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.

YANBU. We are very lucky even compared to our peers, we purchased our (crappy) first property in 2008.
It tripled in price and we sold in 2019 to move to a really nice house in a good area and good schools. Most of my friends can't afford to own at all now.
With rent and childcare on top of everything else, they're fucked.
My younger sister is a very highly educated doctor and she can't afford what we have.

In response to the poster saying we have too many people rather than not enough homes - sorry, lost the post:

Which people do you want to get rid of? The single parents who have separated from each other and now need 2 homes? The single people who have left an abusive relationship (in the past they'd have had to stay together)? The living longer, healthier older generation? The migrants holding our NHS and care homes together?

This has all contributed to us needing more houses.

The only answer is to build more houses, especially social housing so that more people on low wages can benefit from lower rent.

We should also bring in rent caps in popular areas and have a maximum number of homes people can btl.

Tbh, back in the 70s when some families only had one parent working, expectations of what they ‘needed’ were different. Some households didn’t have a car. There quite often were no holidays or days out. No extra money for lots of clothes beyond the basics, and Christmas was just a couple of presents bought from catalogues. I think now though, a lot of parents want a car each, and at least one big holiday per year, together with regular eating out and takeaways and day trips.

I think it’s true. Ill never be able to afford the house my parents had on one very modest in come the 80s.

but you are only early 30s? Keep calm and stop worrying. You have decades of work/life/kids/mortgages/ houses

I think now though, a lot of parents want a car each, and at least one big holiday per year, together with regular eating out and takeaways and day trips.

I don’t think many parents want a car each more that if you are both working long hours & commuting 2 cars is often necessary. Certainly holidays have grown more popular in the last 20 years but short breaks are more popular whilst the two wk break has reduced. Obviously cheap airlines has changed what holidays look like. I think eating out as replaced pubs.

This a thousand times over. Everyone I know with both the financial means and with a medical concern that can be sorted speedily in the private sector has skipped the waiting lists - myself included. Sometimes that's for the sake of a few quid (at best) or tens of thousands of pounds (at worst). Whether that's using the online Superdrug doctor for a basic prescription (delaying your period, seasonal allergies, rosacea etc.) or privately funding surgery for long-term spinal problems.
I'd also be shocked if the "dementia tax" rears its head anytime soon - even though it's utterly ludicrous that someone with one condition gets their care funded via the NHS and someone with a different condition doesn't.
Just as well life expectancy is actually falling. I'd far rather be like my old dad: dropping dead in otherwise excellent fettle just shy of my 70th than like my nan: eeking it out into nineties with hardly any dignity left.

My twenties and early 30s were a financial nightmare that's left me utterly traumatised (I'm not exaggerating - it was dog rough). Everything slowly improved from 33/34 ish onward. My forties - so far - have been good. But I'm still 20 years ahead of my old mum who had to wait til her early 60s to finally feel "secure" after a lifetime of graft.
Yup, I'll never own a four-bed detached house in the nicer bit of town (don't think I'd want to now...), but - for the very first time in my life - I no longer worry about every penny. It's liberating.

I agree with that, i dont want to live to near 90, no way

I’m with you! My mum worked in a shop, dad worked in the prison service. We went abroad every year, all inclusive for a couple of weeks. We stayed in a posh hotel on the London marathon course as my dad did that every year, we would also go on atleast one haven holiday. Neither had an education past school level.
Me and DH both qualified teachers, upper pay scale. Have managed to go abroad twice in our 10 year relationship, but not at all since having kids. We have done a few haven / butlins holidays.
Id love to give my children the experiences I had, just can’t afford to.
For us it’s the childcare that’s crippling. Nearly £90 a day 😬 far more than my mortgage.
Constantly counting the pennies.

I grew up more in the 80s and I don't think we were mentally better off. We were just told not to be silly and any issues were completely ignored and seen as unacceptable attitude and behaviour. If you were really severe, sure, but most of the things we just had to suppress and bury and pretend didn't exist.

My children are much more positive about their childhood as I refused to take this approach with them. They are very positive. I wouldn't want to go to back to childhood.

We probably will be. In no way can I foresee us providing everything multiple DC need particularly when they become expensive teenagers and need help as an adult to get on the housing ladder etc. If it weren’t for my parents gifting us a deposit we would very much struggle to buy, despite two slightly above average full time salaries for a young married couple. The average salary does not buy you the average house and therein lies the issue

I was born after the millennium and genuinely think anyone born after circa 1980 in some cases, and definitely 1990 is at a huge disadvantage. The economy has changed massively even in the last 5 years, we’ll really begin to see the effects soon on renters vs homeowners. YANBU to feel this way OP I relate and I’m glad (and equal parts sorry) so many others do too.

@BobbidyBibbidyBob I think I understand how powerless you feel right now. But to have everything you want to offer your child, your best option is working for yourself. No employer in the middle to skim the profitable hours.

This.

It shouldn't be legal to own more than a certain number of dwellings. Or they should be increasingly taxed the more a person benefits from to the point it isn't worth owning so many.

And The inheritance tax should apply to the royal family.

YANBU - the people on here bringing up interest rates in the 80s have no excuse for this level of ignorance. There are plenty of sources which have been published explaining why people are still much worse off today even with the lower interest rates. anyone negatively affected knows this. all those who benefited from cheaper housing who trot out this argument as if they have a point are clearly unable to accept their good fortune has been luck rather than due to their unique talents or hardwork (no you weren't more hard working with "different" priorities, you literally had it easier). they are also no doubt justifying to themselves why they shouldn't feel guilty for refusing to help out their struggling children / grandchildren etc. Deluded and selfish. Standards of living today are worse and we are not in a slump. This is the new world order. We are not a wealthy nation enjoying the spoils of an Empire any more. Our per capita GDP/PPP is not impressive. We are not the poorest nation but people seem to believe we are in the top 10. we aren't even top 20. work doesn't pay and we have a welfare state / public sector that we can't avoid. our economy is frighteningly vulnerable and it is only going to get a lot worse.

My neighbours paid £110k more for the house next door than I did for mine because they bought it 3 years later. It’s of similar, but slightly smaller square footage, and I have a garden 4x larger. It’s not even a 10 years difference, it is just 3 and an extra £110k!

OP I haven’t read every post on here but I 100% feel your pain. I was also terrified how we would
manage childcare costs, really didn’t think it was possible but somehow you just make it work. Can you enlist grandparents to do 1 or 2 days a week? Also look into flexible working, for example 4 days in 5, with the new law that came into effect recently workplaces have to have a very good reason to not let you do this. It would then mean more time with your little one so you’re not missing out. Also remember that from sept 2024 the new childcare scheme for all children over 9 months goes into effect so you should get 30 free hours term time, and if you earn less than 100k you get tax free child credit, and check if you qualify for child benefit- it all helps!

I’m the same age as you and find it annoying too. I’m a solicitor and just scrape by. Even colleagues just 10 years older than me have a mortgage only £400pcm. Same wage but they all have nice cars and multiple holidays a year. One lady was complaining nursery for her two babies cost nearly £1kpm when they were small, I let her know the cost has more than doubled since then!

I recently realised when speaking with some colleagues about 5 years younger than me however, that it’s even worse for them.

@Rose301 not everybody had grandparent help please try to remember that. It’s not very thoughtful to suggest that when you don’t know what somebody’s family situation is!!

We bought our first small house in the mid 70's, it was really tough because our pay was so low and also limited our borrowing, but we just kept slogging on and gradually worked our way up the ladder. Once our mortgage was paid and we were at retirement age we sold and downsized.

Virtually all the gain we made over the years has gone into helping our children with their housing so they will inherit very little, other than the value of the small property we live in now. Compared with some others born in the 70's and 80's they are lucky because they are at least on the housing ladder, though they don't live in very expensive areas or in any great style.
As @nomadmummy says "the reality is every generation has had to figure things out and every generation has had their challenges. The baby boomers may have lucked out on property etc but today a lot of people are spoiled rotten and expect all kinds of conveniences that the last few generations considered luxuries".

Of course there are silver spoon types and those in finance or law who earn a huge amount of money, but even the average family today expects foreign holidays and more eating out than some of us boomers did when we were struggling to pay for our homes over the 70's-90's.

I remember. 15%. I had a mortgage and we had just extended the house. We wanted a house that we'd looked at a year before and the price had rocketed to where we could no longer afford it (and the interim owners had made changes we would never have done, making a Victorian house 'more modern', yuk). So interest rates have been much, much worse. Also, when I first bought a house building societies only took the man's wages into account (mind, I now think this is a good thing and have never since borrowed against two incomes, not worth the hassle). People looking back at the 80s and 90s tend to have a rosy view of what were hard times (and nasty times, too, with the breaking of the social contract and the loss of the idea that wealth should be redistributed a little bit) and we now have it actually better. There are more opportunities, more things to do. However, I also notice that everything is about money. Forget the money, move house if you need to - you will make new friends - and spend time with your children. So you cannot go to Matu Pichu this year? Well, the Lake District is very nice if you are comfortable, and there are many, many places in the British Isles that are well worth visiting and have things to do with small children. Accommodation may be more expensive, but things to do will probably be a bit cheaper. Wasting your life thinking your standard of living has gone down when it has actually gone up (you wouldn't like life in your parents' big house now, the heating would be inadequate and the bathrooms too) is a bit silly, really.

YANBU. A colleague is currently selling the flat they bought by themselves 20 years ago for a profit of over £500k. We are currently hoping to buy. Our joint salaries are 4x the current value of her then salary we could never afford a property in this area.

Agree, generations all wrong. I had children in the 80s. Perfectly possible to work after marriage and children - marriage bars were gone by the 60s (I did research on this, the marriage bar is pre-1960, mainly between the wars, and was furiously fought) and I worked whilst I had children (I had a child-minder) and trained as a teacher after I married (early 70s). Utilities etc were state owned (much, much better, with summer and winter energy bills levelled so that keeping warm in winter was not terrifying) only after the end of WWII and married women were working in these places (the woman I studied from the 30s worked for an Electricty Board in the 30s; she had lost her university job because the VC did not like married women working at his university). By the mid-nineties married women with children were being encouraged - if not forced - out to work and now they are considered a waste of space if they stay at home with their children, as I did till my son was 10 and my daughter 6. Personally, I never saw the point (beyond money) of working in a job I did not much like (teaching, because my husband was a teacher and he did not like it that as a civil servant I had fewer holidays) rather than staying at home in a fulfilling role. I made a home, cooked always from scratch even after I went back to work full-time (gardened, jammed, bake, painted and wrote), and preferred research and writing (which I did in my 'spare' time). I do not understand this desire to go and do a job somewhere, dependent on an employer - that's not any more independent than sharing your spouse's income (which I always considered mine and spent as I pleased, being a second wave feminist). Current DH has much the same attitude to work, having been self-employed for most of his life. Sorry, bit of a rant.

@landbeforegrime sorry but you really have no idea. A pity that you cannot be transported back to the 1970's or 80's - you would hate it.

So you cannot go to Matu Pichu this year? Well, the Lake District is very nice if you are comfortable, and there are many, many places in the British Isles that are well worth visiting and have things to do with small children.

UK holidays actually tend to be more expensive than going abroad. Their costs have gone up a lot too. It's not a budget friendly option in any sense.

Some households didn’t have a car. There quite often were no holidays or days out. No extra money for lots of clothes beyond the basics, and Christmas was just a couple of presents bought from catalogues. I think now though, a lot of parents want a car each

It's mostly not about wanting exciting sports cars to have fun in; it's about both parents HAVING to work and commute and the fact that the British in the 1950s-1980s decided to start designing their cities around car usage and car dependence. Now everyone's stuck needing two cars out of necessity.