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?

This is not my experience. Nobody in my friend or family group have had inheritances or come from money. All our parents are still alive and still young- late 60's. We're all 2 income houses though where all the females are the higher earner. We all own our own homes, having bought in our 20's (we're all about 40) and have good lifestyles. Most of us are likely to get some inheritance in the future though. For us that will go towards a deposit for a house for our dc.

I agree with you OP. It makes a massive difference whether you inherit or not.

The only reason we could afford our semi-detached house in a nice area is basically because I had inherited a large chunk of money towards it when my parents died.

My DH didn't inherit anything.

But it's meant we could pay off the mortgage earlier, and save for retirement etc and its made a big difference. And yes, we have both been in employment our whole lives but we're not bringing in £6k a month as some posters are saying.

Not everyone is equipped mentally or physically to be in higher paying jobs. A lot of people on mumsnet have trouble understanding that.

I agree with many PPs. Of course people are struggling at the moment, but it’s nonsense to suggest everyone’s quality of life is worse than their parents unless they have inheritance / bank of mum and dad.

Many people seem to have forgotten how hard it was for normal working families in the 1980s (I was born 1982). We were a family of 5 in a small 1 bath, 3 bed house (2 bedrooms and a tiny box room) until I was 16 when my parents could afford an extension. My dad worked long hours and my mum did childcare then worked nights as a nurse (3 overnight shifts a week!) until we are all at school and she retained as a teacher. All clothes were second hand apart from shoes. I went on my first foreign (eurocamp) holiday at 12/13. This was all very normal…. No one had much.

I very deliberately chose a high earning career (my parents were very clear that I had to do that if I wanted to buy a house etc) and now have a easier life financially than them.

It really wasn’t that easy for working families a generation ago! And it’s perfectly possible to do fine now without any inheritance if you earn a good income.

Man, people are really well defended against acknowledging how really shit the british economy is after Brexit and years of austerity. To the person who said upthread that home ownership wasn’t a problem as people used to rent: you seem to have missed the massive housing crisis, the destruction of the public housing sector, the tightening of the rental sector, and the COL crisis in rising mortgage costs all of which make all this bootstrapping nonsense…well.. nonsense.

Of course it's shit. But the OP's question was if anyone can survive without an inheritance.

Plenty of people seem to manage it without sponging off their family or waiting for them to die.
Family money? No it's the individuals money, not yours or anyone else's.

I don't think that's true as such, but I think if you want to buy your own home and live with luxuries such as foreign holidays, Sky tv, meals out etc then you either need a well paying job or some money to set you off on the right foot.

My parents struggled for money when we were growing up (something they kept quite well hidden from us, but looking back I can now see how hard it was, and feel very guilty about the time I deliberately damaged my school shoes because I hated them and wanted a new pair...). But they were luckily enough (or shrewd enough?) to have an endowment mortgage that paid out a considerable sum of money, which definitely shifted things for us as a family, and probably enabled me to go to university (I do wonder how we would have managed if they hadn't had that money).

I've also benefited from a DH who had a lump sum we were able to use as a deposit when we bought our house together (his share of a house he'd bought with his ex many, many years earlier).

But I do also have a well paid job, that I started from a very junior position. So I think that even without those things that helped, I would still have a reasonable lifestyle now.

Social mobility was much easier in the 1990s and 2000, but now that is falling away as wages have dropped so much alongside inflation rising and then peaking in the last 2/3 years

The gap between the high incomes and the lower paid is widening, that is the issue and needs to be addressed. The propaganda machine from this with higher earnings is that if you don't pay me a lot of money I will leave, this doesn't happen.

When wages at the lower end rise, the economy fairs far better, as more people have more money to spend

@theplanner24 , what enabled my mother not to work, was the fact that one very ordinary salary was (just) enough to pay the mortgage on a 4 bed house in nice area, and feed and clothe 4 children.

In fact my DM could not have worked even if she’d wanted to - the sort of childcare facilities that exist now just didn’t then, and we had no family anywhere near. She didn’t go back to work until I was 14, when I was considered responsible enough to look after 2 rather younger siblings after school.
Being skint was the norm, though. Anything like orange squash, chocolate biscuits, crisps, were a rare treat. A far cry from today.

Dh’s family was much the same - 4 children, nice house, but permanently skint. It was one of the things we had in common when we first met.

Anyone who’s read Ethel and Ernest - Raymond Briggs’ (The Snowman) story of his parents, will probably remember that pre WW2, his parents were able to buy a 3 bed house in Wimbledon on ONE milkman’s salary.
Dh knows the road, having grown up nearby. The same house would go for around £1m now.

I don’t know of anyone in my circle who’s inherited anything. My mum was a single parent who lived with my grandparents. DH’s grandparents left their money to their children, not grandchildren so he’s never inherited anything either.

DH and I always had a plan to repay our mortgages within 5 years. We moved house 3 times to get to our current home. We didn’t miss out on anything. Still had a holiday, meals out etc but every spare pound went into savings to pay lump sums off the mortgage. But we didn’t do lavish holidays, didn’t eat out every week or have takeaways, didn’t have sky tv, the latest mobile phone etc. But it’s got us to a very secure financial position, which I’d argue isn’t luck or being fortunate. It’s through financial planning, hard work and occasional sacrifice

We will inherit but hopefully not for another 20-30 years. We’ve never banked on any inheritance coming our way which is why we’ve saved as we have.

Absolutely. DH and I will have no inheritance and had no help starting out. In fact when it was hardest for us (lower salaries, childcare x 2 and expensive interest only mortgage) we were subsidising other family members too.

It depends a lot on where you live in the UK. I get by alright where I live (Wales) but would struggle to make ends meet in London or the home counties on my current income.

I disagree, most people I know seem to have had some kind of family help to get them started.

I think age needs to be considered here too. Lots of people who already have children saying it’s been fine for them so presume older than people starting out or thinking about having families now.

if we had been 5 years older I feel like our housing situation would be so different. Just as we had a deposit saved up and secure jobs the stamp duty break happened and prices went even more mad. Then interest rates on top of mad prices. It’s so much more difficult now than it would have been 5 years ago.

That wasn’t exactly her question. IIRC it was more along the lines of observing that it is harder to do it than it should be.

I gave my inheritance to my son so that he could buy a place otherwise he would have been in renting for ever
he bought with his partner a few weeks ago
i made sure he protected his deposit as it was around 100k
They both work hard cabin crew / NHS security but my son also works a few nights a week on the doors as well and will do overtime when he is off in his main job

they have no plans to adopt kids or anything so they are reasonably ok with what they earn
but without the deposit they would not have got anything

The luck part is being ‘clever’. If you’re good at academic stuff, then it means more education leading to a better career leading to better paid.

This isn't entirely about luck. My DS was averaging a C in Maths at age 14. He gave up his social life, reduced his hobbies and took it up to an A* by A levels, by practicing and doing mock papers several hours a day. That got him into a good uni. His friends didn't do that, because they didn't think it was worth the sacrifice in their teens. Maybe they were right, but he wanted to get into a good uni. Some of it is about choices. Everything can't be blamed on other people.

I mean everyone life would be easier if they where rich regardless of nationality or location.

Are you really saying you think its harder to be an able bodied working class person with a decent salary who qualified for a mortgage in a country with free health care than it is in say a war zone, 3rd world country or even somewhere like America where getting cancer or having a disable child could financially destroy you?

Frankly you seem in a very good and privileged position as is, most people I know couldn't even dream of getting a mortgage etc... and we are still very lucky we live here over many other countries.

Everyone I know who owns a property either I merited somewhere money or had a big leg up in saving for it for example staying at home while working and being able to save much more. I know it's only my personal experience but it says something when I don't know one person who owns their property purely from their own pocket. Social mobility isn't really a thing here though, the vast majority of people end up the same or worse off than their parents. And if they do better then it's usually because they haven't had children, so it's a false comparison really.

I am now in my 50s, so a bit older than most Mumsnetters. I fear for my children and the world we have now set up. Decent hard working people struggle to either buy or rent. There is a need to think through appropriate policies and our approach. Particularly to building and the minimum wage.

I think people are more entitled than years ago. They expect to be able to lease/buy a flashy four wheel drive or similar. My parents had a battered up old Hillman for years and never had a brand new car. One car between them both. Dad took public transport to work if mum needed it. The nearest to abroad we got was the Isle of Wight. People want more now. Holidays abroad etc. I am not saying either are right or wrong but people's expectations are different now. Very few people have family money or an inheritance. They do well through hard work or education.

On another thread, a dm is worried that her 26 year old daughter is spending all her money on holidays and not beginning to save for a mortgage etc.

So in five years time the daughter may be moaning that she can’t afford a house etc , even though she potentially has had the means to start on the housing ladder.

I agree it is harder than previously, and it does depend where you live in the country, but some people don’t help themselves.

(and most comments are disagreeing with the mum and say it’s the daughters money and she can spend it how she likes)

If it really was that hard then millions of Britons would be trying to emigrate to any other country at all costs, which is exactly the opposite of what is happening.

It seems like another case of not being appreciative of how bloody fortunate we are in this country.

I remember reading somewhere that the majority of people have family help with deposits. I wonder if that’s fact or supposition based. My DH and I are public sector. Earn over the national average, but not a lot. Never had family help for finances or childcare, including university and wedding. We however have a very large house. The key was finding each other early, buying our first flat early, and then working through a couple of fixers uppers to get our current house. Which needs loads doing, but looks grand from the outside. We work crazy hours, opposite each other to keep childcare down, I built up banked time for mat leaves, and therefore only had full pay time off, and then returned to work full time. We spend a lot on the children in terms of extra curricular, but nothing on ourselves, and have very cheap holidays.

I wonder if people assume we had help or an inheritance. It would be a natural assumption when you consider our salary versus the approx worth of our house (over ten times our combined salary) but would be completely incorrect. In terms of our parents, inheritance is doubtful and not factored into our thinking. Hopefully if it did come, it would be when we are too old to need it.

So no, I don’t think it’s essential. But I do agree it’s hard when you don’t have any help.