To be so sad about my slide in living standards?

[ColdNow]

I grew up in a not so nice area, but my parents had a big house with a huge garden that they bought on two fairly modest salaries when they were younger than I am now. My mum took years out of work when I was born and although things like holidays and eating out weren't a regular occurrence, my parents admit they were never really stressed about money despite having several children and easily paid off their mortgage.

Fast forward to now, where I did my very best to do the 'right' things. I got a good degree, decent and stable job, married and bought a property before TTC. I'm now pregnant and feeling so sad about our financial situation. We purposely went for a modest property with a tiny garden to give ourselves a buffer, but now with the huge increase in our mortgage repayments and other expenses we're struggling to keep afloat. I would love to work part time when I go back but it's now looking very unlikely that we'll be able to make it work without being extremely stretched. I'm always worried about money and already buy all my clothes second hand, shop at budget supermarkets etc. The main cost is housing though, because we live in an expensive city, but this is the city I grew up in and where all my family and friends are, and moving away would be a very difficult choice to make and remove us from all our support networks.

I just feel so sad that within a generation the things my parents were able to offer me (space, time) I'm not able to offer my child, despite me earning far more comparatively than they did. I'm also the youngest in my family and the older siblings are much better off than me, again just because of time - they got onto the property market much earlier before prices sky-rocketed and now although I don't earn a lot less than them, I'm only just scraping by. I notice this at work too, I have colleagues at the same level of seniority and pay to me but a decade or more older, and the houses and lifestyle they sustain far exceed mine.

I don't know what the purpose of this thread is except to just say that it makes me sad that this is the situation I'm in, and people younger than me (I'm in my early 30s) are even worse off.

I'm in zone 3/4. There are no one-beds for that price around here - just had a look at Rightmove and to get that price you need to go quite some way out. A room in a houseshare by me is £900 plus now. You also have to factor in that bidding wars are the norm now, so that flat advertised for £1200 is more than likely going to actually cost £1500 a month. People who haven't rented for a while are shocked at just how much, and how awful the process is these days.

I know what you're saying about student loans, but that's an additional monthly outgoing that didn't exist for people starting out a little over 20 years ago, and is a lot more of a factor for Gen Z even than it was for millennials. Especially as the cost of renting for students is so high now that you're likely to be graduating with additional debt to be paying off too before you start saving for other things. 9% of your salary isn't going into your savings.

There are eight one-bed flats available for less than £1200 within a five mile radius of where I live. And, again, that's the price on the ad, not the price that you'd have to bid to secure one versus everyone else who's looking.

The.COL is also terrifying. We got an electricity bill this week and our estimated charge for the year is £1500-odd. Seeing it written down like that was a shock..and that's just electric. Gas is about the same.

I think it’s a little bit disingenuous to suggest it’s the ‘odd dinner’ and the ‘odd flight’ when it comes to young London graduate culture.

I know because I was firmly part of this group 10 years ago! It’s going out every weekend, it’s eating out or getting a takeaway several times a week, it’s a daily coffee from a coffee shop, it’s Pret lunches, it’s using every day of your annual leave on travel and seeing the world, it’s a ClassPass subscription & bougie fitness classes, it’s an ASOS (now Vinted) habit. It’s basically making the most of being young and free in one of the best cities in the world 🤩

I had a whale of a time and have ZERO regrets, but all of that did mean it took me a while to get onto the property ladder.

There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that we have some responsibility.

Absolutely this. DS25 and his gf22 earn less than 50K between them and have just bought a (albeit tiny) place for 220K, but it’s a foot on the ladder. DD on the other hand lives at home, pays me 15% of her take home pay for keep/food and blows the rest every month. She’s always going to festivals and gigs, out three nights a week, thinks nothing of spending £200 on highlights or £60 on lashes/nails. She’s got an expensive gym membership and only uses it about once a month. Always eating out or getting Domino’s pizza. Yet she’ll complain that she worries she’ll never be able to afford to buy. 🤷🏻‍♀️

DS has always been very frugal, doesn’t drink, rarely goes out and if they do it’s usually to the cinema. He saves every penny. That’s the difference.

I’m relatively well-off. Retired early (due to ill health), live in a 4 bed detached mortgage-free in the North. I’m very, very fortunate and have a comfortable life. But even if I sold up and cashed in my pension and savings I couldn’t afford to buy and live in London! ‘Not being able to buy a house’ isn’t the same as ‘Not being able to buy a house in London’.

If you're working in London, in a professional job/career path, it's not unreasonable to want to be able to eventually own your own modest place in the area where you work. Especially given how London-centric so many industries still are.

Otherwise the only people who will be able to work in those industries will be those who have the good fortune to be able to live with family nearby and travel in, or the good fortune to have help from family, and that's going to be a disaster for social mobility if nothing else.

sadly this is the reality for many. in such a short space of time things have shifted so much. tbh I feel I was better off even 2 years ago!

Re: "There was a very sweet spot circa 1995 to 2000, and 2000 to 2003 or 2004 wasn't utterly insane, but since then property prices have been insane"

I'd agree with the general sentiment, but regarding timing, the steepest growth was from 1996 - 2004 where prices tripled in 8 years. The sweet spot was from 1992-1996 where average prices were stable at 50k and mortgage rates were stable/falling at around 7%.
My peers mostly graduated mid-90s. There are still very marked disparities between those who were able to get on the housing ladder soon after graduation, generally with parental assistance, before prices shot up, and those who didn't.

There are also sometimes very large disparities between members of the same family, where the older siblings got onto the housing ladder just in time (and with no or minimal student debt) versus the younger siblings who graduated with student loans into an unaffordable housing market and were frozen out for a long time.

Public transport in London is the best in the country. You can get from Zone 5 to Zone 1 in 20 minutes or so. If you are serious about getting on the property ladder, you need to look further out both in terms of where you rent as you save up for a deposit, and in terms of where you look to buy.

I do know someone now in his sixties who only managed to buy because of the early 90s property crash - they went from school into a job that now effectively requires a degree to do, their partner the same but into nursing. So on the one hand it required something drastic for that to be possible thirty years ago, but on the other I don't think even another big crash would enable that for a couple in the same situation now, much less allow them to also retire in their sixties without a mortgage to pay or the need to downsize from their now "desireable" area (which by all accounts is full of middle-class professionals who are now really struggling with rate rises).

completely agree!!! I just about keep my family afloat and sanity and I earn more than parents ever have. It’s all about timing!

People can't afford to live in Zone 5 or further out, that's the point. There was a thread on here a while ago from someone who was earning £40k and couldn't afford to rent a place easily, and the options were either move into a houseshare for £900 a month or move out to Northampton. Difficult and expensive enough to uproot your life if you're a single person, what happens if you grew up here, or you now have children?

Even areas previously thought of as enormously unfashionable are unaffordable now, and the same is happening in Bristol, Manchester and many other cities. The places people with the same circumstances would have bought in years past don't exist anymore - they're sold to landlords and then sold on again with tenants in situ - and the rise in mortgage rates has compounded the rise in house-prices to make it even harder for people. I'm not surprised people feel like their standards of living are worse than their parents.

A big positive is the gentrification of previously shockingly bad areas. My neighbours tell me that our area is unrecognisable compared to 20 years ago. We have so many nice pubs, coffee shops, independent boutiques, fitness studios, delis etc. None of that was around 20 years ago. You used to have to travel to central London areas to get that vibe, now it’s on your doorstep.

It reminds me of an episode of This Life where Anna goes ‘out out’ to Clapham which was seen as dodgy AF, but watching it 20 years after it aired, as I did, I was thinking “Clapham? Rough?!” 😂

I felt like that watching Pulling, and the characters being aghast that a three-bed house in Penge cost as much as £210k....

Wow, Pulling was all the way back in 2006-07?

You can get a house in Penge for £350k now, 17 years later, so they were probably aghast because it was genuinely laughably overpriced (as opposed to just unaffordable).

I think things are definitely tougher for my adult children than for me at the same age. When we graduated in the early 80s we could afford to buy a house with two salaries, most of our friends were buying family homes. Mortgages were usually over 25 years. When we started a family we had the choice of going back to work or taking a few years out. My children were not able to buy property until they had been working for a few years, very difficult to buy without a partner. They have no option but to go back to work after having children. Our family size was a practical, rather than a financial, decision.

I'm a bit on the fence. I do sympthasize and feel the same if your living standards are dropping because of the increased cost of everything. I think your parents were very lucky, if their financial position truly was as you say, and it's not necessarily reflective of everyone of the time.

Most people want to be able to give their kids more - more time, better opportunities, higher standards of food, healthcare, education, general living - but, to a large degree, are limited by circumstances outside their control. I'd focus on what you can give - a loving and nurturing environment, a stable family etc. Doesn't mean it's not ok to sometimes be sad that things are harder than you would like.

I completely empathise @ColdNow

My mum worked part-time and term time only during my whole childhood so the finances firmly rested on my dad's wage, and yet they still have a lovely 3 bed semi in nice village, just outside London, near to their families. Good schools, nice area etc.

Whereas I already earn what my dad finished his career earning (not massive, mid £50ks) and my DP also works full time but we're in a one-bed flat and each month is a squeeze now we've got a child in nursery. No hope of upsizing while we've got nursery fees in the picture, and it means our little one shares our bedroom, and has no outside space.

I count myself lucky that I was able to buy my flat as hopefully it'll allow us to move somewhere bigger at some point, but it's definitely a bitter pill to swallow that my parents (and DP's too) likely had half the income we have but could buy a decent family home in a nice area at our age and take us on holidays abroad etc, while we are trapped by huge bills, huge nursery fees, rising food costs...It never ends.

Oh yeah, for sure, my parents are feckless and irresponsible. That’s the point though, they’ve still managed to come out smelling of roses. They’ve still got more savings than I have. Basically they’ve had their cake and eaten it and they’re still sitting pretty. Nobody under the age of about 55 could possibly get away with that though, not that I’m suggesting they should. You have to admit that there are a large number of older people who have made sensible financial decisions, but who have nevertheless had good fortune that we could only dream about, who are now very defensive about the good luck they’ve had and who insist it was due to their own hard work. I too have worked hard, and with the opportunities they’ve had I would too have done well for myself, I just don’t think I’d be such a dick about it.

TBH all you ve done is also come up with an extreme example!

For starters, for your scenario, you have to be in a v stable relationship, able to afford the commute and the additional student loan repayments AND lived like a monk for many years.

Its also an extreme to suggest people are pissing their money way, some are, as they always have done. ... just as it is when we hear about about a 26yo who owns BTL 5 houses - extremes!

All the data suggests is that there is a greater property and wealth divide between generations than ever before.... only closing with inheritance, for everyone else? tough!

There is no shame in admitting that but its the fault of Govt not the individual

It's interesting you see that as a straightforward positive, when of course people get pushed out as a result of gentrification and can't afford to buy (or indeed rent) where they grew up

Yes it’s rubbish. I’m much older than you (51) and I really wish people would stop trying to make out that things were just as difficult a couple of decades ago. Mine is the last generation to have benefitted from the rise in property prices. I’d be on the scrap heap right now if I’d not had a large chunk of equity when I divorced fifteen years ago. Our small house went up in value by 200k in about seven years.

Hilarious @Crushed23

On one hand you berate young people for "wasting their money" but on the other tell us all how wonderful it is that people spend their money in nice pubs, coffee shops, independent boutiques, fitness studios, delis etc exactly the sort of places that need younger people to use in order that they can remain in business.

It sounds to me like your parents have been dicks about a few things and have learnt that other people will clean up their financial messes. Lucky them, I guess, that it has worked out for them so far.

I totally accept that older people like myself have benefitted from the luck of being born when we were. However, please don't classify all Gen X or Boomers as similar to your parents. People do tend to get defensive when they feel they are being attacked as a group. Especially when many of them will have worked hard and will have made good financial decisions as well as being lucky.

If we were to give up all the things my parents never had, we’d be at least £2k a month better off, and that’s just regular outgoings and food shopping. It doesn’t include going out or activities.

Our living standards and expectations have changed a lot since our parents were young.