I will never be able to move out

[roldog]

I'm 25 and desperate to get my own house. But right now feel that I will never be able to afford to.

I still live with my parents, I work full time and have a boyfriend who also works full time. I have a decent wage but just feel like I will never be able to afford to get my own place.

I am saving, but it's going to take so long. At the end of every month I barely have any money left which makes me think how the hell will I ever be able to actually afford to run a house.

I'm at the stage to be wanting to start a family etc now, but obviously want my own place first. It's really getting me down.

Sorry if this sounds like a pity party, I just wanted to rant I suppose. How are young people these days supposed to get on the property ladder with the rising prices of everything?

My wage is similar to yours OP and I'm a single parent running a house with a child. You really need to get real and realise how lucky you are. You have plenty of disposable income and you're just wasting it, the only person to blame for that is you.

Get a weekend job. My nephew and his wife both work full time but have for the past 5 years worked jobs on the side and have managed to save for a decent deposit. Their jobs are pretty well paid and they manage to earn about £500 between them a month on their side jobs.

There's some really good budgeting accounts on instagram
Mortgagefreeleigh is one of them! I'm obsessed!

Absolute bare minimum you should be putting 600 a month into your house savings if you aren’t paying your parents rent. 30% of your income is a low estimate of what you would be spending on housing if weren’t living for free. With utilities and expenses like even spartan furnishing it can even be higher. You should have at least 18,000 saved for your deposit by now.

If I was your parent I would want to sit down and figure out a budget with you. I would probably start making you show me that you are saving the money or paying me rent and I save it for you.

then you should be saving an additional amount for general life emergencies.

entertainment and socializing are optional expenditures, not necessities.

Your choice is go at it hard for six months or carry on trying to have the lifestyle but save at a snails pace.

My personal view is that you'll make the next 30 years a lot easier by knuckling down now. You could save 10k in a few months.

While I do accept that it's harder for young people to get on the property ladder, your area is very similar to the majority of places 20 years ago and your wages are better.
The level of lifestyle creep in the last 30 years is remarkable. The nails, eye lash extensions, abroad hen dos followed by home hen dos, festival weekends, multiple holidays abroad, not to mention the standards expected in houses.

It must be a lot harder to avoid this stuff as it becomes the norm. We just went down the local in my youth, simpler times!

With all due respect (and I totally agree people should not be mean to OP), but it's been a long time since most young people could buy a three bedroom home in their 20s. If you're 67, you're from the generation that could do that. Nowadays, that's a tall order for most people. If it's common on MN for women to buy a home in their 20s, then it speaks to the financial skew of MN users, not to the reality that most young people face today.

One other thing, OP. Although it's nice to go to all the hen do's, birthday parties, and other celebrations with your friends, you're probably going to find that if you are one of the last to get married, last to have babies, etc, that many of those people on whom you spent lots of cash to attend their hen do's, are not going to be able to attend yours because they'll have expensive mortgages to maintain and babies to take care of. I know there is lots of social pressure to go to every (expensive) celebration, but keep the big picture in mind. You're not married to any of these friends. You don't need to go to every social function.

This.
i don’t get why people in their 20s think they could “get their own place”. No one has ever been able to do that since mortgages become based on 2 peoples income and house prizes rose (1970s). Even as graduates

I have a degree. I’m nearly 60. I have 2 kids in their 30s, agian good degrees. I never lived “in my own place” alone until I divorced 2 years ago. And that was considerable down sizing .
I lived, as do my kids still, in shared houses. These were renting a room with shared facilities, sometimes with a group I knew, but mostly with random strangers (some of whom became friends but not all) Called house of multiple occupancy I think now. I only stopped that when I bought my first home at age 29 with my then husband. We’d rented together as married and scrimped massively to save deposit over 3 years.

it was never an option for me to live at home. I had to go where work was, as did most graduates at the time. I doubt my parents would have been huffed with me living at home, because, guess what, they had left home to work after college too. Even my grandmother, born in 1910s left home to work at age of 14 - she went into service at that age with live in accommodation that she had to pay for out of her wages, and the rest went to her family.

i think Op, you’ve had your expectations raised too much by social media and this myth that previous generations could afford to even rent a flat on their own on average or graduate salaries in your 20s . And Good forbid where this idea thst people have, in past, been able to buy a place in early or mid twenties or even on their own. Yes, it happens sometimes, as it always has, where they have loaded parents who will contribute or sadly inherited young. But it is as rare as hens teeth now, and always was.

start by making the first move to independent living by renting a place with others. It’s a lot of fun mostly, makes you budget better, and cuts the apron strings of being in your comfort zone.

i don’t get why people in their 20s think they could “get their own place”. No one has ever been able to do that since mortgages become based on 2 peoples income and house prizes rose (1970s). Even as graduates

That’s not really true though. OP can afford to get somewhere if she sorts out her budget. I’m 28 and the majority of my friends own property, some on their own and some in couples. A flatshare is only really necessary if you’re single in London or if you’re on a low income for your area.

I see some building societies are now offering 100% mortgages such as Skipton but you have to supply 12 months proof of having paid rent. Perhaps boy friend pays rent?

I'm really hoping that by writing that down, the OP can see she is clearly wasting around £1500 a month!! Of course you need a social life. Budget £500 a month for that (which is pretty generous tbh) and save the other thousand. If your boyfriend does the same, you can save £24k in a year!
I'm sorry bt you can't expect to live at home, pay no rent, fritter thousands of pounds a year on social life and still save up for a house!! You are so lucky in so many ways - you live rent free with parents, have a well-paid job and live in a fairly cheap area. Grow up!

At least you are in a relationship as that helps, double the income.
I'm in London and I feel sorry for a lot of my single friend as even renting on a single income is becoming extortionate and in many ways, undoable.
Even getting a room share is difficult too. It's really frustrating for many right now

OP stay as you are for as long as possible.
Delay joining the rest of us on life’s treadmill for as long as you can.
It’s not as wonderful as the PP’s are trying to convince you.
You’ll never be as free again.

Hi OP

Try downloading moneyhub (think they have a 6 month free trail) you can link your bank and assign all your past spending into categories and see what toy have been spending on. It can be a real eye opener, and help you decide what areas to cut back, you can also set budgets, might be worth trying to get you in the right mindset

Also you and your BF should think about opening a LISAs (Lifetime ISA). Each year you can put 4k in and the government top it up by 1k.... This money is locked away and can only be used for a first house deposit or pension (you and your BF can have one so 2k a year extra if you both max them out). If you withdraw for any other reason other than house deposit /pension, you lose the government bonus and some of what you have put in. (My LISA is on moneybox, but I don't think this is the best option, money saving expert will have best options)

I was in your position in 2014 OP, 2k post tax, living at home, did pay rent to mum but very minimal.

My then boyfriend and I put 1k each into a joint savings account each month, I also put £500 into savings myself on top of that. We lived a pretty dull life for a while, used our own savings for a holiday here and there but didn’t touch our joint savings. After 2 years we had enough for a deposit on a flat, we then kept saving while paying the mortgage and ended up moving beginning of 2020. We are now married and live in a 4 bed detached which is my pride and joy, all because we squirrelled so much money away when we could.

So, to sum up, make saving your priority and spend as little as possible. Once you get into the swing of it, budgeting/saving gets quite addictive!

I suggest getting a monzo account OP, it’s great for keeping track of your spending, you can make ‘pots’ for different things, and the app keeps a track of what you spend your money on, within broad categories e.g. ‘groceries’ for a supermarket bill.

I am a single person also living in Wales and give myself a spending budget of £700 a month. It goes by direct debit to my Monzo account and that is what I have each month for food, petrol, groceries, gifts, cat food, treats for me and socialising. Everything else goes on bills or to my savings account. If you can live on a similar amount, that’s £1300 you could be saving!

With careful budgeting you should be able to save £1k a month and have your deposit in 18 months (assuming starting from zero and your partner is saving).

Yes you'll have to have a lot less fun. But you'll be doing that anyway for a few years when you start a family.

Please don’t rent just because you feel you ought to and because you’ll get “experience runnng a house”. It’s a massive waste of money if you have the option of living at home while you save and your parents are happy with the arrangement. Nobody needs “experience running a house”.

You’re clearly not budgeting well but you seem to understand that now so it can be resolved.

I would also point out that having a dog is a massive luxury if you really do want to save money.

Just read some more of your posts, OP. Fantastic — you've got it! It's got to be a project for the next couple of years, and probably for a couple of years after that while you get your house sorted. Then you have to save up again if you want children... But it's worth it.

In a strange way, when you've got less to spend on fun it makes the fun things more fun.

Think long and hard about tethering yourself to your boyfriend at 25 because you're keen to buy a house and live together. Don't rush into that.

You're in a good position where you will still be able to save a good deposit without him.

Everyone is different but I thank my lucky stars that I did not get married or entwine finances with the guy I was with at 25!

It would be even sillier because she doesn't 'have' to. She's got a good wage and lives rent free!

@HolidayHankering sorry you've already said that - I was going to lcik away but hit send instead. My apologies....

To some extent I agree with this. I never had a carefree young adulthood, always paying rent, worrying about money in my 20's.

As much as you want to buy a place there is a middle ground between a miserable Spartan existence and frittering all your money.

The road through life is long, you have supportive parents, don't squander your youth and freedom if you don't have to.

It's not embarrassing....you are young, enjoy it! I enjoyed spending and living at home until my 30's, then had my 1st child at 38 and my 2nd last year at 44......cost of living makes it tight and I'm glad I had years of enjoying my self first

YOU: "I won't rent because its dead money that I could save for a house deposit"

Also YOU: "I don't save the cost of rent towards a deposit, I save a fraction of my good wage and fritter the rest on I don't know what"

Also YOU: "waah, it's so unfair, I can't leave home, woe is me!"

Seriously, time to grow up.