Is anyone else's full wage just going on living expenses?!

[maria2bela1]

My partner and I both work, have 3 young children. We crunched some numbers yesterday and my partners whole wage (which is a decent one, over 50k) goes on outgoings! I just can't believe it, we pay high rent in London (2k) then our gas/elec bill is sky high at £230 a month. Sorry having a rant but this is insanity. How are we ever supposed to save for a house? I honestly feel like the only way around this is to leave London, but our family and friends are here so not nice for the kids.

I used to live in a few big cities in a couple of countries before I moved to the UK, think NY, Boston. I thought I wanted to live in London but I'm glad I'm now in the North of UK. We have no mortgage as we live in a cheap house but a pretty decent savings enough to buy a bugger house outright. If we had chosen London I think we would not be as comfortable as we are today.

Jobs are better than I expected too. I'm working with big global companies from our small city base. There is life outside London for sure. Where I live food is diverse, while not as much as London it is satisfying for me and I'm quite picky. Answer is move out of London. Give it a try.

When we were saving for a house deposit we didn’t have days out and trips. If you want to buy a house you have to make choices. It’s all very well thinking that you want to have kids when you’re younger, you want 3 kids, you want to live in London, you want them to have days out and trips, but then yes buying will be hard. Unless you’re on high salaries you won’t be able to have everything so you need to prioritize.

Yes ours too.
We own a house in Lndn and have 2 kids.
We make about £90 between us.
Life is stupidly expensive.

This country is no longer arranged so ordinary people can have children and a modest home for them to live in. Two median wages cannot support a family in London.

London is not for us any more.

London is expensive - renting there with three young children even more so.

There's a reason why so many people move away from the south and from big cities before buying homes and starting families!

I read an article recently about there being no children left in London. Well that was the dramatic headline.

I work in education, schools are closing because of it and it's not good for the ones remaining as funding is based on headcount.

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly559jnd2zo.amp

Food prices are also extortionate!
A crappy panini in a local cafe was £9.75 (i didn't buy it) - You really do have to think twice about buying anything.

The problem is lack of housing and expensive rents.
Let's not pretend that previous generations who lived in London were financially more astute. Mortgages and renting were cheaper and more accessible and there was a lot more social housing and people had more dc...

It’s not millennials that really have the problem. I’m mid-millennial and we have had over a decade of very cheap mortgage rates and property was cheaper than it is now too. Many of us have been able to save and buy during that time as many of us made choices to save rather than travel and go on nights and days out or have kids young, and bought in the areas we could afford. It’s Gen Z that actually have the problem now, they are facing very high property costs and high interest rates whilst they are in their first buyer years.

You need to cut down on the expensive trips out, you live in london ffs, so many free things on your door step! Paid activities, then food/drinks and transport (especially for three children) really does add up.

I am only in my 20s and my parents did ok financially but trips out that involved a paid activity (bowling, trampolining, crazy golf etc) were generally reserved for birthdays and the odd treat in the school holidays.

It’s not millennials that really have the problem. I’m mid-millennial and we have had over a decade of very cheap mortgage rates and property was cheaper than it is now too.

Plenty of millennials won't be on the ladder yet because of their age...

Honestly, some people need to get off their high horses. As if it's that easy to completely uproot an established family and relocate to the opposite end of the country. Just moving to a neighbouring county has been a huge upheaval for me and my kids, let alone the entire loss of an established support network due to distance. London is where many jobs are and unless you work 100% remotely, it's almost impossible to correctly time and locate jobs for two people and nursery/ school places for several kids at the same time as finding somewhere suitable to live. It's not as easy as upping sticks and starting all over when you have a family so no need to berate the OP for her choices.

For what it's worth, @maria2bela1 , you have my solidarity. I am in the top 15% of earners in this country, but as a single parent my household income is in the bottom 38%. I own a shit ex-council terraced house (not bought off the council, but someone who gave up landlording and my god had he made a mess of DIY in here on the few things he bothered to maintain) on a dodgy estate with the friendly face of my local drug dealer at my front door (because that house is all I could afford, and renting is too insecure) and I just about make ends meet, and that is with only one child that still needs wraparound care. Luckily, I am a good cook, creative and reasonable at DIY, so I can stretch money further than many would in my situation. But I still fret when something large like my boiler breaks, because I've barely saved up and it's all gone again. Heaven knows when I'll be able to afford a new car, not the old and rusty banger I managed to drag through another MOT. With everything going up I barely manage month to month. I had less than £5 in my account before my last payday.

Life in the UK is hard right now, but my parent, who lives abroad, tells me it's going that way in my supposedly rich home country, too.

Just don't live in London

Three kids in one of the most expensive cities in the world without the security of a property - or at least the kind of savings akin to one- is a really bold move op and your appetite for risk is clearly far higher than mine. Do you both expect to see promotions down the line that will swing you out of just spinning the wheels and start to build a proper buffer?

Ok.

You say it ‘boggles you’ reading ‘post after post of people struggling’ on these incomes.

Well that’s why. The cost of living is higher in other parts of the country.

For families starting out today, with no property equity, with childcare prices as they are… it can be very difficult even on what looks like a good income. An average nursery fee in the UK could be 50% of a £50k salary - not in London, just in the wider UK.

Great that £50k is good to raise a family on where you are, but it’s not the same story in the South East of the country, and having to move away from family / friends etc is difficult.

Kids days out/trips etc - these are where your savings should be.

I wouldn’t like to be young now. We moved back up north from London to start a family, with a large deposit from buying a flat in London when prices were affordable in 1998. With a low mortgage up north I was JUST able to be a SAHM for 3 years living off just DH’s salary (slightly above average but not ridiculously so) but even then we had no foreign holidays until they were older and only ever had cheap self catering cottages or shared with family to keep costs down. Used Tesco vouchers for trips to zoo, cos it was unaffordable otherwise. No new clothes for a few years. Very budget conscious with meal planning, swapping energy providers, insurance companies etc. Didjt have days out at all really during summer holidays, just went local places or occasionally drove to the Lakes for the day to do free things like walking, taking picnic lunches.

this wss the early 2000s. It was bearable because the ability to be a SAHM for 3 years was an absolute bonus and made up for having no money. But it seems like now, even with 2 people both working, families are STILL having to live like we were 20 years ago on ONE salary. Whereas when I went back to work we then had “spare” money to use for things like foreign holidays, meals out, weekends away, new clothes, theatre tickets, new things for house, an extension!

the thought that now my second wage would be essential simply to get by with a basic lifestyle makes me really sad for my young adult children’s generation.

however I do think that some of them don’t realise all this, and have grown up with their parents having a fairly comfy lifestyle, with new tech, cheap foreign weekends away and meals out etc. Many of them are not used to having to cut their cloth.

It’ll only be the very youngest millennials who won’t have been able to buy because of their age. Millennials are from 1981 to 1996. I’m mid way and most my age have been fine buying houses as long as we made his choices. Those older had more years of cheaper properties. The only ones I know struggling are those who prioritized traveling, days out etc. or having kids young, or are at the very younger end of millennial. We’re in the south east so not a cheap part of the country. Of course there will always be a few exceptions to this though who have gone through unfortunate situations like redundancies.

OP, your gas ans electric seems really high. We paying £165 but we’re in credit by a few hundred so I think it will come back down soon to £150. DH works from home most days so heating is on 18 all day, till the sun goes down then it’s on 19 for for a couple of hours before going back down to 18. Our electricity bills are far higher than gas because of all his PC equipment and the student kids being on PCs all day when they’re home from holidays .

we are in a 3 bedroom 30s semi. Do you shopped around for thinga like energy bills, insurance etc? No matter how much you earn it’s pointless paying more than you need to.

Not surprising living in Londin and with three children You are doing very well not to be in debt.

I would imagine that there are so many people where their whole salary if they are single or one of the salaries as a couple are going on living expenses alone. Doesn't sound unusual.

I earn 80 and it wouldn't cover our living expenses. London, two kids. We need two incomes to cover it.

This is interesting as very different to my experience, born late 80s.

Id say most people have got on the housing ladder by mid-30s but…. Astronomical mortgages, and far more modest properties than their parents were buying at the same time.

Most people I know only got a couple of years of the low interest rates, and are now still with 80-90%+ mortgages on 4.5%+ rates (on really high property prices).

I’m a similar age to you (late 80s), and yes it has definitely been harder then some generations before with higher property prices but definitely not as hard as it is for generations coming up now. Low interest rates were around from 2009 so those of us now in our mid thirties did have many years with the low rates and had the whole of our working lives with these rates until they rose again a couple of years ago. Property prices were lower too than they are now.

Low interest rates from 2009 not much use if you were born in eg 1989 though, as you wouldn’t be owning a property until a lot later. Average age for a FTB about 33 not 20.

Agree it’s even worse for the next generation, but it’s been pretty cheap for anyone born after 1985.