AIBU to ask how much you had to sacrifice to purchase your first property?

[Theegghashatched]

Sigh

I'm on year 3 of saving and it seems like were being faced with set backs after set backs!

Currently living with DPs parents (god bless them) and they have kindly allowed us to rent at a cheap price whilst we save the last few thousand of a deposit. We are both 30 so no spring chickens and this situation is far from ideal but hope that it will be short term pain for a long term gain!

DP has also had his hours cut considerably at work due to covid - this affects our income and we will now need to obtain a new mortgage in principle and determine how much this would affect what we can borrow.

I shouldnt moan I know we are in a far better position than others but I cant help but feel so so deflated!

So aibu to ask if you had to sacrifice a lot and if so; do you saying what?

Also how did it turn out for you? Was it a good decision and worth the sacrifices?

(Mine are ... living with dps partners and sacrificing our freedom, delaying TTC, minimising spending and buying second hand clothes, no holiday for the last 3 years)

We live in London away from family so can’t move back in with them - so we had to continue to pay rent on top of saving - it’s just took longer rather than ya sacrificing much tbh - we saved for nearly 5 years and only just getting there now. Love our rental though and we continued having holidays and stuff - I couldn’t cope without some nice things planned. So taking longer to get there was worth it for us

My first house was such a wreck you could stand in the cellar and see the sky! Every piece of wood(including all joists and floorboards) had to be replaced (woodworm). We lived with no kitchen for a year, only a slow cooker and an open fire. We had an outside loo. And we did all the work ourselves, in between working full time, buying new floor boards when we got our monthly paychecks. And we had to live in the wreck while we did it up! We had no furniture, no holidays, definitely no children and the world's crappiest car.

I sound like the Yorkshiremen sketch, but it really was like that.

DH worked 2 full time jobs - 1 night shift and 1 day shift 6 days a week for a year to save our deposit. I worked full time, did all the overtime and fed and woke DH on a schedule so he could do the 2 jobs. It was a very long year but worth it

I gave up privacy and a nice environment and moved into a room in a loud flat above a pub. I had to sleep with earplugs for 3 years, had awful flatmates, the pub below was well dodgy, the flat had mice, I had to manage the sublets of the flat, so if someone moved out i had to find a replacement, but ended up sometimes not paying rent, so it wasn't great. I also didn't take many holidays, but did still have a good social life!

However, it let me save a good deposit and it was worth it!!

I had a staff mortgage with my employer (major high street bank) so although a portion of my mortgage was cheap and the remainder at standard customer rates I got absolutely stung (as did a lot of colleagues) for tax. At one point I had a zero tax code.

A bit off track but think about your life at 50 and 60 and 70.....do you want the security of a home paid for that you have chosen?

Or to have the instability of a rented property and the pressure of making the rent forever...that is what scared me into going all out to buy at 21....now l am much,much older and more tired!, l realise it was the single best thing l ever did.

After much sacrifice and a fair amount of struggle and many moves , l am finally in my dream home and l wake up so grateful

We are quite frugal - not cheap but if a choice between two restaurants we like but one has an offer on, we will go with the offer even if we like the other one more.

We didn't and still don't have a car, no holidays and lived somewhere with cheap rent although it was still on our own and not with parents etc as I wasn't able to move back in with my mum and his parents live in a different county.

I don't feel like we sacrificed all that much. The no holidays and no car continued as we have saved for a wedding. Then again we are in the north and have chosen not to have kids but we bought our house without a single penny of family money and for someone my age (had been 25 for a month when we completed, but I was 24 for most of the legwork with the mortgage etc) that's uncommon

I should also add that we both have cars 10+ old (mine literally rackets). We rarely eat out and are good at meal planning and prepping.

The thing is we are doing well, our savings are getting there but after the recent setbacks its just so disheartening. I feel embarrassed when it comes into conversation that were staying at dps parents and I find myself feeling like a total failure that at 30 we still don't have our own house. (Nor are we married or have dc). Most of our friends (if not all) have nice homes, new cars, exotic holidays and its hard not to compare and feel like a total failure!

However this thread has made me realise that it isnt just us that have made sacrifices and actually very few have had it easy despite buying at different times over the last 50 years, i suppose its normalised the sacrifices and hard work that is the 'norm' outside of my friendship groups!

Also i should add without throwing too much cheese in to the dish.. i am seriously inspired by some of these posts, some incredible work ethic and frugality in order to get where you are today!

Lived in shared accommodation, worked two jobs, no car and ate very cheaply. Worth it though as friends took different options and spend a lot of time moaning they aren’t on the property ladder.

You have to run your own race. Just because it takes you longer doesn't mean anything. Lots of people can get expensive cars on finance and have large debt others know nothing about. Everybody has different definitions of success. To me it's honestly just doing what makes you happy. Keeping up with the burden of the exceptions of others is heavy to carry.

In Asian culture it's also actually quite common for extended family to live together. I grew up in a big house with my grandparents and an extra aunt and cousin.

I had to sell my Beatles autographs to pay the rates ( ancient equivalent of council tax) as interest rates were 15% and we had no money. And one year DH and I bought a vacuum cleaner instead of Christmas presents for each other.

1991. 100 percent mortgage at 12 per cent interest rate followed by neg equity. I would say that we sacrificed 5 years of our lives that should have been the best of our lives!

I didn't sacrifice a lot really. Depends how you measure it. Absent father who hadn't paid any maintenance ever and made contact maybe once every 3 years died and I got £50k. I guess I sacrificed for that as a child in advance, but didn't have any choice about it.

We struggled massively for years - moneywise and in the cold houses we were renting. Our ds had winter asthma and the cold drove his chest mad.
When we finally had a bit of breathing space with money we started making regular savings, weve now been approved our mortgage and are signing up everything this week. I cant believe it and thought it would never happen.
I'm 30 now with 2 ds.

We had two jobs each and one car and a push bike. Lived with parents (separately as not married). No holidays or meals out - the exception being a shared portion of chips on the sea front. Bought a house an hours drive from both our workplaces as it was cheaper (not fun with only one car). Moved in with no furniture or any white goods other than one chair, a twin tub and a cold store box. For several months we ate potatoes that fell of passing lorries (Norfolk). !

You WILL get there and your memories will be worth it.

I don't mean to offend anyone on here as you've all obviously worked very hard to own your own homes and that is really commendable and in some ways I am quite envious of that level of security.

But. If I may add my opinion, I rent, have done all my life and will likely never own due to a combination of crappy life circumstances and never having enough money to make savings. However. If I had scrimped and saved and cut out any luxuries, anything fun since the day I left home I may have more than a penny to my name right now.

Instead I have travelled and made a bunch of wonderful memories. Yes it may come back to haunt me when I'm older and am still renting but tbh I'm happy with my life choices. Some things are worth it! I couldn't imagine sacrificing everything I enjoy for years at a time to save up to buy a property that may need
a shit tonne of maintenance (which I will have to pay for), or I may struggle to sell if circumstances change and I have to leave the area, or may be taken from me to pay for my care in old age.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is there are many ways to live a life. Property ownership is not the be all and end all of life. I know if I dropped dead tomorrow I'd be happier with a head full of great experiences than with thousands in the bank 😊

Feeling slightly ashamed - nothing. It was the glory days of the 110% Northern Rock mortgage.

Flat was a bargain, start of the housing boom, did it up a bit and doubled my money.

OK, so no house purchase has been like it since and current property is like throwing money down a drain but 1st one, I always feel a bit embarrassed when people say how dreadful Northern Rock was as for me it was absolutely brilliant.

I lived above a pub initially to pay off student debts. Very loud.

Then DH and I had 2 lodgers to help pay the mortgage. That was for 3 or 4 years.

We’ve also done a lot of work on houses ourselves. Replaced a roof, several bathrooms, a kitchen, floors, etc.

But mostly we were able to do it because it was the 90s and house prices weren’t as crazy as they are now.

We delayed marriage and children until we’d saved enough to buy.
We worked long and hard. My husband had three jobs at that point, including full time teaching. I had two jobs.
We volunteered in holidays rather than go on ‘proper’ holidays; we gained valuable experiences and saved money.
We didn’t spend much. We were cold often.

Lived in less-desirable properties in less-desirable streets of a less-desirable town. Completely renovated two houses. Studied and started businesses while we worked. Modest wedding, delayed having children, welcomed second hand furniture, had a succession of old cars and crap holidays.

Had lots of fun, found out who our friends were, moved to the perfect house after 13 years and had to start from scratch with that too...!

Cheap holidays! But good ones!

-2nd job
-packed lunches
-shit car
-Quidco and vouchers influenced what l bought and when.

@FuzzyPuffling my auntie did something similar in the 80’s and bought a house where you could see the sky (3 storey house as well 🙈)

No sacrifices at all. Got a mortgage very easily 20 yrs ago, deposit was a grand, repayments were cheap. Made stupid mistake of selling up and going travelling. When I came back two yrs later I couldn’t afford to buy again and haven’t since.

We didn't sacrifice anything other than an elderly grandparent - sorry not what you want to hear I know :( and I'm being jovial not callous .

It will be worth it in the end I'm sure .