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? 🙈

I haven't read the whole thread, but I think you're being a bit short sighted/naive. DH and I had most of our deposit saved up by 28 and bought our first property in London by 30. That was 8 years ago. We did a bit of traveling and enjoyed occasional nights out, but our focus was definitely on getting on the ladder. Now as parents we are actively teaching our children that whenever they are given money, they can spend some, but must save some. Never to spend it all. It's not that financially clever to spend all you've got. If I was you, I'd start saving ASAP. Otherwise you might miss the boat as mortgages are more difficult to get as you get older and your repayment period shortens. And if you do miss the boat, you'll kick yourself I promise you.. Seen this happen to more than one friend..

Two people can save more easily than one and even share a car and a mortgage. On your own it’s far more difficult and looks a distant prospect.

I’m interested in what job gives you 4 months off to travel though. Do you keep changing jobs. I had a lot more than you at 28 but I didn’t live in Greater London. My DD has her own flat in zone 2 but we gave her £250,000 towards it. She got that at 26. She doesn’t go off for months though and doesn’t own a car. She also is a very high earner.

I think your choices are: Stay as you are. Find a friend and buy jointly. Move to a cheaper area. Is bank of mum and dad a possibility? Do you need a property right now? My DD was paying a very high rent. So getting her own place helped and we don’t want the IHT liability so giving some away made sense. What about your parents?

As a 28 year old, she can certainly get a mortgage for 30 years plus. She won’t retire for 40 years!

Saving for a deposit on your own in London these days is an impossible task imo. I would be saving money for a house deposit elsewhere, maybe just outside London but close enough to commute in.

@BubblesBuddy I told my job that I wanted to travel South America for 4 months - I had made the decision and was quitting regardless if they had me back or not but I was very lucky that they did want me back after! I’ve been in the same job all of my adult life, I left for a year to try something else then they wanted me back - I have been back there for 7 years this year. I do sales, it’s local and I enjoy it but I don’t want to be stuck there earning the same money forever without the potential to go further or earn more!
My dad may possibly help me when I’m in a better position to be able to buy on my own, I don’t live with him and I wouldn’t want to ask for the leg up if you get me!

I was 28 three years ago, had bought my first flat at 27 with help from bank of mum for the deposit and was engaged, then got married at 29. We paid for a modest wedding ourselves after saving for a year and renting out the spare room. In my early to mid 20s I didn't earn much and had a YOLO approach to life, I partied, travelled, blew all my money on clothes and had credit card debt. Late 20s, I became more sensible, paid off the credit card and built up savings. I still kept my expensive sporting hobby and I don't regret it as it has brought me so much joy and great memories. I've temporarily given it up though as I'm pregnant.
DH and I now have £10K in savings which we'll use to bump up our deposit for a house with a garden. Last year we had lots of amazing holidays and hobby-related trips, we saved for those by cutting down costs elsewhere. I drive an '11 Punto and I'm fine with that as I value experiences over stuff.
Our take home pay is £1600 each, where you are that won't get you very far but it's plenty where we live. Our 3 bed flat in a reasonable area was £95K, I deliberately chose to stay away from London and SE because of the house prices.
No point comparing yourself to other people though, everyone's circumstances and choices will be different.

28
Rented & moved around
Multiple jobs, saved up deposit
Old banger car
Very few luxuries
This is when I had time & huge amounts of energy & enthusiasm for life !
,.......
At 50/60+ do you want to be working long hours to pay off mortgage, children's costs ?

At an older age, I'm taking it a bit easier than before. I'm glad that I made the effort when I was younger

However, it is your life, your choices

Bought property at 30

I'm 28. Have quite a big house with very average mortgage (bought last year). Holiday about twice a year. Own old 07 car. About 6 months income in savings. Have 4 kid's aswell so it took a lot to save!

If you earn more in 30 years time and still have the same mortgage, it won’t seem very much. Rental goes up periodically. It’s expensive to rent for all those years.

If you want a better job it might be difficult to find it right now. You seem to have a job you like and plenty of money to spend On yourself but it’s difficult to save for a deposit. My local town has a cheaper north side and you could look at 1hr 15 mins commute. This might be doable. But no friends and not the best after work vibe!

At 28 I was just about to move in to my second mortgaged home. Double the value of my first. In order to get the first, I saved. I didnt go on holidays or travel, i didnt have a fancy care. I rarely went to restaurants. I didnt buy much in the line of the clothes.

You need a complete financial makeover!

Have you thought about consulting a financial life coach?

As a rough guide out of your take home pay:
10% pension
10% savings
30% housing (what you should be saving for a deposit)
10% travel (inc all your car costs- loan/servicing/insurance)
20% food and toiletries
10% clothes
10% leisure

I was pretty skint looking back. Had just come back from 2 years working in Tokyo and had a teaching job here at a college. Got itchy feet again so went off to the Middle East for another 2 years basically didn't grow up til my 30s!

Had no savings and no house at 28 but never felt like I was in a bad position, I was earning but just not much.

Now 47 and bought a place 2 years ago!

Would it be an option to go and work abroad for a few years? You d kill two birds with one stone as you d be having fun while saving towards a deposit?

I left home at 18, worked abroad for a bit and then went to uni. Haven't been back home since (except to visit) and I've been renting since uni (first in NW then SW). Met DP when I was 23 and we just bought our first house last year (I'm 32). At 28 I had a lowish salary as I was recently qualified so on entry level wage (have a postgrad in a niche profession). 2 years ago I applied for a much better paid job (was waiting for the right job to come up in the city I live in). Still not megabucks but we have plenty as we both work FT, no DC and no car, low spending etc. I haven't really travelled like a lot of my friends have; just been on little holidays once my salary improved (never outside Europe). I went nowhere really from when I graduated until about 7 years later as I was skint. My parents helped us with a deposit which I know makes me very lucky (couldn't save enough whilst renting). We chose a small house in a cheap area out of the city to keep mortgage payments low so even if one of us was made redundant or something we could still pay it just about. We live in a city in the SW, high prices but nowhere near London levels.

If you are living at home you can probably save a lot but otoh it's going to be a massive struggle to buy in London on one income (maybe a part buy or something is an option?) Or you could look and see if there are job opportunities elsewhere. I have always moved where jobs are but I suppose it depends if you want to stay near family.

I’m in my early thirties now, not in London but an expensive U.K. city. By the age of 26, I’d saved for a deposit but was still renting and had a very decent job. At 28 I was newly wed and we bought our first home about three months before the wedding. It was a new build that I wasn’t keen on but we had a baby the next year and by the age of 30, we sold it for a very decent profit and bought a much nicer property in a posh village. We have a lovely lifestyle, a cleaner, second hand but lovely car and we eat out once/ twice a week usually. We don’t travel that much, a European city break for our wedding anniversary plus a week in the sun somewhere with the kids in the summer (a villa in Spain or similar). That said - we saved for many years! When we were saving, we didn’t eat out and couldn’t have dreamt of taking four months off work to travel!! We used to treat ourselves to £5 bottles of wine on a Friday at one point. I never had my nails done when my friends did and couldn’t afford tanning creams back when it was all the rage. We are living very well now so the sacrifices we made were worth it.

I’m 28. Me and DH got married and bought our house last year. We intend to live here for at least the next 10 years. We have a joint income of around £70k (although our jobs are uncertain in the current climate!)

We’ve owned one property before, which we sold in 2017 and we went travelling for 6 months using some of the equity. When we returned, we saved everything we could for about a year to buy the house we have now.

I don’t earn a huge amount, but I’m unhappy in my career and am looking to change to a more lucrative career once everything goes back to “normal”.

It’s your life, but you’re in such a good position to be saving! If I were you I’d be trying to put away as much as I could, at least £500 a month. Not only will it give you a safety net, but you’d soon be able to afford a small flat if you have financial help from family too.

If you don’t save anything at all, I think you may look back in 10 years and wish you had. It sounds like you’ve already had some amazing experiences, so it’s not like you’ll have missed out.

I live in one of the commuter city's so although house prices are more affordable than greater London, they're still fairly high. Neither dh or I could have bought alone, even with h2b.

We started renting at 23 with the aim to save about £25k for a deposit over 2 years. We combined our finances early in as I'm better at managing money in the sense of categorising what it's for I also worked out how much our monthly out goings were (rent, household bills, average monthly food shop, fuel for both cars etc) and then took that from total income, we put £500each a month in savings and then whatever was left over was our "fun money" so takeaways, nights out etc. Anything left over was added to savings. So we hit the £25k target in just over 18 months. Which was lucky as we found our dog and our landlord wouldn't allow pets.

We bought our house just after my 25th birthday and took out a 35 year mortgage and only paid a 10% deposit, we didn't use h2b as the building society our mortgage is with weren't part of the scheme.
We had ds at 28 and are both 30 this year.

I don't necessarily think where I am in life is the right path for everyone, my closest friend is almost 32, her and her husband spent 3 years travelling around Australia, came home, got married, moved in with her brother and settled into well paid, secure jobs. They are planning to travel around Asia next summer and then when they come back look at maybe buying a house and having children, but she said owning a house doesn't fit her lifestyle.

Consider if you'd rather have the freedoms of travelling and experiencing different cultures or if you want to own your own home, have that space and settle down. There is nothing wrong with either choice, and you can do both, just not as often.

Left home at 20 when my Mum had to sell the house and rented various places (When renting was much cheaper than buying).

At 28 I had just bought a flat in London. 12% interest rate I was crap with money but it was a brand new flat and the developer "paid the deposit" (basically by adding 5% to the purchase price with tame mortgage companies). It was a struggle but I didn't have holidays although I had a great social life. It wasn't until I met DH in my mid 30s that I started having holidays abroad.

At 28 I’d just bought my first flat with EXDH in zone 1 London for £250k, BUT we had financial help from our parents (I think of about £15k, and we were earning about £70k between us. AND it was around 2005, back when mortgages were easy to get.
Things seemed easier then.
Although I earn 4 x what I did then, I now don’t feel much better off, all these years later.

My advice would be to start saving ASAP.
I look back at all of the money I’ve wasted on ‘stuff’ and am ashamed.
I don’t have much savings despite being on a good salary, and wish I’d begin much, much earlier.
It’s boring but true - get some savings, pension, save for a deposit.

I was driving a shit car but was living in a nice house that I owned.

Graduated in law aged 20 with law prizes. Married at 21, bought house age 22 with husband, had baby, 2 week maternity leave i.e. used annual holiday, qualified as a solicitor in London, moved law firms on qualification to one of the best in the country in London, had baby no. 2 and then no. 3 aged 26, (by then we had bought 2 flats to let out; moved to a third law firm in London, Moved to a second house.

So at 28 3 children, one house we lived in , 2 flats let out (sold for massive losses in the 1990s).

Age 28 we sold our second house we had lived in and moved to the third (the one before this one) which was pretty nice detached with a separate entrance and study and 4 beds and en suite and near a tube station. We were paying school fees for the oldest at Haberdashers who was about 5 or 6 and for second daughter at nursery school and we had had the same full time nanny since 1984 who came each day.

I was mortgaged up to my eyeballs with my husband on a small flat in London. We still live there. And I was pregnant. I had and still have a steady job.

No point comparing as I was married by 23 so it would be like comparing apples and pears, but you have very understanding parents letting you live at home at 28 despite being flush with cash in other ways! (Lighthearted!)