum of £6,000 per annum. If you can stay for 3 years that would be £18,000! More if you start working. You could realistically plan to have £20,000 saved in three years. A sizeable deposit and by then you'll be very accustomed to living frugally meaning higher accommodation costs will be easy to cope with. YABU

Ok, so your drip feed of how long you could stay there for means you could potentially save a minimum of £60,000.
YA Definitely BU
Make the choice to save and change your lives.

You are only 29 and your financial situation will improve as you said you will return to work in the future.
Pay off your debt ASAP, learnt to budget carefully for food, clothes, activities, haircuts etc. You could definitely save now while your rent is reduced.
If you really want to buy I think you will be able to.