To wonder how ppl do it...afford it all?

[wishywashyy]

How do ppl (I mean the average joe!) afford everything? I know, I know situations are different BUT in general
Mortgage
Car payments (usually 2!)
Childcare
Savings
And general living

It doesn't add up
Mortgage/council tax on average would be what? 700-800?
Car payments x2 600?
Childcare (let's just say one lot) approx 1000
That's 1400 alone at least!
Saving? I suppose that's depending
General living? Another 800-1k
So That's 2k
Then there's other bills which would be 500ish
That's 2.5k in total

That's a take home of about 40k! Gone! And no savings!

I'm baffled and freaked out at the thoughts!!!

@User135792468

Those who say they have a mortgage of £300-400, where do you live and how much was your house? I just don’t understand how it could possibly be so low. The people’s whose mortgages I know about are all between £1200-2000. We’re in the southeast and house prices are high.

South Wales valleys. You can get houses there for well under 100k.

We earn £25,000 between us. Bills £1200 per month including breakfast club. Car owned outright.
We don't save a lot as we don't have a lot but we get by. As ds gets older I'll look to increase hours.

@User135792468 NW mortgage amount left is 85k, £380pm

Deliberately small mortgage, no childcare costs as one parent at home, newish second-hand cars, no savings....

@User135792468

Those who say they have a mortgage of £300-400, where do you live and how much was your house? I just don’t understand how it could possibly be so low. The people’s whose mortgages I know about are all between £1200-2000. We’re in the southeast and house prices are high.

Nottingham. 3-bed semi, 103k, bought in 2005.

@dorangme

Those who say they have a mortgage of £300-400, where do you live and how much was your house? I just don’t understand how it could possibly be so low. The people’s whose mortgages I know about are all between £1200-2000. We’re in the southeast and house prices are high.

It's generally because they bought ages ago so the mortgage is low. My parents house was 60k in the mid 80s, sell for 2m now.

Not always. My mortgage is £403, for a 2 bed flat in central Manchester bought for less than £117,000 in 2019. Was unloved and needed some work, which was off-putting for first time buyers and buy to let.

There are already increases for similar properties in the area, which is (I think) because we have shared gardens and outside space is at a premium now!

We only have one car, which we saved up for, so no car repaymanets. We get up earlier so we can drop each other off at work. We take public transport even with the kids. We save, save and save and only get take out once a month. I buy second hand kids clothes bundles off Facebook and sell anything we don't need/use or toys the kids have outgrown

Size of mortgage depends on how many years you have your mortgage over, whether you had a fixed rate, what overpayments you make and type of mortgage. Mine is expensive (imo). I pay £707 (+ another £100 in overpayment) per month. I have 11 years left on the term. Borrowed £150 (had decent deposit). But I'm overpaying on the rate because I went fixed for the security of knowing monthly payment. Plus the mortgage protection insurance which is £120 pm. It's a big chunk. I would love to be paying £400

I have always tried to live within my means. I.e bought a small fixer-upper as my first house, furnished with second hand / free stuff for the first few years. Renovations only when I could afford them. Drove a crap car for years. As my income has risen, the renovations got done, got a different car and paid it off pretty quickly by saving on other things. Now the monthly mortgage payments are still low but I live in a nicely renovated house. Partner and I work 4 days each (and can work flexibly) so we do most of the childcare between us plus one day toddler cared for by an extended family member and just 8 hours a week in a local nursery (£162 per month then on childcare). We don’t have huge incomes by any means and we’ve lived our lives around what we could afford.

Well a lot of people can't.

A lot of people are single and/or don't have children.
A lot of people don't drive.
A lot of people rent.
A lot of people struggle to afford food and bills.

Whilst I know that other parts of the country are much cheaper, seeing it written down that people can buy a house for 100/120k. Where I live, a 2 bed flat with no outdoor space is 250k. We’ve just taken on a 400k mortgage so no £300/400 repayments for us anytime soon.

Seeing it written down is mind boggling that was meant to say.

@User135792468

Whilst I know that other parts of the country are much cheaper, seeing it written down that people can buy a house for 100/120k. Where I live, a 2 bed flat with no outdoor space is 250k. We’ve just taken on a 400k mortgage so no £300/400 repayments for us anytime soon.

It’s mind boggling to me but the other way round! We’re up North so I’m always agog at the property prices in the South.

When DH’s relative died the family had difficulty selling their house, eventually it went to auction. Three bed semi, front and rear gardens, went for less than £60k, somewhere in Lincolnshire.

It's just as mind boggling to those of us who live in affordable areas that there are places where quite ordinary houses cost a million pounds and that even well paid people can't afford them, unless they have previous equity or a large inheritance.

Cross posted with Edge

LolaSmiles my iphone is a new SE one &!is 1 yr old. Its just not the ultra latest model & I always sell on my old models.
So you've still made a decision to prioritise having a newer iPhone, just not the latest one. There's still a cost there for buying the handset.
Same with sky, most people will not be paying £10/15 a month for sky because the basic package that they are swapping people over to is £30 a month. If people negotiate at the end of their terms they will get lower rate, but having media packages (and for many that's several because it will be Sky/Virgin plus something like Netflix) is still a case of where people choose to spend their money.

I don't disagree with your approach. We do similar in terms of selling on items, shopping around for deals. You're right that £10-15 a month isn't going to make or break buying a house, but it is a question of priorities for a lot of people (not all obviously as some areas wages and house prices aren't aligned). By the time people have paid their Sky/Virgin, then wanted netflix, then chosen a more expensive phone to replace the working phone they already own, then want a nice car on PCP every couple of years, then pay their gym membership, then choose to buy new clothes regularly, then choose to eat out regularly, etc they lose the ability to be surprised that they're skint / have no savings.

We take public transport even with the kids.

Where I am, doing this would cost exponentially more than using the car.

We always own one older car outright and take a lone to pay for the second one. Once the loan is paid off we run the banger into the ground and eventually get a newer car with a loan. Therefore we are only paying for one car at a time, sometimes. none, but we save the money usually spent on the car loan when its zero.

No childcare costs, I work part time, odd hours to fit around DH. We only occasionally need childcare and then its grandparents so no cost.

We pay over your estimated mortgage but that's through choice as we took it over a shorter term than most. We have about 65% equity so qualify for better rates and remortgage when our deals run out, normally shaving off a couple of years each time.

We treat savings like a bill and transfer it to an account on payday.

Mortgage is £900
Nursery £300-£375 a month for one day per week
bills £800-£1000 some bills are annual
Groceries and other household spending £600-£800
Savings (long term) 750-1000
DS savings and spending £400
Plus money for the emergency pot and anything else that crops up, just had to have the guttering replaced, had a big cat vet bill after Christmas, holidays etc.
Doesn't include our personal fun spends or petrol
We don't have anything on finance and don't earn six figures between us. We lived in a lot less when we were younger and when I bought my first flat in 2010 I earned less than 25k and was single

@EdgeOfFortyNine @BarbaraofSeville Yes, I can imagine it’s also mind boggling the other way. It’s odd how you normalise what you are used to. A good friend has a budget of 400k and is struggling to find a 3 bed semi in a half decent condition. In reality, it’s madness that she can’t get that for nearly half a million pounds. However, as the prices here are around that then it seems normal that she’s finding it hard if that makes sense. We have bought in the area we grew up in so we are close to family and friends. I love our area but it does scare me for the future for our 3 dc. As soon as we’ve paid our mortgage off or have broken the back of it, we’ll be frantically saving for their deposits.

@thegcatsmother

Buying second hand cars outright works, and reduces payments. My dh's last pre retirement car was about £1500, a Saab, which trundled between the UK and Brussels for years, and worked well for his daily Brussels commute. We had it for 7 years, put thousands of miles on it, and scrapped it when we moved back to UK.

My Saab was £3500, I've had the car for 7 years and use it much as dh did his. I reckon I'm good for another 75000 miles in her at least. No finance payments, and so far I've had new tyres, a new battery and annual servicing. No major problems as yet.

I agree.

When my late DP changed jobs and we needed a second car for his commute, he found a small hatchback with 9 months on the MOT for £450.

We ran that car for 6 years, and only ever had to pay out for tyres and brake pads. We scrapped it when it needed some expensive work on the suspension, and got £150 from the scrap man.

We also ran a £650 Passat for nearly 3 years without spending any significant money on it and got a couple of hundred in scrappage.

It's easily the cheapest way of motoring.

@User135792468

Whilst I know that other parts of the country are much cheaper, seeing it written down that people can buy a house for 100/120k. Where I live, a 2 bed flat with no outdoor space is 250k. We’ve just taken on a 400k mortgage so no £300/400 repayments for us anytime soon.

For me, it's the opposite. I find it mind-boggling that people would pay 250k for a flat with no garden!

We own a two-bed terrace with a decent-sized garden, garage and driveway and it cost us 60k.

I struggled to pay everything on my 'average joe salary 3 years ago.

But in the last 3 years by gross pay has increased by 15k so I am much more comfortable and have
a good bit of disposable income.

Other than my DP, nobody knows about my pay rises. Anyone who knows me probably still assumes I have an average joe income, but in reality I have that average joe income + 15k + bonus, and thats how i 'afford it all'.

I'm sure there are others that we also assume are on average salaries, when in fact they earn much more.

For me, it's the opposite. I find it mind-boggling that people would pay 250k for a flat with no garden

Me too, I know it's not fair that people are priced out of their home towns and shouldn't have to choose between family and affordable living, but for us we did choose the latter. Not so much for cheaper housing as it wasn't expensive where we were, but for more opportunities to earn more to then have a better lifestyle as employment opportunities are awful where we are from, so we located to somewhere still reasonably priced but many more jobs. It's a shame we can't live near family, but I just couldn't cripple ourselves for that, we make it work in other ways.

@User135792468

Those who say they have a mortgage of £300-400, where do you live and how much was your house? I just don’t understand how it could possibly be so low. The people’s whose mortgages I know about are all between £1200-2000. We’re in the southeast and house prices are high.

Wales, £122k. Bought around 8 years ago.