How are people managing to pay the bills in this shit show

[Allthenameshavegone1972]

My daughter, fiance & dgs moved into their small, rented house nearly 3 years ago. Finding it a big struggle every month with the rent being £860. We, & her in-laws are guarantors for their rent.
I've found out her fiance has asked to borrow money for rent from his mum & for the second time my daughter has asked to borrow as he has not had the overtime. They obviously can't afford it. Both trying to get pay rises but it's hard in this day & age.
At the grand old age of 60 I was hoping to take a break from my office job, which I hate, for a few months and then go temping or work part time. We can afford for me to do that. If, on the other hand, I'm working full time then we can afford to be guarantors for their rent. Cant win either way!
She wishes theyd never rented now. They were living with her inlaws who have the space for them. She wishes she'd saved that rental money for a deposit instead. Their only option is to go back living with them, or all us parents carry-on working til we drop to pay for their rent. At 60 years old we should not have the pressure of working til we drop to pay for our adult dc's rent. We're not going to be in the best of health to work forever as we get older.
My dd is despairing, saying that she can't see life getting any better. I agree, unless us parents die relatively young without needing a care home and they inherit from us.
This shit show of a housing & col crisis is at breaking point, something had to be done, but I don't know what! 😡😡

OP I understand you being defensive of your daughter, but you’re contradicting yourself.

Why are you worrying about having to work until you drop if it’s only been a “couple” of times? Haven’t they borrowed from his parents too?

You don’t have to tell us the truth, it’s your life but £3700 a month, plus overtime and CB, is more than enough to pay rent and have close to 3k left for the month. Either your daughter isn’t being honest about their financial situation, or you’re in denial.

I think they must be hemorrhaging money somewhere. £3,700/mo is double my income (single parent). Granted, I don't have car payments going out - how much is this? Could they speak to the car company and extend the term of the loan and reduce the monthly payment?

Do they get lots if takeaways/ready meals/meals out? Do they drink much alcohol? Do they go abroad for holidays every year? Cinema trips? Subscriptions? Sports packages? Did they overspend at Christmas? Did they have to buy lots of furniture for the house or was it furnished? Does DGC do lots of clubs/hobbies requiring expensive equipment or uniform?

Their money is obviously going somewhere, and they really need to sit down with their bank statements and comb through everything until they have a better handle on things, either alone, with you or with a financial advisor.

Yes, it is really difficult to manage against everything going up in price, but it shouldn't be affecting your retirement plans!

@YesHonestly I suppose I'm panicking that they could be short again when we haven't got as much money coming in because I'm not earning. I'm ready for a break to recharge, declutter etc and then find a p/t job or temping. I do realise I'm in a very fortunate position to be able to do this and for my dh to agree to being the sole provider again.

I can understand that, but you need to put yourself first.

The best thing you can do for your daughter is to sit down, go through finances and help her to create a budget. They are both adults and the money is there, they maybe just need some help managing it a little bit better.

You’ve earned your rest! I hope you follow your plan to reduce your hours.

When are they going to grow the fuck up OP?

They already have a child.

Actually thinking about it YOU are FUBAR.
They can default on paying rent because they'd rather spend their money on other Stuff and you'd have to pay their debts as guarantors

I think you should get legal advice as to how to get out of this fucking mess. The Shit Show is of their own making frankly.

Is there anyway you can stop being a guarantor? If they aren't willing to budget appropriately why should you suffer @Allthenameshavegone1972 ?

often mortgages are cheaper than rent though.

the house next door to mine is identical (obviously other than decoration)- I pay £300 mortgage, when it went up for rent last year they were asking for £1100 p/m, and considering the sign went down within a day, and knowing how hard it is to find somewhere decent, I assume they got it. Wouldn't be surprised if they put ithe rent up again as soon as they can.

Plus at least with a mortgage you can tie a rate in so you know it won't go up for several years, whereas with renting you've got no guarantee and are at the mercy of your landlord - my friend's landlord put hers up from £1k to £1400 recently.

@JollyViper I'm sure they'll budget accordingly once they've gone through it all.

@BMW6 I don't want to stop being guarantor. What if one of them got sick & they couldn't afford the rent? There is our dgc to consider in all of this too.

If one of them loses their job they can claim UC. They are adults, you've done your job of parenting them it's time for you to wind down and enjoy being a grandparent.

Actually the average full time salary is just under £36 according to ONS, so if two people were earning that their household income would be £72k.
Average house price in Jan 2025 is £267,700 according to zoopla
So still approx 3.6x a "joint" salary

Obviously some people will live in a more expensive area, and a "joint" salary might have 1 or both people working part time or on low wages, not to mention lots of other factors. But equally lots of people, particularly first time buyers, will be buying properties cheaper than the average house or will have bought their houses earlier when they were cheaper, and many people will be earning over the average.

It's correct that wages haven't kept up with the cost of housing but the average house is absolutely nowhere near 10 or 11 times a joint salary.

It doesn't work like that though. I have a 3 bed house in an average area and I could get my mortgage down to £300 but that's because we only have 9 years left and we could extend the term on a not-very-big loan. Anyone at the start of a 35 year mortgage now on rates of about 5% - £300 means only borrowing £75k.

Yes but no doubt your mortgage amount where you repay £300 a month is a tiny % of the house value. First time buyers would be paying a mortgage of 80%+.
Our house would probably rent for around 3x what we pay on the mortgage. But that’s because we moved in a decade ago and now only owe on the mortgage about 15% of what the house is worth.
You really can’t compare the two, although obviously in the long term a mortgage is cheaper than rent.

I'm struggling to see where all of their money is going. The big question mark is the car loans, how big are they? I can understand someone buying new at the moment with secondhand prices being unusually high, but cars are money pits so if they can be avoided (going down to one car for example) then this will yield massive savings.

Anyway, they need to draw up detailed budgets and account for every last penny of expenditure. Then they might see where it's all going.

@DdraigGoch this is what she'll do. It should all become clearer once it's all in black & white.

What my dd doesn't need is accusations of trying to rip of her own parents and playing us for fools. One pp seemed to be revelling in the fact my dd scam is going to be uncovered. Someone even suggested he might secretly have another child he's paying for. Quite a leap from being a bit short for the rent this month! How imaginations run wild here on MN. It's probably an overspend from Xmas, together with car bills, it happens to a lot of people. It's just disappointing to hear it & puts you off moving forward with your own wishes on reducing your working hours.
Cutting down to one car is not an option as they work in different directions. Moving jobs is not an option either really, as the shifts he works helps out with childcare after school & in holidays, so they're not completely reliant on her inlaws for free childcare.

Someone even suggested he might secretly have another child he's paying for.
This was me, I wasn't being snide. I also didn't say secret child I meant from a previous relationship .
The money is going somewhere it's not a one time situation. You've ignored a lot of questions and I'm pretty sure your missing a lot of information from your daughter and her partner.
None of us know what's happening because you don't know what's happening.
Basic life rule if you can't afford it don't buy it. They are clearly living being their means.

@JollyViper sorry I stand corrected on that point of him having a secret child he's paying for. I've read so many comments slating my dd I've lost track! All she's doing is tying herself up in knots wondering why they're not saving when on paper they should be. Then dragging me down with her! These people do not know her. But I think it is a shit show these days. The col crisis means most families have to have both parents working, but the cost of childcare is insane. I do believe it's harder for today's generation than it was for mine. Maybe this will be the wake up call they need to see where they're going wrong & then finding a way to save a few bob.

@Allthenameshavegone1972 good luck with getting things sorted.
I think you are going to be having more than one sit down conversation about this.
Not everything has to be Instagram perfect, or on credit.
I hope you actually get to work part time and find something for you, not working all the hours for someone else's benefit

@NewHeaven so far off the mark! My dd hardly ever drinks & they're both very anti drugs. Sil drives for a living, works 6 days a week some weeks. They have regular drug/alcohol testing, he couldn't get away with it

Your dd and son in law need to look at all their bank accounts and credit cards and cash withdrawals and put each transaction under headings of household bills, food shopping, petrol, car costs, anything to do with travel like parking charges and public transport, going out/eating out, holidays , clothing, nursery fees, birthdays etc etc and income. And list every single transaction each month they spent on everything and work out for the last year what money they had coming in and what money they spent and on what

Are they actually earning enough to cover everything.

Are they getting the best deals on things like house and car insurance, energy providers. How often do they shop around for these things Do they use cash back sites and sites like Wowcher etc

You don’t have to drink,smoke gamble or take drugs in order to fritter away thousands over the year.

They need to analyse every transaction and decide if it was a necessary one or an expense they could cut out or cut down on

Op, I think tn4 issue is your op was just hyperbole and silly. It’s what’s caused all the responses. Particularly as it is now emerging they likely have more coming in /disposable income, than you do as you don’t work.

quite frankly instead of all that nonsense about having to work till you drop to pay their rent, about your daughter despairing, how they can’t afford to live there you should have written

my daughter and partner are very lucky, they earn close to 4 grand a month and luckily have no child care costs and a reasonable rent at 860, they’ve asked us to pay their rent, and previously asked his parents. They’ve asked us twice now. They have no savings. However I’ve already given up work and we don’t have much money coming in. Clearly they are significantly over spending and shite with money, how should we handle?

because that would have been more honest.

The take home £3700, rent is £860, no childcare costs and they are struggling to the point where you are worried about having to carry on working to support them? Sorry but that is ridiculous, something is going very wrong with their finances. Let’s say bills are £600 a month, food £400. After rent, bills and food they should have £1840 left. Even with car payments they should have a significant amount of money left each month. Something’s going wrong and they’re not telling you the truth about something, it doesn’t make sense.

So really the question is not so much how people are managing to pay bills in this “shit show”

but why isn’t your full time employed daughter along with her full time employed partner plus overtime with one child and zero childcare costs managing to manage and needin to take money from their parents. And the answer is nothing to do with anything more than their expenditure on things that the OP isn’t aware of

All she's doing is tying herself up in knots wondering why they're not saving when on paper they should be.

Not being able to save? But your OP is all about how she is not able to pay essential bills with parental help.

Write down all their full combined income and outgoings to see what’s left.
we did that several years ago and we were really overspending on food and stuff for DD she didn’t need
we sorted it out and budgeted and was able to save money for a house

This is an excellent post and it is the truth . There has to be some feckless spending somewhere.