Let's do the math for Kirsty regarding an affordable home

[kirstyalslap]

I'm sure everyone has heard that kirsty Allsopp has came out saying that people can afford homes if they only cut out netflix, the gym and takeaway coffees.

I just worked out a meal deal costs £3 a day. X that by 5 days a week 52 weeks a year is £720. Netflix is £8 for 2 screens (?) so times that by 12 months is £96 a year.
Let's add a £20 takeaway every 2 weeks for good measure. £520. Gym costs £14 a month so £168 a year.

So in one year of cutting back on netflix, lunch for work and takeaways I can save £1504
Wow
Now I need 14000 for a deposit so I'm only 10 years away (probably a little but more actually including fees.)

Right now let's think about increase in property value.
My parents bought their house 8 years ago for £90 thousand. A massive 2 reception with 4 bed and 2 huge gardens with a drive.
Bad condition.
Last year the neighbours sold for £230k
This year the other neighbours has been valued at £280k. My parents are thinking of selling for approx £290k.
So in 8 years their house has increased by £200k
(this hurts me as I started saving 8 years ago, nearly 9 and was looking at saving for a smaller house for about 80k needed 4k at the time and had a 5 year plan to get there. No family helping with deposit)

£90k now would get you nothing at all.
Also you need a 10% deposit.
Also rents back then was £500pcm for 2 bed flat. Now they are £700+pcm for same flat.

So how can we do it? How? Please tell me!

Oh also, everyone I know saving for a house has already cut out take away, meal deals, gym (first to go come on!) and much much more.
Batch cooking, shopping around for deals, having friends round rather than going out.
Every thing is rising in price now, I don't know how my children will afford to live away from us, it is scary because as much as we are okay now, we won't be able to have 3 grown adults living in one bedroom until they are in their 30s! Or will it be 40s or 50s by then?

You're forgetting all those avocado toasts. There's the missing £100k or so, er, hang on...

Newsthump did quite a succinct summary
www.facebook.com/157809760916130/posts/5104656736231383/

For me it turned out that even cutting out car ownership, living in grotty house shares throughout my 20s, buying all my clothes second hand and literally never going to the gym in my life didn't get me over the line in terms of getting a mortgage.

In the end, what was the "luxury" that was cut out that made all the difference? A living parent. I inherited.

I feel for those who will not inherit, either because there was never money or because it all went on care home fees.

You've also forgotten to mention that you just need to drive a second hand car (a few years old should do it) and cut back on your foreign holidays. Buy clothes on eBay and get your hair done at the local hairdressing college (y'know, the one everyone has in their town).

It's really all about priorities

So how can we do it? How? Please tell me!

How old are your DC? Do you have a DH/DP? (if you want suggestions)

If you just want a moan, I hear you - we are also saving, and it is slow going. I feel bad every time DS1 says he doesn't want to go to afterschool club.

As a 20 something who bought in 2019, I will do the math for Kristy.

Cost of my 2 bed flat in z3 north london: paid £392k. Deposit of £60k, stamp duty £4600, solicitor and misc costs £5000. We saved the total of £70k by living with parents rent free for 3 years.

£70k is a lot of netflix subscriptions, takeaways and gym memberships. We did not have netflix or gym memberships or cars while saving up and we walked everywhere. But the real deal was staying with family.

Meanwhile, my MIL bought her 1 bed flat in north london zone 3 for £70k. Her combined income at that time was 22k, so it was only 3.5 X annual income. Our flat cost 5.6 X our annual income in 2019, also in north london. The income multiples have grown and I don't see why people don't see this.

Also moving to different 'cheaper' areas might mean moving further from family/friends/support networks. Property might be cheaper in smaller towns elsewhere but are there job prospects?

I can't even read comments about cutting out one coffee a day it just infuriates ne and the people who usualky say it are the ones who brought their house for 40p back in 1953 or they are not in touch with the struggles of grtting by eqch month and don't even get me started on 'you should have waited to have children' circumstances change and rent is so ridiculously high! Also when people say you should get a better paid job, nit everyone can get a better paid job someone has to do the low paid jobs too!

Kirsty has alot of money so her saying this is so insulting!

Yeah. I don't doubt that she really knows her stuff on matters of upmarket interior design [and the the little I've seen of her in the past hints at passably good TV presenting chops], but she really, really, needs to play to these strengths & not stray too far out of this comfort zone.

When she starts dishing out lectures on budgeting to people from a very different generation and a very [very] different social class like this, honestly, it's the biggest insult imaginable.

@frustratedbiscuit2 also if everyone moves to the 'cheaper' smaller towns, they are not going to be cheap anymore, are they? I mean house prices in London have stagnated since 2015 particularly for flats, enabling me to buy but from what I have heard, a lot of young people in the SE commuter towns are struggling due to London salaries. Also people in Birmingham and other popular ex londoner locations. She is just amplifying the housing shortage by suggesting people move down north. The north has a low pay problem; its very unfair to add a housing inflation problem when they haven't even levelled up... What they do not need is lots of Londoners with savings from London salaries moving down to the north.

unless you are telling me the government is building lots of new small towns like they did post WW2. they are not.

Where on earth are you living that gym membership is only £14 a month? (jealous)

Anyway yes, of course you are right and there are many people who will never own homes now. Those who say cutting out Netflix and avocados will make a difference are living in cloud cuckoo land!

I'm being flippant. Yes, the housing situation in this country is a shambles. We bought our first tiny one bed flat for £33k back in 1995, which was 3 times my salary (a band 4 NHS salary) - DH was on a temp contract so the bank wouldn't take his salary into account. That same flat sold in 2021 for £140K. Someone on the top of a B4 salary now earns just under £26K in Scotland. That means three times their salary takes them to £78K - nowhere near enough to buy that same 1 bed flat. It's horrendous.

Sorry so many typos,i havent got my glasses on can barely see

Yoyr parents haven’t made £200k profit though, they will have had to buy materials, paid tradespeople or have done work themselves to upgrade their property. And they will have to pay more for another property than 8 years ago.

You are so right,OP. Like Kirsty I am a member of the lucky generation, at least for housing. Nothing gives me the rage like people who fail to appreciate their good luck.

The one point worth considering, I think, is where each of us stands on the question of ownership and other values vs prioritising life in a certain community, usually near family.
In my home country it is much more usual to move to where the jobs and housing are, so I accept there are valid cultural differences. (Obviously some people have real constraints)

I know, drives me nuts when people fail to realise that the market has gone way beyond 'well, just scrimp and save for a few years'. Houses aren't just a wee bit pricey, not just a tad out of reach, people literally won't be able to 'sacrifice' enough to afford one if they have to rent.

My parents bought a detached family home for x3 my dad's salary in 1981. DH and I bought a terraced home for x8 our combined salaries 6 years ago, which was only possible as we had two properties to sell.

I bought my first place when I was 23 because I inherited enough cash to put down a deposit. I would never dare 'advise' someone on how they could buy a house at the same age as me because it was pure luck on my side and also it was over 20 years ago when conditions were totally different!

£90k now would get you nothing at all
Depends where you are. Presumably you are in the SE?Not everyone is living in the overpriced bubble.
Most of my friends children are buying houses in that price range.
Ds aged 25 has bought a semi for £170,000. Ds 21 has bought a 3 bed semi for £140,000.
Both houses were ready to move into.
No financial help from me or Dh needed

I don't drink coffee and I don't have a gym membership.

Pretty sure £6.99 a month I pay for Netflix isn't going to make a lot of difference.

Luckily I bought a house in 2001 as I have never had Netflix, the last gym I went in was the one at school and I don't drink coffee. I take a packed lunch to work. OK, I do treat myself to a £5 chippy every week.

She has no idea how real people live.

@Suzanne999

Yoyr parents haven’t made £200k profit though, they will have had to buy materials, paid tradespeople or have done work themselves to upgrade their property. And they will have to pay more for another property than 8 years ago.

No they haven't In fact its in a worse state now than it was then!

Whilst I agree with your sentiments I think your numbers are well off.

Where do you even get a £3 meal deal? And surely a packed lunch is better than that- I'd say an average office worker spends at least £8 a day on 2 coffess, sandwich, snacks.

Does anyone just have Netflix, everyone i know has Netflix, prime and potentially sky...

Average takeaway is at least £30/40 unless you are eating dog meat kebab.

Chap, naff gym starts at £40, my mates is £110 a month. And thats each if you are a couple.

There are plenty of people who spend the above who could cut down and save very easily- i know loads of them. I have a friend saving for a flat who sends all laundry out! I think kirsty was talking about those folk rather than natural spenders who are money savvy.

It's hard to save for a house, prices are insane, pretty much everyone i know has had to have a little help from family whether loan or gift.

Don't forget ... the £200 grand everybody automatically gets from their parents.

Isn’t she privately educated and the daughter of a baron? I don’t really think anyone from such a privileged background should be lecturing the general public on how they can afford to buy a house.

Since the financial crash, Central Banks have purposefully pumped asset prices to insane levels.

The winners: those with assets like houses, shares etc
The losers: the bottom 90%

Covid policies have been this on steroids. So non-asset holders get poorer and less able to buy a house, whilst asset holders have got richer during the Pandemic.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-60114588

Notacooldad interested to hear about your boys - well done to them! Assume they would have needed a 10% deposit, is that right? So 17k. That's a hell of a lot to save by 25 - was he living at home with you perhaps? I'm not being a dick btw, all power to him - just trying to get my head around it!