To think it’s very hard to live in the uk without inheritance or family money?

[Lifesucksthenyoudie]

Just that really. Social mobility seems almost impossible at the moment without a head start. I earn a decent salary (Dh doesn’t but that’s another post) but my standard of living is so much worse than my parents and my mother didn’t work until we were in secondary school and even then part time for peanuts. Nursery fees and mortgage alone wipe us out. I haven’t inherited any money (large family, no chance) and feel a bit stuck. Not after sympathy just interested to see if others feel a bit trapped. Why is our society geared up this way?

OldTinHat
how did your ds afford a house-? I dont mean to pry but i am genuinely interested- our ds is a teacher - pays expensive rent and struggles with the idea of ever saving a significant enough deposit. The area he works in is average cost I guess.

The people I know who did inherit a share of their parents house didn’t do so until their kids were at or beyond Uni stage.

I am at the ‘maturer’ end of MN users and have had a worse standard of living than my parents and found it very hard during the childcare years. But then my parents had much lower expectations. Wrt holidays, new kitchens, new bathrooms, they didn’t even have central heating til I was 7. Our cars (the family only had one) were smaller and far more basic.

The NHS treatment on off was more basic with expensive procedures now developed not available.

And then the country was wealthier on N Sea oil and owned our industries.

But housing costs were far more affordable. That’s the big thing.

I live in London so find it normal not to have a house with a drive or a big garden, and always lived in flats or a terrace, except for one semi in a (perfectly normal) family area that many MNers make it clear they would not consider. I have had a good life, my kids had an excellent childhood even on a shoestring.

I do feel for young families struggling with housing costs but in the end most people get through.

It gets easier as the childcare costs reduce and salary (hopefully) increases with promotion or being able to work extra hours etc.

I suppose it depends on how entitled you feel to live the life other people have the wealth to live.

Well recent research does indicate social mobility is in decline. The IFS said it may be harder now than at any point in over half a century to move up if you are born in a position of disadvantage. It found that inheritances were becoming more important in determining lifetime income. .. which is shit. Those saying YABU probably don't have a clue what life is like for those trapped in intergenerational poverty.

I think my DH earns a lot more than he would if we’d been given money or had the expectation of any money coming to us. He’s really striven and worked so hard to climb the ladder. Friends we have that have been or know they will be, given significant amount of family money, often the DH has been happy to stay in a lower wager, lower stress position and the couple also spend money on things DH and I see as a waste.
So there is that, it can make you complacent and less likely to reach your potential in some circumstances. But generally yes, it makes life so much easier. I would say the exact same is true for family support and family childcare too.

I agree. It’s a worldwide thing affecting younger people. Older people were able to work hard off their own bat and buy their own place. Look up Gary’s Economics on You Tube and he explains why houses are now unaffordable for ordinary hard working people not backed by family wealth and why the middle class is shrinking.

Home ownership peaked in the UK in 2002 and has been dropping since then.

Adults aged 35-45 are 3x more likely to rent privately that in 2000.

75% of over 65s own a property outright, while less than a third of under 40 year olds own with a mortgage - the rest all rent or live with family.

Are 'peoples expectations too high' for a couple in work to afford to buy a modest property? This wasn't an unrealistic expectation for older people in the UK today.

Young people today 'may as well dream of going to the moon' vs owning a property like the one their parents owned.

It's an important point about age cohort. Someone who is 50 and has managed to pull this off was doing so in much more advantageous circumstances than someone who's 30. Even a few years can make a big difference.

Average house price is now over 8 times average salary.

In 1999 was just over 4 times average salary.

Simple maths. Yes it's harder now.

The OP says her DH doesn't earn enough, so perhaps that needs to be explained further, before looking at inheritances.

I don’t really understand that to be honest. Your DS is older than me. With two full time salaries they should have been able to have bought and afforded a child if they had wanted without you having to have given your inheritance to them. The fact that even with it they can’t afford this is baffling. As I said I’m younger than him and we managed to buy in the south east with no help, and have two DC and pay nursery costs again with no help with costs or childcare. My friends are the same, It’s doable for my generation.

We haven't inherited a penny and doing more than fine.

Exactly, which is what older people who 'worked hard all their life to buy their house' for about £6,000 seem to forget.

Indeed.

On my street the price of homes today is 3x higher than 20 years ago.

Wages are not 3x higher today. They aren't even 50% higher.

When I was a child my parents had a mortgage rate of 15% - that was the norm.
My father was a deputy head and had ended up with a pay cut due to changes in taxes.
They didn’t have to pay childcare because it didn’t really exist. No one I knew went to nursery at 9 months old. A parent stayed home. We had 1 income til my sister was at school.
I don’t remember my childhood as anything but wonderful but I think it must have been hard for my parents.
The issue of what a good standard of living consists of is the interesting one I think.
Holidays abroad, more than one car. Phones, streaming, eating out….. we did none of this as children. I had 2 pairs of shoes and some wellies. All our birthday parties were at home. We just didn’t spend money the way we do now.

After 14 years of Conservatism we have growing inequality in so many areas of life:

• vast differences in spend per head on private schools vs state schools
• growing health inequality between rich and poor, particularly between rich and poor women
• growing housing inequality between young and old
• huge, huge wealth inequality between the generations
• growing gap in life expectancy between rich and poor.

Because, duh, inequity is intrinsic to Conservatism.

You haven’t written what age you are. I am of an age, in my fifties where social mobility was not easy but within the grasp of more people. At that point only about 10% of people had a degree so if as a poor kid you made it to a good university or even a not so great one you had a commodity that had more worth.

We have so far inherited zero except a family friend left me 3k which was an absolute shock.

I agree also very much with @SpringOfContentment my house is worth 300k, where DH grew up very near London in a very wealthy commuter belt area it would be a million. His Mum post divorce lives in a 3 bed terrace worth maybe 600k. The house DH grew up in last sold for 2 million.

DH and I met working up North I remember when we bought our house in 1999 at 62k it seemed expensive because we were from near London. You could buy a terrace house a few miles away in an ex pit village for 19k at that point. Our wages would have been the same everywhere geographically as a national scale. We made our money through investing, I mean you need a bit of capital to do so and cheaper housing made that possible. I was also the first in the family to go to University.

DS will be one of the people you are mentioning op as he will be gifted a deposit. We have not told him yet, he is still living at home and saving a lot towards a housing deposit as is his GF. DH and I have been educating him about investing.

I don’t think yours is the lifestyle the OP is aspiring to. Your lifestyle sounds similar to my situation but I feel like it’s viewed as a failure not to own/be earning big money.

In most other countries, even rich ones, many people live in flats. Perhaps more people in the UK should get used to this. I will be voting for Labour, but they won't be able to reverse Brexit or this shit show in a hurry.

The house price issue is enormous. I grew up in a London semi with a SAHM and my father worked as a civil servant on about £30k. This was late seventies and early eighties. Childcare was nonexistent, few mums worked and it was a fairly simple lifestyle. Houses on that road are now selling for £800k plus!

Having said that, as I got into my teens (in the late eighties) I became conscious that there were a lot of women ‘at home’ (my friends’ mums) who probably could have, or would have, wanted to do something outside the home. We had moved to a commuter village by that point so there was a lot less opportunity around than in London! Legions of women were at home, even with grown-up children. A few managed it by getting school-hours roles (I knew a pharmacist and some teachers) but a couple of others went back to work in very low paid roles and with no legal entitlement to make pension contributions, eventually working their way up to a more rewarding role. Some went down the voluntary work route. But even in the late eighties it was still not uncommon for men to ‘not like’ or ‘not allow’ their wives to do much outside the home…😕

But it was a different time and a lot depended on your choice of spouse..divorce was a lot harder back then and child support was deductible from any benefits. I still remember the outrage and gnashing of teeth in the press when the Child Support Agency was first established, impeding a man’s God-given right to take home his pay packet untouched by the needs of any children he might have fathered along the way!

Why can’t your DH earn more?

I agree OP

as a single person my decent salary (more than £50k) doesn’t go far!

My parents asked me yesterday why I’ve never bought a house as they can’t understand why as I have a good job…. Their insistence on this subject makes me laugh as they inherited a lot of property and land from my grandparents (before they passed away, they signed it all over to them) which means they don’t know what it’s like to have paid a mortgage or rent either!

They don’t understand that my one single wage doesn’t go far in the current climate. It’s just about enough to survive but definitely not enough to thrive!!!!

oh and there’s no sign of them ever helping me as my grandparents done for them

I’d need to start doing the lottery

30k was worth a hell of a lot more in those days

I also think a huge amount depends on area. If you look online at houses in Scotland there are loads of threebedroom houses at around 150,000. And some lovely three bedroom flats at £120,000.

So if you want a house in the south east it will be hard but elsewhere it is doable.