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?

Dd gets £3 meal deals from Tesco. The reason she does is that she leaves the house in the morning at 8am for college where she takes a packed lunch/soup etc, then goes straight to work in the evenings where she picks up a meal deal on the way.

We do have Disney Plus I will admit. It was a lifesaver during lockdown and everyone loves Star Wars/Marvel stuff on there.

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.

Yet I also know people who have multiple Sky screen thingies at about £60 a pop
Who chose to buy a family MacDonalds for Sunday breakfast
Have takeaway every Friday
Would be at the pub if it was open
Have multiple phone contracts with the newest phones and a huge amount of data

Which gets closer to £4-500 / month. And they aren't unusual round here. DHs work coleagues don't undertsand why he doesn't have the same and many of my customers are in a similar position.

I suspect that there is a bit of 'worst case scenario'ing going on on all sides of this debate. But one thing is indisutable, the 'necessary' accoutrements of modern life are far more in number and cost than they were a few decades ago!

This seems to be the most recent data, which would show that Kirtsles is over egging the pudding, but that you @kirstyalslap might be underestimating - I love your username, please keep it

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/expenditure/articles/familyspendingexplorer/2020-03-26

C'mon guys, stop being unfair. I mean I can't imagine her dad, the 6th Baron Hindlip, was in much of a position to help. He only managed Christie's.

Where do you even get a £3 meal deal? Supermarkets, Tesco!

@JustWonderingIfYou I bought in London and had zero cash from family. we did live rent free which I suppose is still financial help. But if i was filling out a survey and they asked 'did you receive a loan or cash from my parents/in-laws, i would still have to tick no' We saved £70k in 3 years.

We stayed in my DH's house with his mum and sisters, it was a 3 bed terraced so there was a lot of squeezing. I am not sure of the rental value of my DH's sister's room with most of her stuff still in the room (she had immigrated at the point) and the closet still full of her clothes!

@SamphiretheStickerist

Where do you even get a £3 meal deal? Supermarkets, Tesco!

Boots is £3.39 so not far off!

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

Fish and chips at my local chippy for the two of us is £6.70. Less if I have a fishcake.

@notacooldad

£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

The whole post was about my actual life knowledge of the area where I actually live and prices I actually fou d out from people i actually know.

Me and DH toyed with the idea of moving away but a massive hurdle nobody remembers is it costs money to view houses far away DH would have had to take a day off work, paid for transportation and taken the children out of school for the day (too long to get them to school and back on time)

Not to mention if we did move away we would have to Move school, leave family, friends, everything we know and start completely again. What if we didn't like it? What about DHs work? What about everything else? It's a massive decision! And very difficult without a car and even hard with one!

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

I'm disagreeing with your figures. Which was the point f my previous post. Every post about houses and money is from a different perspective.
In my area you can get decent hiusd from 90k
You can get a meal deal from Tesco Express for 3 quid.
A decent gym in my area is £23 a month and that includes swim, steam, sauna , classes and running track.
The best take away in town has mains in the £7.50 _ 8.00 price range.
As for prime, Netflixetc it seems that one person in a group pays for one, someone else for another so no one's paying a lot!!

Where do you even get a £3 meal deal?
Boots, Tesco Express, Asda, Co-op all do meal deals which are between £3 and £4

Costa meal deal is £4.95

Not everyone buys 2 coffees and snacks on the way to work either. Most medium sized workplaces have a canteen/staff room with a kettle don't they?

She's an idiot. That's the long and short of this.

She also once urged young women to eschew university and pursuing a career in favour of finding a boyfriend and having a baby.

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
Not in my area.

I imagine if you live somewhere that food and gym memberships are so high, presumably house prices are also very high so the same principle still stands. Gym costs twice as much, houses cost twice as much so the saving is still a similar percentage of your deposit.

Ds aged 25 has bought a semi for £170,000. Ds 21 has bought a 3 bed semi for £140,000

Those are substantial deposits they've managed to save by a very young age - plus the cost of furnishing both houses.

@Comefromaway

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

Fish and chips at my local chippy for the two of us is £6.70. Less if I have a fishcake.

Blimey that is good value! F&C for 2 at my local chippy is £17...

@Sausagesausagesausage

C'mon guys, stop being unfair. I mean I can't imagine her dad, the 6th Baron Hindlip, was in much of a position to help. He only managed Christie's.

Exactly. She knows fuck all. I wouldn't pay heed to anything she says or thinks.

If you hit lucky and:-

1. Live in an area with lower housing costs
2. Are able to live somewhere rent free for a year or two

Then maybe it's possible.

A 2bed garden flat (non leasehold) near me on a good street will cost £125k
Deposit £12.5k
Fees £2k (obvs can add these to the mortgage)
Mortgage required £112.5k
Salary required £30k

But saving that initial deposit is pretty much Impossible unless you can bunk in with family or friends for a low cost.

Rent on a room in this area (Inc all bills) is about £450.

Salary 30k,
Pcm nett £1500
rent and housing bills £450
Car or travel costs £200
Food (basic) £120
Other bills (phone etc) £50
Bare bones replacement of clothes, shoes etc £50

This leaves roughly £630

So even living frugally and saving £600pcm, it will still take over two years to save even just the deposit.

By which time, housing stock has increased from £125k to £135k (as it has these last two years), deposit required is now 14k plus fees, and you've got scurvy from 24 months of eating beans on toast.

And that's in the cheaper than cheap North East of England.

And being on a decent salary!

Living rent free is a huge financial help! One or two beds round here for a couple are 700-1200 or more- imagine not having to pay that every month, and that adds up to £10,000 a year! Plus if you are living with parents, they may well subsidise food, help with childcare if you have them, plus economies of scale for council tax, plus parents may be reluctant to charge for bills or undercharge etc. Most parents will not charge the going rate for bills/council tax or take rent off you if you are actively saving for a house.

I have had both deposits given and lived with family who helped with childcare, so have benefitted from both, but at least I'm aware how financially advantageous this is. We did it for three years, which probably was about £50,000 saved for starters on rent, bills, shared costs, without adding in your actual savings.

Kirsty doesn't live in a normal world, however I think she has a point. People moan about how they can't do something rather than looking at how they might.
We thought we'd never be able to afford to buy our own place especially as we were renting. This was back in 90's, house prices were ridiculous compared to our earnings. So I took on two extra part time jobs and DH worked 7 days a week for two years, we didn't spend a penny we didn't have to, anything fun had to be free and we held off having dc.

The portions are massive. I share a fish and chips between us and there are still some chips left over to put with a ham sandwich the next day.

Kirsty Allsopp is being unreasonable but, to an extent, so are you. I live "up North" where getting on the housing ladder is difficult but not impossible and I do know people who live with mum and dad to save rent so they can buy a house but who, at the same time, don't see much of a need to economise in their personal lives.

My DS earns 24K - 20 years old. We charge him no rent so he can save. He has very few outgoings apart from his car - which he needs for work. He's saved 14k in one year. Even so if he wants to stay in the area he works and lives now a flat is going to cost in excess of 200k. He's going to be living at home until he's 40 isn't he!

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!
No Ds1 started work at 16 as an apprentice and did well. He did not want college or university Funny his employer us paying for him to do a degree now. I never thought he would do that!
He got loads of overtime, would work away from home and would offer to do call out especially at unpopular times ( Christmas day , bank holidays)
He is a saver and put money into different saving schemes. He had a small inherentence when he was about 19 so that went into savings.
He lived with us sporadically but I never charged.
Similar story with his brother but I'm concerned about him burning himself out as he has a full time jobs and two part time ones and doesn't seem to have much downtime. However that's another story for another time!!

My gym membership is only £14 per month in Camden borough, but to be fair it's through a specific medical referral program.

So I have even less savings I can make! Alas. I shall never be able to buy one of those new tiny shiny one-bed flats they're building in my neighbourhood (starting at £450k). If only my gym membership was £80/month maybe the amount I'd save would make all the difference

I also have no car to sell and I don't like coffee or avocado toast

Honestly, I know she's just the latest person to come out with this shite, but what a weapons-grade plonker.