Where were/are you financially at 28?

[SunshineOverStress]

So I’m 28, still live at home, have no savings but I do own a nice car which is worth around 14k.

I want to save up for a deposit but living in Greater London it seems an impossible task to be able to buy a place by myself!

I’ve been on a lot of nice holidays, went travelling for 4 months last year, and waste a lot of money on going out drinking and eating! I always end up choosing to spend money on travel rather than for my future and want to at least try to find a balance!

Has anyone got any tips or suggestions? Preferably without the suggesting of selling my car as it brings me joy everyday! Am I failing at being an adult by having never have moved out at my age? 🙈

1988

Masters degree, corporate career, fully expensed company car. House (owned jointly with DP) first payment timed to cone out of my first pay from a 'proper' job.

No significant holidays but both sets of parents lived abroad in different hemispheres so lots of travel.

Realise how lucky we were with house price inflation: it seemed like a great thing at the time. Have no.idea.at.all how subsequent generations will cope. Sorry.

i am 28 this year. I got married at 22 and lived with my husband's family for 3 years until we bought our two bed flat in London. Hang in there :) its very hard for us millenials.

I wouldn't compare yourself to others. Some people at 28 have a couple of houses they own and rent out, some are renting, some are completely homeless.

If you want to save more, then have less holidays and go out less with your friends or at least don't drink as much. Prepare food at home for lunches, take a refillable bottle for water instead of buying drinks during the day. It adds up.

I bought nearly two years ago, aged 30 in London.

At 28, I was living with my best friend in a flat share and saving hard for a deposit. We always went for cheap flats, I had a cheap car etc so I could save for a deposit. I have saved since university to get on the housing ladder. If I had been able to live at home (non London based parents) I could have saved much faster. It’s not impossible to do OP but you have to realise that you are going to start off with something really small.

I was buying my second home with dh. We saved from 18, lived at home, no uni, not many holidays, no takeaways, very little going out, one car between us.

If you want to buy a house in London (especially by yourself) I would assume you need to be earning a huuuuuge salary?

At 28 I had a joint mortgage with my partner and we both worked full time. No kids. It was great. But we're in the North so you can buy a nice house in a rural village for the same price as a one bedroom flat in London, if not cheaper! Get outta London, I say. Your money will go a lot further and you can finally gain your independence. Nobody wants to be living with their parents any longer than they have to!

I’m 28 later this year. Doing a masters and live in rented accommodation with partner and 2yo DD. Partner earns minimum wage. Saved up and bought my car cash for £2k. We’re currently saving up for our wedding (budget of around £3k) and house deposit (aiming for around £14k to give us a 10% deposit... couldn’t afford to buy if we didn’t live in the North East)

At 28 I was in debt, travelling the world and going out with friends.at 45, I’m now sensible with savings and a mortgage. Took it up I met DH for us to save for a house.
I don’t regret my choices one bit

At 28 I moved back from working abroad for 6 years. I had about £14k in savings. I spent that on a training course, living whilst training, and as my half of a house deposit with now DH when I fell pregnant with DS. I have never been able to save since and I'm 35 now 😅

Sorry for typos. Took until I met DH that should say

I’m 28, engaged with no DC.

I joint own a (highly mortgaged) £750k house which we bought 2 years ago as a wreck and have increased its value through renovation and extension. It was only possible to buy due to sale of a previous property and generous gifts from family.

I earn circa £50k and we have a household income of around £130k, we have nice holidays but drive battered old cars (both with over 100k on the clock) as cars aren’t important to us.

I’m now focusing on saving into pensions and my stocks and shares ISA for my future (i’d love not to have to work one day!) and saving for our wedding. We have some cash tucked away for emergencies.

At 28 I was living in a nice enough, bit shabby round the edges maybe, rented two bed flat in Crouch End with my boyfriend, I earned around £35k as a teacher. I was halfway through a debt management plan, paying off nearly £20k of debt that I'd accumulated in my early twenties. Boyfriend was on a similar wage, as a copywriter, but was about to quit that to go freelance.

Was in Brighton (my home town and returned there after university) so not much cheaper than London and was commuting to London daily for work.

Had just bought my first flat, a very damp, tiny one bedroom basement flat that was walking distance to the station and town centre - Seven Dials area for those who know Brighton. Had scrimped and saved so that along with my season ticket (interest free loan from work but still a few hundred pounds each month) no car (got my first car at 32!) but could walk into town, to the bars, nightclubs etc, no holidays but I did live in a holiday town.

I didn't spend much on going out as back then (late 90s) there were quite a lot of illegal, cheap/free pop up clubs that moved around but were well known to the locals and as social media was out there albeit in its infancy, you could be notified where these were via my space, bebo etc. we'd met up at someone's flat for drinks and pizzas/homemade chilli/nachos that kind of food before we went out so didn't have to spend much on alcohol when out.

I didn't have a mobile phone even though they were available then and just about affordable, only about a third of my friends did, grunge dressing helped with my clothes budget as had to look very smart for work.

I'm 29 and have only just bought my first house and it's only a 2 bed semi worth £100k. But I became a single mother at a young age and have been living in rented accommodation since I was 17. Everyone has different situations and priorities. There's no right or wrong.

I’m 28, bought my house 2 years ago could have probably done it a few years earlier but didn’t get round to it. Single so did it alone. DM topped up the deposit a small amount.

Got a further 35k in savings and a nice-ish car. Live in Manchester which is far cheaper than London but not home of the mythical cheap northern housing market by any means.

I am careful but not stingey, never been overdrawn or had a credit card, go on one big holiday and a few city breaks a year. Very happy with my lifestyle, but going back to uni next year for a masters to hopefully increase my employability abroad as I would like to move out of the UK.

I left home at 17. Worked and rented and saved and by 27 I was moving to a (grotty) house to do up and sell with a 4 week old baby.
My husband is a builder so we have made money buying and selling - and live a simple life. Only spending what we could afford- no credit helped us save.
Now 36 and settled in long term home with small mortgage but a bit too much debt. i would say save 90% if you have no rent or bills and really focus on long term goal of being a home owner if that's what you want.
It's easier when there are two earners of course.

@Yerroblemom1923 I know investment bankers in north london still living with parents, they earn six figure salaries. Actually i find that in London, the people on 40-100K tend to live with parents if they can, the people on 20K almost all rent. Probably because the people on higher incomes have a hope of getting a deposit together. Hence they would be able to buy at the best time when the house price crash comes (i wish i had the ability but unfortunately I bought a two bed flat last year with DH as my MIL's house was very small and we were overstaying our welcome after 3 years; if MIL had lived in a bigger house, i would probably be still living there). And cos of the way the London job market is, 1 in 2 jobs have the ability to wfh so hopefully they would come out of covid relatively unscathed. And if you still have your pre covid income, I would say that you are winning and would be able to buy property in London and perhaps even investment property in the north (based on London income). Property in wales and the north dropped by 40% in the last recession. 'Independence' is overrated, in the end, its about what makes financial sense.

At 28 I'd been in my own home with DH (just bf when we bought) for 6 years, had been married for 3 and had DS.

We had both completed our CA at 25 so had a few years post qualified experience. DH was now a Finance Director and I was a manager in a big firm.

Nice holidays every year but no big lengthy travelling as we prioritised the wedding and then baby, although that took longer than planned due to numerous miscarriages.

Biggest difference is that we're in Scotland so our wages go much further. Our first house was under £100k and we only needed £5k deposit which we saved from student jobs. We'd both stayed at home throughout uni which also seems more common up here.

I'd bought my 2nd house and was a couple of years away from moving to my 3rd.

I’m 27 so a year younger but I’m married living in a ‘starter home’ with DH. Earning around £30K at the moment but tbh I’m still not sure I’m not on the right path. DH (30) has just changed careers completely and is part work part studying so he’s on £25K (should go up in a few months) We bought our house 3 years ago.

A few of my close friends and family the same/similar age -

BIL - (31) - Has just saved enough living with MIL to buy his own two bed flat. People have judged him for staying at home so long but he’s been really savvy saving and will only have a tiny mortgage that he should be able to clear within a few years.

Best friend - (28) - Gifted an inheritance and bought a nice 3 bed house with her DH (married at 24). One year old DS.

2 x other friends - (27) - Living in a house share with friends, partying, travelling and loving life.

So as you can see it varies hugely!

I agree independence is very overrated, can either have some holidays, go out socialise have fun in your early 20s,or just save every penny and have no life for a mortgage deposit, I know what I would rather do!

Banks know lots of people in their late 20s are still living at home hence all the springboard mortgage advertising on prime time TV to try and get parents to pay for their offspring to buy overpriced housing as banks know the market is slowing down to being overpriced and do not want prices /profits to come down.

Hopefully one good thing that comes out of coronavirus is a correction in house prices, in my area alone they have increased 50% in 5/6 years which is just not sustainable long term.

At 28 I lived in a 1 bed shared ownership flat in London that I’d bought the year before with my boyfriend. We only needed a 5% deposit on the 50% share so it was tiny (£10k so £5k each). We lived there from age 27-30, saved really hard and staircased to full ownership, then made quite a lot when we sold it. We got married at 29 and bought our family home at 30. I’m 33 now so fairly recent! I’d look into shared ownership - the “second hand” sales rather than new builds are the best value - as a good way of getting on the ladder in London.

Shit creek. I was pregnant,we had bought our first house and the recession hit, so our mortgage payments tripled. But we got through it. And at least unlike our ndn, weren’t hit by huge negative equity.

@jimmyjammy001 the springboard mortgages are ridiculous. I know family friends who sold their house for a million plus and downgraded to a tiny flat just to raise deposits for their older two children (their third child had down syndrome). I think that is a very high price to pay for 'independence', now their third child only has the equity of a small flat to live on when his parents pass on.