Life is too expensive and not enjoyable.

[buildingourdreams]

I am only 26 years old and I am tired

H and I both earn okay money both work ft and I sometimes do part time work too

We've 2 boys under 7 and After rent bills and food and petrol we have not a penny .
This is with our parents helping with childcare we don't even have to pay childcare for the boys thankfully 🙏

We Can't go on holiday. Can't even have a takeaway or my nails done

We rent and Can't save for a house to buy don't get any benefits other than the basic Cb about £200 month. (And I don't expect or want handouts anyway)

Is this our life now ? Don't tell me to get a better job as I might do as I get older but this is not the point I'm making . If someone works full time they should be able to afford a few treats in life and specially with 2 incomes!

I worry constantly that we are failing our kids and should I even have had them? And also Like, what will even become of people like us when we're old ?

Can you give some examples of things you think you’re being ripped off for? People might be able to help.

You are managing to provide for your family. That’s not ‘nothing’ and something to be proud of. Not everyone can do it. You might not be enjoying life hugely, but I’d imagine your boys are having a happy childhood….and that’s down to you. Let that give you some satisfaction. I know sometimes you feel you need some stuff for yourself too and it’s hard if the time when you can’t have anything/much feels long.

Is it partly about comparing yourself to others? Do you have friends who are either still single or childless who are living a very different life? I can see you might be envious…but they might be envious of your life too.

What in particular would make you feel a bit better?

LOL

🫂 shite isn't it x

I am 43, my DC are 19, 15 & 11. I got divorced 8 years ago. I have managed to have 2 decent careers in my life (retrained when I got divorced). Will be remarried this June. Our household income is about 85k (dp and I are on the same band at work) and we bought our joint house 2 years ago. Before that I owned shared ownership.

This narrative that you either choose young parenting, poverty & a stalled career or have children later and get a decent career and home ownership is not always a given. I have studied up to doctorate level and worked all the way through my parenting life. The majority of that I was a lone parent. It doesn't have to be either/or.

We're modern day peasants. Work until we die and so it goes on

I think it's housing that is the big problem. It seems like it used to be possible to buy a modest house even on one reasonable salary, let alone two. Now rent costs more than my 20 year old mortgage and most young people haven't got a hope in hell of owning a house even with two salaries.

Op you are right. It is awful and ridiculous that you and many others are in a situation where you can't afford some of life's simple luxuries such as a takeaway or save up over the year for a holiday when you both work and have two incomes and just two children. Your not asking for a Ferrari and 2 months in the Maldives a year just simple luxuries that we have all been led to believe that if you abide but the law, work hard and be a decent member of society then those luxuries should be yours. It just makes you think how is this right. I don't know what will become of us when we are old but I'm not looking forward to it with the way things are. You are not alone just keep going

Life as a parent in your 20's is tough, I was one once. You are still earning low wages, generally rent etc. life tends to gradually improve with pay rises of course and by late 30's life was a lot easier. Not being able to afford take aways of beauty treatments is normal for young parents.

The flip side of struggling financially having had kids young is that by the time you are in your 40's they are becoming independent and you can enjoy life

There's only really been a short window of time historically when us plebs have been able to do more than just pay the bills. We've tasted the high life and now the bastards want to take it away. It is shit op. However your fuel bill is ridiculous. It might be worth investigating how this can be dropped. Do you have a dehumidifier? Do you private rent? Is your landlord decent?

That’s just your wish list of what you hope they’ll do. In my opinion, the likelihood of them being able to do even half of that is vanishingly small and they have said very clearly that they have no plans to reverse brexit.

I can understand the desire for it all to be true, but the problem we have isn’t the tories, it’s the whole system and labour are just a slightly different but still willing participant in that system. At the best they’ll just delay the inevitable downward spiral a little bit, re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic or playing a lovely tune as we continue to sink.

By all means vote labour as it’s still slightly better than the alternative and really, what other choice do you have in a first past the post, two party system, but let’s be realistic here - we’re all fucked unless something radical happens (or you’re in the 1%).

OP - your post is yet another reason why my advice to my kids to not give me any grandchildren is probably the best advice I’ve ever given them (depressing as fuck as it may be). You are not being unreasonable - when two parents working full time can barely scrape by, then something is seriously wrong.

Yes wage stagnation in combination with high interest rates/cost of living, fluctuating gdp prices in the past few yrs and the war going on in Ukraine is really exacerbating our existing domestic issues. Solidarity :(

As an aside, you should look into shared ownership housing, once you are paying less/the same for rent, but you actually are able to benefit from equity over time, you will be in a much stronger position.

My hairdresser rents a chair in a salon but also has now invested in equipment and is a mobile hairdresser specialising in children's hair, especially children with SEN. Perhaps once you have established more of a client base you can look towards something similar to boost earnings?

Life after 1979 has just got progressively harder for ordinary working people. 30 plus years of stagnating wages and changes within the labour market which brought more women into the workforce has created a situation where not only will one wage not keep a family but in some cases two wages can't! Trickle down, neoliberal policy, the mantra of "growth" call it what you like but Tax credits and UC alongside personal debt just to prop up demand/spending. Tax credits and UC subsidising low wages is the equivalent of paying tax payers money directly to share holders. Neoliberal economic policy has created a huge level of government debt too because subsidising low wages, payments of HB to private sector landlords sits along side low tax revenue, low corporation tax, tax avoidance.

My mother worked 15 hrs a week at my age. I have worked 17hr days, just to put this into some sort of perspective.

Life may well get slightly easier as children age and you develop your career. It may just as likely continue to get harder, mine has. As has lots of other peoples if we continue to vote in the Tory psychopaths.

Young people today have got used to having everything really cheap and now things are going back to normal.

In the 90s we bought our first house for £30k, we had to have a £5k deposit which took years to save, impossible to do if you lived in a rented flat before buying.

The mortgage went up to £500 a month which was more than one wage - I took home around £100 a week for a full-time job in the NHS. We lived on baked beans, limited furniture all donated by family, no car and certainly no holidays. Didn’t even have a TV except a 15 inch portable one.

Nowadays the average graduate starting salary is £30k and the same house is not £30k but £120k. So the proportions are about the same.

The years since 2008 until now were the years that were abnormal.

I think it’s partially about finding joy in cheap/free things. When my 3 dc were little we didn’t have much money at all. Our mortgage was £850 a month and I had to give up work as I earned less than dh and it just didn’t make sense for me to work as childcare for 3 under 4 was more than I took home - £1700 on childcare when I earned £800 was pointless. we couldn’t cover the bills if I worked. Living on one income with a high mortgage meant no takeaway and lots of trips to parks, woods and lakes.

now dc are older - 11 and 15 (youngest are twins so we didn’t plan 3 and knew we couldn’t afford 3). I am back to working full time and am earning well so now we can afford treats and dc are old enough to appreciate it. They don’t need much when little.

You had two children when you were very young. Many people wait until their 30’s, so that they were earning more before they take on extra responsibility. You can hope that a Labour government gets in, sorts out our economic woes and gives you more money but I wouldn’t bank on it.

Op you can 'lol' all you like but you are naive.

Wage stagnation, a fuel crisis and a broken housing market are causing misery to millions of people. I get it.

But you had two kids in your early twenties, you should be happy that you aren't swimming in debt. If you can cover your outgoings at this stage, it's not a terrible position to be in.

I am aware my LOL sounded rude so apologies. (I'm just frustrated)

But my LOL was because we ARE all being ripped off for EVERYTHING and if you can't see this you must have been living under a rock since about 2020

Since 2008, Britain is no longer a particularly good country to live for households on lowish incomes compared to pretty much anywhere else in the developed world. Maybe less than 40k in the South or less than 30k in the North.

Economic growth has been pretty stagnant for more than a decade and the lower income families in the UK were always worse off than those in other EU countries due to our huge inequality.

The typical UK family would now need an extra 9k a year to be on equal terms with its French/German/Dutch/ Canadian/Australian equivalent in terms of achieving an equal standard of living. We’re now nearer to Eastern Europe than those countries.

The only thing you are ripped off for is your work hours - your pay

Ripped off - the share of business income that goes to the shareholders and bosses as opposed to the workers

What’s to blame?

• Thatcherite economic model which served 50%+ well at the time, but created massive inequality while also neglecting importance of domestic manufacturing and entrepreneurship, thus future growth potential.
• Also created our failed housing model.
• Global Financial crisis 2008.
• A wasted decade of misguided austerity 2010-2020, which pretended to fix the above while only making it worse for those not on high incomes.
• Brexit
• Covid
• Russia

This is exactly what I'm trying to say x

Erm I'm being ripped off left right and centre !

For my rent, my food, my petrol, my fucking heating the list goes on

My wages are okay ! If I was on minimum wage or part time I'd get it !

It's not wages that are the issue imo it's the cost of everything and I don't buy into all this bullshit like oh it's cos of the Ukrainian war etc. it's because companies know they can price gouge so they continue doing it ! Like do you think all the supermarkets aren't making a fuck load of money ?? Has anyone seen the profits some of the Energy companies have recently declared for example ? Do you think my landlord doesn't make a shit ton of profit on my rent ?? If I had a mortgage for the same house it would be less than my rent according to the calculators online. but no one will give us one as we have no deposit

I've had enough honestly 🤦‍♀️

Picnic in the park.
Feeding the ducks.
Walk around the reservoir.
Ramble in the countryside to see ponies or alpacas.
visit to the playground with a zip wire or sandpit.
Toasting marshmallows on a firepit.
Hot dogs and sparklers.
Hot chocolate and whipped cream.
Giant bubbles and water pistols in the garden.
Making jam tarts or fairy cakes.
Making pancakes and squeezing fresh orange juice.

All of these things are free or nearly free. You already have everything you need for now.

All

OP, food prices in the UK have been artificially low for years - I think it's the housing model that's completely shot.