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?

Stacey is deluded. At best, cutting out your coffee, Netflix, take away and gym is what you do if you want to save up for a holiday. For most it’s just what you do because the cost of everything is soaring and those are luxuries that are the first thing on the chopping block.

I say this as someone “lucky” enough to inherit, meaning I had a good enough deposit to get a mortgage in the SE. Loosing a parent as a child had a part in what I received though so you can guess what I would take if the option was there.

It’s insane. Most of my friends have had to move from our home town. And even those towns are still SE but considerably cheaper due to no transport links or any major shops etc accessible without a car (and I’m not allowed to drive so was stuck with pricier towns).

I really feel for those stuck in rental (who can clearly pay a mortgage but can’t save a deposit due to the rents) or stuck with parents or just plain stuck despite working full time.

In order to make ends meet, I don’t go to the gym anymore (I jog and do free exercise) Netflix is there I admit but I don’t let myself have take aways or take out coffee anymore because it leads me to zero way before the next lay day. Cutting out luxuries is actually just getting by to many people now, not a saving tool, and that’s what people like Stacey don’t get and will probably never have to.

i was also thinking the same regarding gym membership haha our local gym is £30 a month per person so for me and dh its £60 a month

This might have been true 30 or even 25 years ago. Someone on an average income could save up and buy something that wasn’t a shoe box. House prices were much lower and consumer goods were not that much cheaper - so being frugal really made a difference.

I bought a two bedroom flat in a major city 25 years ago - not U.K., but somewhere with a similar housing market. At the time I had just started my first proper job. And yes, I was quite frugal.

Now this would be completely out of my reach and not buying takeaway coffees would make zero difference. I now live in London and in my streets 25 years ago the small terrace houses were being bought by university lecturers, social workers, etc. But no more. Now it’s people who work in the finance sector.

@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

This is it, people ARE managing. It's just much harder in expensive areas. Of course people want to choose exactly where they live but those choices have a massive impact on subsequent ability to buy.

@PoshPyjamas

£14 for a gym membership? You sound as out of touch as Kirsty!

It's between £12.99 and £15.99 per month by me.

Dd is in London and the gym she did a trial at was between £16.99 and £20.99 per month.

Maybe she didn't use the right examples, but she has a point. The average gym membership is £40 a month, an iphone is £1k or a £60 a month contract, Sky is at least £50 a month... Then there are the daily takeaway coffees, the holidays abroad and so on. There are so many things people consider necessities that really aren't and they moan they can't save for a deposit, when they could at least start by cutting things out. Of course life would be miserable without these things, but some do make the choice to cut them out temporarily and save for a deposit. It's a question of priorities. She was not suggesting that getting on the housing ladder is easy. She said she was infuriated by people who whinge they can't afford to without making a single sacrifice. She didn't just mention Netflix, she suggested moving in with parents, investing in property up north where it is cheaper.

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.

Its the multiplers thats the real issue.

See figure 2 on this page from the ONS:
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2020

This shows the housing affordability ratio by local authority district, England and Wales, 1997 to 2020. It does this by calculating the average wage and the average house price and seeing how this has changed over time.

For my local authority in 1997, the average house was 3.3 times the average wage. Its now nearly double that.

I also know thats not the whole story as the same data broken down in smaller areas, shows that affordability in certain postcodes has because even more limited - I think the last one I saw it was now nearly 10times for one part of the authority. (If I could find this data set I'd share).

Lets now take Westminster as an authority for an example. In 1997 an average house was 7 times the average local wage. And what was it in 2020???

21.3 times the average wage, (having hit a peak of 24.9 times the average wage in 2017).

So yes Kirsty, if you are paid in moondust rather than normal pounds like the rest of us, maybe you could just save up by cutting back on your lifestyle.

For those of us who can use maths and ACTUAL GOVERNMENT DATA ON HOUSING AFFORDABILITY and are quite frankly, not as thick as mince, no it is not something you can just save for, nor do stable interest rates change things (the mad interest rates of the late Thatcher years were in 1989 so a good ten years before these figures and at a time when affordability was even more favourable).

So if you look at the last 25 years, if you are trying to buy a house for the first time you are utterly FUCKED now compared to a generation ago.

Can anyone who agrees with Kirsty please be sent on a compulsory maths course? You are JUST WRONG. There is not a alternative explaination of the figures.

She seems to have a poor grasp of basic economics. I suppose it's true that lifestyles now have all sorts of things that are viewed as essential that didn't even used to exist. I used to have a £20 Nokia and spent £20 on calls. In 2001, had no laptop, iPhone, iPad, Garmin, bluetooth headphones, nice sunglasses, manicures, waxing in my lunch break, endless subscriptions to stupid apps and tools. But I still couldn't buy a flat in London because I had so much student debt piled up and earned 18k. Then I got a huge pay rise and whaddayaknow it has fuck all to do with a 20-quid takeaway...

@Caddycat

Maybe she didn't use the right examples, but she has a point. The average gym membership is £40 a month, an iphone is £1k or a £60 a month contract, Sky is at least £50 a month... Then there are the daily takeaway coffees, the holidays abroad and so on. There are so many things people consider necessities that really aren't and they moan they can't save for a deposit, when they could at least start by cutting things out. Of course life would be miserable without these things, but some do make the choice to cut them out temporarily and save for a deposit. It's a question of priorities. She was not suggesting that getting on the housing ladder is easy. She said she was infuriated by people who whinge they can't afford to without making a single sacrifice. She didn't just mention Netflix, she suggested moving in with parents, investing in property up north where it is cheaper.

AND YOU CAN BE THE FIRST FOR KIRSTY'S COMPULSORY MATHS COURSE.

Missing the point but YABU to say gym costs £14 a month 🤣 My local gym is more like £50

You've really got to live at home, never holiday, Only go out once a week and drink two halves of lager and a bag of chips. We did it, but we were younger than our own kid's when we got engaged. We had a tiny wedding and ate a lot of beans on toast. Everything was second hand, gifted or bought from the local paper. FIL lent us a TV at Xmas.

My DCs were in their thirties when they found the one. So weren't of a mindset to give up what they're used to.

We didn't go to university so started work long before they did . They're careers were not local so they couldn't live at home.

It's a different world now

The Times worked out that cutting out coffee, gym membership and Netflix/Sky would enable you to save an average-sized deposit in 37 years.

@Russell19

Missing the point but YABU to say gym costs £14 a month 🤣 My local gym is more like £50

Mine actually is, albeit through a specific referral. Camden Borough too.

Well if I'm being honest, it's £14.20.

I loved the part where she said she saved money by walking to work. She walked from her Zone 1 flat to her job at her mum's Zone 1 interior design business.

@2bazookas that's great! Good for you and good for your kids. However, my experience still stands - no one I know, people that I interact with day to day, mainly in their 30s, have bought without help.

You don't need any maths really, house price rises have outstripped salary rises. Simple as that.

Exactly that.

It's all just nibbling at the edges. You need family to either put up with you rent free for a few years or write a nice big house deposit cheque

@Caddycat

Maybe she didn't use the right examples, but she has a point. The average gym membership is £40 a month, an iphone is £1k or a £60 a month contract, Sky is at least £50 a month... Then there are the daily takeaway coffees, the holidays abroad and so on. There are so many things people consider necessities that really aren't and they moan they can't save for a deposit, when they could at least start by cutting things out. Of course life would be miserable without these things, but some do make the choice to cut them out temporarily and save for a deposit. It's a question of priorities. She was not suggesting that getting on the housing ladder is easy. She said she was infuriated by people who whinge they can't afford to without making a single sacrifice. She didn't just mention Netflix, she suggested moving in with parents, investing in property up north where it is cheaper.

Did you attend the same maths class as Kirsty? For goodness sake woman 🙄

Also moving to different 'cheaper' areas might mean moving further from family/friends/support networks.

Which means when you start a family you then have to pay for childcare which means you can’t afford your mortgage or, go on benefits because you’re actually financially better off.

We scrimped and saved to buy our house but tbh that wasn't how we managed our deposit. My PILs paid our deposit which was why out of our financial reach. Housing is very very expensive!

Nothing more infuriating than someone born into money and privilege lecturing those who aren't. Her telling us to give up coffee, Prince Harry telling us to just give up work if it makes you unhappy and Rushi Sunak feeling our pain

I think she is more crap at maths than anything else but also out of touch. Maybe her step children spend money on crap but they and their friends are probably as overprivaledged as she is and will be getting a lot of help from parents.

[quote adoreyou]@daimbarsatemydogsbone

Can't help but think you are proving a point.....

Of course not everyone can be a "pop star" but if you can sing and enjoy there is nothing stopping you from singing.... whether that is in a choir or in a cover band or even busking.

Of course not everyone can live in a castle... just the same as not everyone can live in a 5 bed detached house...

It's called living within your means. As I say and some others have said, people see others with expensive houses, cars and gadgets and expect that they also "deserve" it.

I mean just look at the amount of people on twitter who are slating sarah Beany from daring to show how she spends her wealth!

It's financial wokerry.... I can't afford it so how dare you "show off" that you can....[/quote]
It's financial wokerry.... I can't afford it so how dare you "show off" that you can....
Bollocks.
The actual equivalence here is a that I can't sing.
Many young people have NO HOPE of affording a home of their own due to the jobs they have and the state of the housing market - it's really that simple.
It's like telling a drowning person who can't swim to just try harder to
stay afloat.
And before you make any more sneery "woke" or "snowflake" remarks, I am that most hated of people - a boomer with my own mortgage.

Yeah, she and those like her are clueless. I'm one of the lucky generation - we bought in 1998 for £63k, converted the (useless) garage to a (useful) 4th bedroom. House is now worth £250k. Back then, our mortgage was £48k, which was 2.5 times our combined salary. If I wanted to buy this house now and had the same deposit of £15k, my salary multiple would be 8x. Not feasible in any way. I really worry about my kids though I will make damn sure they do inherit even if it takes a trip to Switzerland to do it.

Ds aged 25 has bought a semi for £170,000. Ds 21 has bought a 3 bed semi for £140,000
Not quite the same price range as £90,000 then. And if everyone moved to the areas where those are the prices, the prices would push up.