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 ?

I’m all for money printing. It makes everything cheaper. We can save more, and when the interest rates rise and people have to sell their houses into a tanking housing market, it’s a boon for buyers.

I take it you're not an economist?

Printing money normally causes inflation unless you increase taxes. Saving money when Inflation outstrips interest rates isn't a good thing.

House prices might fall but higher interest rates will create just as many barriers to home ownership for people who are struggling to get on the ladder.

Bless your heart. I don’t even lock my door - or my car. I live in the sort of place you can leave your handbag on the car seat and the keys in the ignition, where couriers pop your parcels on the kitchen table when you’re out.

I can’t imagine living somewhere I might need “security” - how bizarre. There are 4 council houses where I live and I can’t see my neighbours unless I put my glasses on. Not all social housing is “concrete jungle”. 👍

Thanks for that. The info re. Renewables. Makes sense because it is producing electricity directly, whereas gas for example is a commodity which is then burned to produce electricity.

I’m with you on learning to use less. I remember my gran always had a cupboard full of wool blankets and bedding and we were always tucked up in what felt like really heavy bedding when at their house. They had coal fires back in those days, and double glazing hadn’t been invented. No-one has wool blankets these days and no-one understand how to keep a house and it’s habitants warm without cheap gas and a button called ‘make me warm’ on the wall.

Of course they are going to learn. Or they are going to whinge and whine and fill social media with stories of woe.

I’m 40 and DH is 55. I am at that stage where it takes for ever for me to feel like I’ve warmed up, and nice I’m warm I hate to move off the sofa. And I know that if we just turned the heating on in all the rooms it would be easier and we would be a lot poorer and further away from ever owning our own home. So the motivation to save for a deposit is what drives us the be frugal.

I remember my mother having part-time jobs all the way through school. I remember them having to struggle to feed us when we were kids during the winter of discontent and us getting together with other families and sharing what cans and produce we had to make meals with other families to make all our budgets stretch further. Corn beef hash was a thing, and so were these awful fried flour and water patties when things were really bad. But they filled a hole and we didn’t know we were poor as kids. To us it was just life.

But now we are a one income family. We don’t own a home, and we are doing better than my parents did on two incomes. Admittedly they were in a suburb of London in council housing and we are in a cottage in a sleepy village in the country. But it’s cheaper in the country and we do not believe in singing off the government for anything. So we did get a better lifestyle than our parents and we’re raising DD to hopefully do the same.

We may not have a home to leave her with, but hopefully we’ll give her determination to stand up to life and not resort to hand wringing and finger pointing at the injustices of not being handed what she wants on a platter by the governments of the day.

Okay. Let’s see if I got this right....
The BoE increases its base rate to combat inflation. Is that right? Is that what they are doing? I think that’s why the BoE base rate keeps going up.
Next, this increases the rates at which banks are willing to lend money to borrowers. It also increases the interest paid on savings, but then we all know that savings interest is peanuts anyway, and outside of say an emergency fund, there are more sensible places to store your savings. And I agree with you that saving money in a vehicle that does not outstrip inflation is just dumb. Except when inflation really gets going, then you’re in the business of loss prevention, but we’re not there and hopefully won’t go there.

So the crux of your maths argument is that as the price of the housing stock falls, the increase in the underlying interest rate of the mortgage makes it just as hard to get a house.

My proposition is this...

The house price drops, and with a reasonable deposit of say 25%, and a willingness to live in a house less than 3x salary, we can safely take on a mortgage with an interest rate of 15% provided that interest rate didn’t stay that high for more than 5 years.

Now, over the past two centuries the average BoE interest rate has averaged 5.25%, and it has never stayed above 15% for more than two years without a plummet to create breathing room. I think planning for high interest is a damn safer bet that anyone who thinks 4% is high when they have never looked at interest rates in our economy or considered if they could afford their mortgages before. Those people had eyes bigger than their belly as my father would say.

So, no. I am not an economist. Just some uneducated bimbo with an iPad. And clearly We haven’t got our ducks in a row because we don’t own a house and DH is over 50. But I think we have a workable plan.

The curve ball I didn’t see was the government coming in and saying they would underwrite mortgages for those who couldn’t pay. That must have slowed the decline in house prices by a good 10% or so all in. So that worked against us.

The only other blind spot may be what happens if there is nowhere to save money that keeps up with inflation. If the stock market can’t return a average of 10% over 5 years (which I don’t see it doing over the next three unless I was willing to invest in the arms manufacturers, which I won’t.) I am sure there are assets that deal with those eventualities too, but who knows.

Good post though. Make me think.

This

@ElliF

What kind of drop are you hoping/ expecting to see if your scenario plays out?

What would a house of less than x3 your household income be? What does that house cost right now?

DH is on £45K and will soon be able to draw down about £10K from a small private pension he when he was contracted out. Of course he’s only just found out that that decision he made when he was 18 has decimated his state pension, but it’s water under the bridge and as I understand it, there’s FA he can do about it. He bought a lemon when the insurance companies were all selling lemons, and in those days no one knew anything about such things. No credit cards. Everyone used cheque books, and cashpoint machines had just been invented and they dispensed five pound notes.

So our limit is around £130K. That’s a small ex council house or cottage in some out in the middle of nowhere village, built in the last ice age, with damp and a fridge in the garden. Who knows what will be on the market when it’s time to buy.

But if we can get a 20% loss in house prices across the board, that probably looks like a 20% loss mid-market in commenter cities and desirable suburbs, a bigger loss in expensive housing stock, and a lesser loss to the lower priced properties. You see, as I see it, houses have core value. They are a home @nd their value is the core value of the land they sit on plus the core value of the bricks and mortar. The core value only increases, but only accounts for maybe 70% of the asking price. The rest is made up of things like kerb appeal, proximity to schools, commuter routes, desirability among certain buyers, etc. These are transitory and subjective. When people have no money people don’t care and won’t pay.

So we’re hoping for maybe 10% or so fall in our price range, bottom of the market, which brings properties currently in the £150K price bracket into play. For that you get someone who shaved the lawn before they took the pictures, no fridge in the garden, maybe a garage door that locks without a padlock, and maybe paint over dry walls as opposed to paint trying to hid mould.

But only time will tell. Life is a gamble and we’re not going to complain like most people do. We might end up in a trailer parked on an abandoned retail park or a caravan on the in-law’s drive for all I know. Right now all we can do is work and save.

No. I use the Internet.
But the I already posted our family income and a complete breakdown of our budget, and we’re not entitled to any benefits, or cheap rent, council housing etc. And we are a one income household.
We don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat out, don’t go on holiday, don’t own a TV, don’t buy takeaways, etc.
When we reach a point where we are living at a loss, we will look at mobile phones, internet access, food bills etc. and cut our cloth according to our income, obviously. That’s what grown ups do.

And I have conceded that if you live in London, on a cleaners wage, then living on one income even with benefits is not doable. However, the story would be different in cheaper parts of the country as others have already pointed out.

I guess it all comes down to doing the maths.
It isn’t rocket science.

Your posts are so superior while at the same time showing a complete lack of any understanding of economics or law, as evidenced earlier by your comments about an "EU Government" (which doesn't exist) and bizarre comments about banking.

Many people have very high outgoings on accommodation and childcare. As someone who doesn't work so needs no childcare, this obviously won't be an issue for you. Single parents for example do not have that luxury. You may well be able to live somewhere cheap but many people cannot because they have caring responsibilities or jobs that require them to live somewhere more expensive. It is clearly incomprehensible to you but people have many different circumstances and struggling with money is not always because people are not being sufficiently frugal to meet your rather miserable standards.

Of course he’s only just found out that that decision he made when he was 18 has decimated his state pension, but it’s water under the bridge and as I understand it.

For someone who is claiming to be oh so virtuous in financial planning I'd say not having realised this until you are 40 and 55 respectively is rather odd...

So we’re hoping for maybe 10% or so fall in our price range, bottom of the market, which brings properties currently in the £150K price bracket into play.

Oh I see. So while telling everyone else to be responsible and work hard you are simultaneously hoping for a market crash which will ruin many families' lives and put them in negative equity. And again, no understanding of economics. When a housing market crashes the entire market is screwed, people in the middle don't have sufficient equity to move up and first time buyers can't get mortgages. The effect is negative overall for people at every level.

You seem to think you know a lot about a lot of things but your posts repeatedly betray the opposite, as well a being rather unpleasant.

Geez you are seriously the most mind numbingly boring poster that ever frequented mumsnet. You just ramble on and on, so superious and up your own backside.

Hands up anyone who thinks inflating the money supply means things get cheaper - I doubt anyone put their hands up to that.
Hands up anyone who didn’t realise ‘quantitive easing’ was a euphemism for inflating the money supply -

Quantitative easing does not make things cheaper. More money in circulation means each unit is devalued - this is actually excellent news for anyone on a fixed rate mortgage because their debt is devaluing too.

Exactly.
So why, when we have been ‘quantitively easing’ for 15 years, and printing money for the last four, is it a surprise to anyone that food prices and interest rates would have to rise?
We've lived the high life (as a country) for 15 years, and now we have to pay the price. We can’t undo what we have already done.

Lived the high life for 15 years? What country gave you been living in?

😂😂😂

It's really bloody tough and I think it's easy for the worry about the financial strain to overshadow everything but I don't think that means it's impossible to enjoy life. I can't afford to go out do my nails go on holiday etc either but I still do things I enjoy like going walking and enjoying my kid and home. I think for me I had to practice getting more content with less and being more appreciative of what I do have and what I can do for free. Like if we go out for the day we'll go walking and bring a flask of tea so we're not tempted to go get coffee in a shop. I think that coupled with doing what I can to improve things by not voting tory etc makes me feel better about it.

The country, not the populous. The country has benefitted astonishing off the back of low interest rates and QE. Other than DH’s pay packet which went from £12K as a junior engineer to £45K we’ve done pretty poorly chasing a career around the planet. He’s got a nice salary and we say some nice places, but we aren’t as well off as most people on the housing ladder are.

I’ve never voted. I don’t see the point.
And We home school, so if we want to move to Portugal or Namibia, we can just leave. No hassle.

“I’ve never voted “ nothing makes me lose more respect for a person than this phrase for all the superiority this reeks of ignorance, seriously voting is the least and only thing you can do, apart from using your spending power to boycott shitty companies,

I have never come across a party that represents my interest or values.
So why would I vote for a person or a party that I cannot trust or respect?
I have no intention of standing myself and promoting own interest as I believe it would not be a fruitful use of my time. I do not complain or point my finger at elected officials and blame them for my failures in my life.

Others on the other hand do vote. They agree collectively that they will abide by a democratic process of electing champions and that those champions will make decisions on their behalf for the good of all. Then the spend their years complaining and finger pointing and blaming their champions for the failures in their lives.

Then the do it again, and again, and again, and they never get what they want, and nobody is ever satisfied. It seems insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

There are those on this thread who have point out that the rich (the ones who fund and support our governmental system) are the ones that benefit from everything, while the rest of us get poorer. They vote with their money and their power and they decide who stands and who falls. They decide what policies are promoted and what policies die on the floor. Any you think that by voting in a general election, you can in any way improve or influence what happens in your life?

Can you name a single time where voting has improved your life in any meaningful manner?

I don’t vote. I don’t complain.
Others vote. They complain. Constantly. ... but Brexit ... but conservative.
Why would you want to go through life complaining? It sucks the joy out of life, and it must be so stressful. Why would anyone want that?

Spending..

Buy what you need and only what you need. I try to get the best prices, but I’m willing to pay extra for good quality and I would drive an extra 5 miles to buy something £2 cheaper.

I couldn’t care less if a product is manufactured by a company that supports X or Y. It makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. Apple vs Android. Mars vs Nestle. PepsiCo vs Coca Cola. Why would anyone care? They’re all dubious company’s with questionable practices and skeletons in their corporate closets.

Sorry. Wouldn’t drive the extra 5 miles to get something £2 cheaper. Autocorrect.

... and only because the 10 mile round trip costs more than £2 in diesel.