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.

Oh I did try telling her women have to work now, and no doubt that burden would fall to us. ‘You would just have to ask your manager for the time off then’ she said. How my head doesn’t explode spending time with her I have no idea. She’s the most frustrating person I have ever met; and sadly we are now related.

My mum and dad both had to work when they bought their house, in the 1960’s, in order to pay the mortgage and other bills. We had no spare money.

Every generation has it's struggles, and always did and will, but as you get older the struggles often diminish a bit.🙂

Prices tend to go up long term. When I looked where I could have bought in 2000 I also feel-hard done by. Even more so if I go back to my parents time with mortgage free on one salary before their 40’s seems unfair too. Also, colleagues older than me by a decade have accumulated very good pensions in comparison. A bigger population means less good things available for middle classes. Demand and offer is why mainly prices go up. There is not much we can do unless we sell and go somewhere cheaper in the country. However, even downsizing is hard. The most in demand places in cities are flats. Easy to say boomers are in big houses they do not need. However, I am looking to downsize and there is nothing available and more stamp duty taxes and high moving costs to pay. At the moment houses are not selling easy because of interest rates. There are not empty houses where I live so is not the rich foreigners buying and leaving empty here. Rather quite a lot of people moving in instead. Hopefully things would ease but the trend would be smaller places in the future. I am Gen X.

I'm not ready yet as my children are still home but I want to downsize eventually. I'm likely to stay here a lot longer and downsize later though because of the costs involved with selling and purchasing a new home - like stamp duty. I also right now don't have the energy to keep my house in an 'on the market' level of tidiness. Also Gen X.

Bravo. You're right. I remember spending my annual bonus once on a microwave. They used to be soooo expensive.

@Smugandproud there isn’t a right answer for sure. My MIL cul de sac of 7 is the same. Rarely come up for sale but the two that have recently have both gone to people with grown up children. All 4 bed family homes.

This thread is going to get taken over by people saying the past was no picnic, but those of us in our early 30s get it. My life is a lot easier than my parents’ was in many ways, but the cost of housing is insane now, and that makes a very noticeable difference to your living standards.

Posters talking about the 1970s are missing the point. I too have colleagues who are 40ish who own 5 bed houses they paid £300k for in 2010, in the last cheaper “up and coming” areas left in London. Those houses now sell for £1m. (There are no up and coming areas left.) This isn’t my parents, these people are more or less my peers at work. It’s insane! Those of you who are saying that the OP’s 40 year old colleagues just have more money because they have a decade more of savings - come on. The teeny mortgage also contributes a bit, no?

It’s just luck. I’m not saying oooh everything used to be so easy - I wouldn’t trade places with my grandparents at all! But the OP is right that the dramatic increase in property prices, just before we were old enough/secure enough to buy, is a bit depressing, and not something people our age were prepared for.

In our professions, in the 90s, my partner and I would have been able to buy a nice house. We are now struggling to buy a fixer upper 3 bed in a not so great area.

I’m not personally intending to moan - just laying out the facts and wanting to back up the OP, because some people on this thread have either not been paying attention or are being deliberately obtuse.

Also … 14% interest rates in the early 90s is equivalent to 6% now in terms of affordability. 14% is basically already happening. https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1572975530722627584?lang=en

I bought my first house in the 80s when I was in my 30s and a single parent and I had to move North to find a property I could afford. There was no central heating or double glazing and the house needed a lot of work doing.

The mortgage rate was astronomical, yes, houses were less expensive but salaries were also lower. I was earning £10,000 a year and paying £255 a month mortgage which didn't leave much spare. I'm not complaining, I was glad I could do it but the OP's parents were very lucky to be in their situation.

I often have this conversation with my adult DCs. They think we left school at 16 and moved into a gorgeous 4 bed detached with a new fitted kitchen and bathroom! They don’t see the utter hovels I rented for years until I could afford to buy. It took decades for us to build up what we have now.

They don’t remember times being hard, they were too young. I remember my eldest getting a D&V bug and having to buy an extra pack of nappies which meant I couldn’t eat for four days until I got paid.

I had my first ever holiday in my entire life at the age of 32. We never had holidays when I was a child, my mum couldn’t afford it. We grew up in utter poverty, and gradually improved our life. Whereas today’s young adults will often have had much more privileged childhoods, and then have to start their adult lives at the bottom of the ladder and it is a comedown.

They don’t see the utter hovels I rented for years until I could afford to buy

The rent on utter hovels today is absolutely huge in comparison to salaries...and you'll be competing with dozens of potential renters for that hovel.

I don't remember things being as bad as they are now in my life time (I am 53).

Privatising utility companies and transports has been a disaster and the cost of gas, electricity, water and trains is extortionate in big part due to profiteering by companies.

House prices are ridiculous and wages have not kept up.

It is mad to think that in a country where there is so much wealth people can't afford to put their heating on in winter.

The Tories and Brexit have really destroyed standards of living and inequalities between the rich and the rest have just widened beyond belief.

I remember my friend, a teacher in the early 90s with a wife and young toddlers at home, telling me how he would cycle to and from work (several miles) to save petrol money and one time coming home, he REALLY wanted to buy himself a small bar of chocolate but couldn't afford it.

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.

This is completely true. I say that as someone who was lucky enough to buy 8 years ago before prices skyrocketed. Its the difference between paying a €520 a month mortgage vs probably €1200 a month if I was buying my house again today. Thats a huge lifestyle difference in terms of how often you can go on holidays, eat out, go clothes shopping etc. Even when I was renting back in my early to mid 20's rent was a small fraction of my wages compared to the rents that people are saddled with today.

I feel for younger people today who have to spend so much of what they earn just to cover the basics. I'm saving as much as I can for my children's future because God knows what things will be like when they're adults.

The point she made was that women were forced to give up their jobs as recently as 45 years ago. That’s absolutely shocking, isn’t it?

Show them photos. My teens were like, "Your furniture looks awful." Yes, dears, I got our first lounge suite for 50 quid second hand. We had it for years before we could upgrade to something still cheap but newer. They were born then but had no memory of it.

Try reading my post?

We couldn’t afford to buy a house until in our 30s ( that was in the 2000s. We thought we were never going to be able to afford to save so moved back in with parents for two years. We both had fairly decent jobs but the city we grew up in was extremely expensive to buy in ( and still is). We could have bought elsewhere for cheaper but didn’t. We struggled a lot paying mortgage and bills despite being on okay wages.

They don't always.

I've got boomer and even Silent Generation loved ones who get it, and wouldn't be seen dead parroting the toss about 15% interest rates avocado toast blah blah. It's not about age, it's about ability and willingness to accept reality.

My parents didn't buy a house until their mid-30s. I remember my mother crying at the table because the third bank had turned them down for a mortgage. Luckily the fourth one said yes.

I get it - it's the comparison between now and 30 years ago, not the comparison between now and the 60s & 70s. And you're right - you've missed out on that sweet spot between reasonable salaries, low-is house prices and low mortgage interest rates. What we're seeing now is the cumulative effect of the changes to society that began in the 80s - in particular that fucking Right to Buy.

I'm in my early 60s and my DC have no chance in hell of buying for years to come. Sadly due to circumstances I still have a mortgage, and will be working for years to come. No early retirement for me.

I guess our only hope is to become more politically active and start demanding change to the UK housing policy - emailing MPs and local councils as a start. And vote out those who do not, or cannot, deliver affordable - social - housing. But I can guarantee it will mean an increase in taxation which will almost certainly be passed on to us, and not to the super wealthy.

I’m not disputing that, I know the state of the market having helped DCs to find places, it’s atrocious. My point is that we struggled too, we haven’t always had what we’ve got now.

I think I was lucky, I was brought up in the North West where property was really cheap compared to areas 'down south' but even then it was a stretch to buy. I worked in London for a while but rented and could never have afforded to buy even though I was on a good salary.

Houses in the village where I grew up would be around 150K now for a two bedroom terrace so still very affordable. Of course, if we could just persuade the larger companies/civil service to have some of their offices up north perhaps the demand would change and prices may start to equalise.

Although I do remember sitting around late at night discussing house prices 40 years ago and saying how companies should move their offices further north but nothing changes.

I think you’re still young in context of the property ladder. I’m 45 and we bought our first house when I was 31. Im Gen X technically and this was a typical age for lots of my peers. Im sure if you fast forward 10 years you’ll be in a much more favourable position.

I'd be tempted to move from your expensive city OP, to a less expensive, differently vibrant one. Carve out that time with your DC and have more space. Your extended family may not be around the corner any more, but they are still family and you'll find the time you do spend with them may be even more valued?

You are not imagining it OP. The price of housing in SE England is nuts. My parents bought their house for £80,000 in the early 80s for a substantial deposit from their previous house sale and then a mortgage which was three times my dad's salary (the maximum anyone would loan you at that time). The house is now worth upwards of £1.5 million - there is no way a man doing the same job now could afford it on that basis. There's long been a culture in the UK of people celebrating soaring house prices - banks lending multiple times multiple salaries to fuel the rise - with no thought as to how this affects younger generations coming down the line. Foreign investors have also fuelled the rise - the UK property market is seen as a rock solid investment. New developments around London are sold off-plan overseas in places like Kuwait and Qatar to people for whom these sort of prices are small change and so prices continue to spiral. There's a lot of twittering from older generations about not spending money on fripperies and cutting your cloth according to your budget, but this is completely missing the point. Cutting back on take-away coffees and avocados is small change in comparison with house price inflation. In addition those who can't get on the ladder are now faced with paying soaring rents to those for whom property is "an investment" rather than a place to live, in the absence of any real social housing alternative. There's no sign of any of this changing so future generations are destined to be materially poorer unless they get a substantial inheritance. We moved to Europe, but that door has now been closed to future generations.