AIBU to wonder how people can afford to get married, buy a house AND have children??

[diamondeyes10]

Just that really...

I am approaching 30 and I have been with my partner for 4 years.

I have numerous comments from others assuming that we are going to get engaged soon and have children, honestly we are struggling to scrape a deposit together to buy a house and it is taking a very long time! I know people have different priorities but I really don't know how people can afford it all nowadays (except for the obvious reasons!)

I'm not sure what I am wanting to get out of this thread, but enjoying having a little moan!

I had a flat...100% mortgage. We sold that abd bought house. Spend 3k on wedding. Children....i work part time but still spend tons on childcare.

Because Im now 52. Im sure I wouldn’t be able to afford it if I was 30. It’s crap tbh. I worry for my girls.

You can never really afford it, you have to learn to budget to live within your means, and remember that everyone's circumstances are different. House prices are alot higher than they were 10 years ago, and wages don't reflect that, so if your friends bought a while ago, it's likely they're now sitting on bigger equities in their houses, meaning scope to remortgage and have a cash sum to help with maternity leave etc.
We were lucky and managed to buy a house in our early 20s, do it up, make a profit and and now in our early 30s are on our second house due to having enough equity to put down a big deposit on a much nicer house. We wanted children while we were young, but waited until we felt financially more secure, and had our first in our late 20s, and our 2nd a couple of years later. We haven't got married as yet as it wasn't particularly important to either of us, and whenever we've discussed it we've decided to use the money we would have spent on home improvements, moving, and saving spare cash for holidays and maternity leave. Weddings don't have to be expensive, but for us we just decided even if we only spent a few grand, it was money better spent putting into the house so we could move to a nicer area to being up the children. Might get married one day but currently eyeing up new kitchen and loft conversions... 😁! You'll get there, you just need to prioritise what's the most important, if getting married first means putting kids on the back burner for another 5+ years, maybe rethink if that's the best way round to do it for you? For us getting on the property ladder was the most important thing to do first, so that's what we focused on. Just focus on one thing at a time and don't feel pressure to do things by a certain timeframe as then it probably won't happen. Just keep working towards your goal until it's in sight.

I think this is why more and more unmarried couples are having kids. You wait and wait for all those things then when you hit 30+ realise you need to shit or get off the pot, and having children is the most time critical one.

It's not as expensive as I thought though, having a baby. But to afford childcare I've had to scale back massively on things I took for granted like haircuts and make up and going to the cinema. It's not forever though and he's worth it

We did all 3 within an 18 month window. DH had been saving diligently throughout his twenties, I had a couple of significant bonuses and we had a bit of help from parents. We've been very lucky.

Getting married doesn't cost very much. Weddings do. One bed flats are a good starting point and cheaper than a house.

Housing market will correct in next few years

We were very lucky that my parents pretty much paid for our wedding and towards the house. Without that we wouldn't be anywhere near as financially settled as we are now. I really hope to be able to do the same for my own children as I can see how hard it is to afford it all without that 'leg up'. One thing we did do was live at home until marriage (quite young getting hitched), which enabled us to save a lot towards the house.

Save from an early age. I have been with dh since 18. I started to save for a deposit as I wanted to buy not rent. Parents charged little rent. Moved out with 10k deposit and 10k from parents at 22. Married 2 yrs later, big ish wedding which me and dh paid for. Had ds at 28. He's now 6. We have made sacrifices when we younger. We didn't go out to socialise as mush as friends and didn't alway have latest clothes.

Well its all built on debt and subsidy isnt it? The house is mortgaged,not owned so thats debt. Stuff that goes into it is bought on credit, the state subsidises the upkeep of children via child benefit and other inputs. It is in fact financial folly to save up to buy things like this . Spend money as soon as you get it to capture as much of its value as possible. Schedule debt at the best rate possible. Dont fear debt,just manage it.

We had a largish wedding (£20k) but this was because our parents gave us £10k between both sets to go towards it, we saved the rest.

We managed to buy a £250k house 2 years later, but this was due to us getting some inheritance, and also my mum sold her house to move in and look after my nan. She gave us the deposit with the sale.

None of this we asked for at all, but both of our parents are incredibly keen for us to start producing babies, and I've firmly said I wouldn't have them until I was married and in a house suitable.

If we didn't have any help we would have still had the wedding we wanted, but would still be renting and Saving for a house.

Tiny cheap wedding, followed by living on mince recipes and potaoes for a year to get a bigger deposit together. Bought a tiny house that needed work. Then three years later had Ds.
Doable with planning, scrimping and saving. So long as you are both on the same page.

Honestly - we didn't get married, dm helped with the house deposit and we worked opposite shifts and got family help for childcare for the first couple of years.

I'm aware we have been very lucky and are in a privileged position. I think it would be very hard without the help we've had.

We both had mortgages when we got together, all parents paid for our wedding (4k so neither tiny nor enormous) and all parents have helped w childcare over the years. So definitely a family effort.

The thing that made the biggest difference was that dh was 38 when we married and 40 when dc1 appeared so had a very established career and a good amount of equity in his flat. If we'd married/had kids 10 years earlier we'd have been skint.

I'm 28, married for one year and pregnant with our first. We have just bought our second home, and been to Las Vegas every year for 6 years amongst other annual holidays. I earn around 23k and my husband around 28k so nowhere near as much as some couples. If you're sensible with your money it's totally doable! We saved 25k deposit and moved out when we were 23 and went from there.

Definitely helps having generous parents. We saved £2000 in the 4 months after getting engaged and received money from both sets of parents to help us afford our deposit. We're moving into our first home this month and getting married later this year. Very small wedding just the 2 of us with our parents, who again are very kindly paying for it. We plan to have kids in the next couple of years once we have better paid jobs.

As some of the above comments I really hope I can afford to pay it forward and to do the same for my children when the time comes.

No engagement.

Married in a registry office, cost about £100, DH borrowed a suit and I bought a dress for £80.

We lived abroad for a while, then I got pregnant and we came back to the UK.

We were on quite low salaries for years so baby stuff was pretty much all second hand.

Salaries slowly increased and I went back to work a little more and a little more.

We saved for a house deposit for 7 years. No holidays for that time.

Bought a little place last year , I am 45 and we will be paying the mortgage until we retire.

Comparison is the thief of joy and all that

If we had had financial support from parents, things may have been different. It can be really hard not to compare yourself with others but everyone's circumstances are different.

We only managed a house deposit with a generous inheritance from my Grandma and bought a small house with an equally small mortgage so we could afford to save (a lot of friends didn't and have lovely houses but huge mortgages that eat their money).
We did our wedding on £5000 which was another inheritance but could have done it from savings if we needed to.
DS is reasonably expensive in terms of childcare as we both work ft but we get a discount for being members of the place where his nursery is based and he only goes 4 days a week as I work Saturdays. We have DC2 on the way and will tighten our belts but we've got a good balance of things and don't do big holidays or travel or have a big beautiful house so that's our main sacrifices compared to friends with similar circumstances.

We met at uni and both lived away a few years, I went travelling etc too. We both eventually moved back home mid 20s to save, this ended up being 5 1/2 very very long years. It allowed us to save a big house deposit, for a wedding and to be able to have a baby.

We ended up buying our first home, having our first child (and getting pregnant with the second!) and having a big wedding all in a 10 month period. It was only because we'd saved our arses off for the 5 1/2 years with little or no rent to pay and little or no fun that we managed it. We did have help towards the wedding from both parents (this wasn't requested or expected), which meant our wedding went from fairly middle-cheap to fairly expensive. I'd have been happy with the original plans, the in laws just took hold and ran a little.

Without moving home we'd probably still be saving for our first home together, unmarried without any children. We are lucky we could do what we did in many ways but it was vv though living with parents pushing 30, for them as much as us!

We got married for less than £1500, worked our way up the property ladder by taking it slowly, making sacrifices to afford/do things we want and living within our means.

Not rocket science TBH

I’m a similar age. We spent 6 years abroad chasing lucrative expat contracts and living very frugally.

We built up a significant amount of savings that we have invested and we have reduced our outgoings to basically live off one salary and fully save the other.

It helps that we both have decent salaries, but have also made sacrifices over the years. It will be and has been worth it eventually, but didn’t come without tears and stress!

Got married nearly 3 years ago and currently pregnant with my first baby.

Had a mid size wedding which we saved for in one year and haven't bought a house yet because would rather pay less than current asking prices.
Also we love our holidays and would rather live life right now, the house will happen at the right time and we save around 20-25% of our pay every month (currently renting). Both 28 so hopefully will buy within next 2 years.

Mother in law will mind the baby when I return to work so we're lucky in that way and I'll be paid during maternity leave so that means we can keep saving.

My DH worked huge amounts of overtime and did a lot of weekend working etc - all this money saved up over 3 yrs we used as a deposit on our house. Barely saw him and he worked unbelievably hard over those 3 yrs but it was the only way we were able to save at the time. My job was in charity sector so no option for me to bring in extra money!

We didn't massively factor in finances when we decided to have kids - I just got very broody and couldn't wait any longer to try. We probably weren't in an ideal financial position at the time but it was the best decision we made, regardless of how little money we didn't have.

A few yrs on from having our child, we got married - we were in a much more fortunate financial situation so paid off majority of wedding ourselves prior to the day, with a little financial help from family but we paid for vast bulk ourselves. This was how we always wanted it to be - we didn't want to get in debt or rely on family to pay for it. Our wedding was expensive -20k almost - but we have been together for a long time and wanted a big celebration with good food and lots of alcohol. I have been to budget weddings and they have been great, no worse or better than other kinds. But we ourselves just wanted a big do and seeing as we could afford it, we did it.

So basically, we afforded all the above by working hard and saving, and then being fortunate enough for my DH to have the job he's in now which has made a huge difference to our finances.

My nephew (now 23) and girlfriend saved lots, bought a flat which was in need of TLC, upgraded the decor and sold for a good profit in Herts/Beds area, and now have a lovely semi, which is also getting the tasteful decor treatment.
They don't go out much or eat out often, they don't wast money on takeaways or coffee - they take flasks and sandwiches for lunch for example. They're both in min wage type jobs but take any overtime going. They only have 1 car, as they can walk/bus to work. Almost none of their friends own their own house.

They're only planning a small wedding so I won't get an invite.
It's do-able, but you have to be focused.

We got married fairly young (24) but saved up for it, parents paid for the dress. Saved up for a deposit on a house that has needed a lot of work which we bought at 28 (in the NE) and been doing it up over the last few years, it is only now (approaching 32) that we have thought about kids as any spare money was being spent on the house. We have spent about £55k on renovating the house. Getting a house that needed work has meant we have been able to add value and also jump the first step of the property ladder as we could buy a bigger longer term house.

I don’t think we would have managed to buy a house if we had done it in a different order.

We are lucky that we have a house and can now afford kids but we have been saving for something since we got engaged at 21 (and once we finish paying for childcare we will be saving for retirement)! We certainly wouldn’t be able to pay for full time childcare and save for a house.

We also sacrificed quite a bit, apart from our honeymoon haven’t been abroad and we share a Ford KA (which will need to be upgraded if we do have kids) - just another thing to save for!

People I know who did all 3 waited until mid 30s and had lots of financial and childcare help from grandparents.