My professional salary only just covers my rent. How can this be?

[Rentmakesmepoor]

I am an occupational therapist in the NHS. I am a single parent. After tax, student loan and pension I take home roughly £1900.
I live in the South East of England. My rent is £1750 a month for a 3 bed, SMALL semi detached house with a courtyard garden

How is it that we have got to the point in this country that my salary literally just pays for my rent and nothing else??

I am permanently skint. I am not looking for solutions as I do nd claim everything I can (which is not alot).

But how can this be?

Oh no, I haven't been deleted! Calling out your spite feels worth it.

One of your previous posts was deleted. That is a fact. Your posts are unhinged. I won’t be replying to you again. There is no point.

@Clarie46 Where do you suggest these company tied homes are built in the SE? On the green belt? In the AONB like HS2? Or maybe lots of high rise? No one is building enough homes because we don’t make enough land available where people need or want to live. No one wants new housing near them!

Plus, what’s the point of a thread with only part of the financial info at the start? Obviously there’s more than salary available.

I’m an SLT and I’ve had to resort to a flat share with a complete stranger. I’m paying £800+ for rent and bills and that’s split in half. I take home £1700 a month. Sounds like a lot of extra money but factoring in petrol, food etc it’s not.. especially as I’m having to share my living space with a stranger!

You don't understand sarcasm either.

You think the OP is claiming £1100 in child benefit. Yeah OK love.

I remember having a conversation about this on baby greenhouse in 2002 and everybody went bananas and piled on and called me all the names under the sun …. Oh look and here we are.

People then were snapping up houses, left right and centre as an investment for their little darlings, and their little darlings aren’t reaping the benefits. Que surprise

The child element of UC credit is not the same as child benefit. Which is separate and on top of that figure.

If everyone leaves the SE, what then?

Then house prices in the SE will fall.

Another poster shared this in another thread: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

If you plug your salary details in there, you can see how your salary has probably failed to keep up with inflation in a very major way. Combined with house prices which inexorably rise it's an absolutely shit situation.

Oh wow, that's depressing. £30000 now is equivalent to £17000 in 2000. No way were physiotherapists earning £17000 in 2000. I mean I was earning £24000 as a secretary.

Politicians bang on about restoring the link between pensions and earnings - they want to be concentrating on the link between work and earnings, because rn it's fucked.

Risky as this might be..

A Professional salary probably starts at around £50k.

Thats not to be confused with professional sounding job titles which are often inflated and massaged or job that require degrees which are now commonplace.

This isnt intended to be goady, it is simply a statement, of a factual reflection of the current employment market.

£1750 for a 3bed semi is abhorant!
£1750 From £1900 is insanity, i would absolutely be moving to save over £1k in rental costs.

That is what you get if you systematically underinvest in all regions of the UK other than London. You get one of the most unequal countries in Europe where we have one of the wealthiest regions in northern Europe (London) and 9/10 of the poorest regions in northern Europe. After the removal of the ERDF funding streams post Brexit this will only get worse.

It is almost impossible to find a credible economist that does not think that lack of investment is at the heart of this issue.

Such levels of structural inequality are nothing to crow about, Londoners are part of a country that is a ticking economic timebomb at the moment.

Hrm.

What are the professions? Law teaching and medicine isn't it. Teachers and doctors certainly don't start on £50k and the vast majority of solicitors don't either. Some in each profession get there after a number of years climbing the greasy pole.

So I'm not sure what you've said is true.

Yeah it is absolutely depressing. My first graduate salary was 24,000 in 2008. The same salary would need to be 37,000 now to have kept up with inflation! I bet it isn't!

It's like the adage of the frog being slowly boiled in a pot. You only notice when you're really hurting and by then there's not much you can do.

Obviously a lot has changed in the global economy in those intervening years and part of the reason for low wage growth is linked to that but it's allowable to be very angry at how wages have been held back and the link to things like property utterly severed.

I should also say that there are still some very well paid jobs out there and the people at the top of the pile with significant wealth from non salaried sources are not feeling things in the same way. Inequality has grown in this country.

Not as entry level no time served, experienced, people. after a few years.

say after 5-10 years....

I moved out of the south east to Somerset three years ago because I need to save for my retirement. I couldn't afford to save anything living in the south east. I'm nhs also. It was a very good move and I've saved tons of money. You can rent similar here for £350 a month. My DS is moving here too.

A 3 bed semi for £350 a month? Really?

Where in Somerset is this?

1992

@Gettingbysomehow Did you miss a 1 off the start of that figure??!!!

40 years ago you would have probably been eligible for social housing. 2 million council homes sold under right to buy, only 4% replaced. Housing in some areas of England is crazy. Sure some areas have always been more expensive but now it’s extreme.

London and SE need OTs who aren't ill from the worry of trying to make ends meet. They need to pay adequate London and SE weighting. About £1k a month extra by the sounds of it. Or have cheaper homes to rent for protected professions. Maybe it is what the 'affordable homes' element of new planning permissions could be given over to in areas that can't keep staff due to costs?

what is this SE weighting?
a dream?

Threads like this annoy me.

If you can't afford to live, make changes - apply for another job, see if you can claim any benefits, move or downsize, cut your expenditure.

Why is the point that "professional people" should be able to make rent? Everyone should be able to make rent!