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! 😡😡

Agreed really good post @Lighterlilly

@Lighterlilly has nailed it .

Your DD seems to have a problem budgeting . We all have unexpected bills but some can be offset with a budget.
I put up monthly for car tax , insurance, mot , service ect and add a bit for the unexpected ( last year was a new clutch 😢 )
Same for saving towards Christmas , holiday , birthday ect .

My DH is so shit with money he has cash , when it's gone it's gone .
Is she like him spends ££££ and doesn't realise it all adds up.

I think the best thing you can do is give her advice on setting and sticking to a budget.

Maybe spent too much at Christmas? You sound like a lovely mum trying to help. It doesn’t all quite add up though. Hope things can get sorted.

@Allthenameshavegone1972 then what are they spending their money on. Why can't they pay an affordable rent of £800 pcm from a £3 - £4k monthly salary? This is the real question which meeds to be answered. So instead of being defensive at us you need to ask both of them what they're spending their money on. Tell them you're semi retired & struggling yourself so you can't afford to bank roll them any longer.

Hope they rely on packed lunches for work. Suspect they don't.

Maybe ask her to write down expenses for the last 3 months and you can go through it with her?

What I wonder is how old they are.

Their child is 5 at least (at school.)

How old are they @Allthenameshavegone1972 ?

It looks as if one or both of them are in minimum wage jobs, possibly unskilled.
Minimum wage jobs are always going to be that.

Did your DD have any higher education or training? Did her husband?
Is there any chance of career progression where they are now?

There's clearly a back story here as to how they aren't saving or never have. I'd assume with a 5+ year old child they were at least late 20a or early 30s. And given they lived with in laws for some time, why couldn't they have some savings? That doesn't add up- literally.

To me, the car loans stand out as their biggest expense. More than their rent I expect.

You need break down of where the money is going-

Entertainment at home? Netflix, Sky etc?
Food? Takeaways?
Mobiles?
Car loans?
Kid's clubs and activities after school?
Holidays?

I have just done an exercise where I downloaded all my spending over last year. Each item had a category and a sub category e.g. Food and Big shop , Food and takeaways. (I also went to a 3rd level of shops!)

It was a real eye opener to my year's spending. I don't generally need to budget massively as my spending isn't massively high - but it was a really good exercise.

That is the kind of thing your daughter should be doing.

I am sure you can do the maths on typical spending in a year.

I totally agree that it is much harder for young people today than their parents in general. Most households need two incomes to afford housing and other essentials and, as you say, childcare is a huge cost. However your DD and her partner are very lucky because they have a considerable amount of support and no childcare costs, which would make their budget very tight, even with tax payer support.
This isn't a 'col crisis', it's an ongoing situation, where things are going to get worse rather than better. Therefore, you would be helping them by going through their monthly budgets carefully and cutting out non essential expenses. Downgrading large expenses such as cars may well be possible. A lot of younger people have a habit of getting lots of things on credit eg expensive phones, Netflix, beauty subs, etc. These sort of expenses are also unnecessary. They need to learn to budget properly. It's interesting that you say you want to be a guarantor because of your grandchild but this is their child and they should be the ones to take responsibility and take out insurance in case of sickness and save money for themselves and his/her future.

Agree with others; it seems odd that such a low rent is unaffordable.

Something else is going on.

Given the OP is adamant her daughter would never ever mislead her, is it possible her daughter’s husband has a problem with money / debt / gambling that the op is unaware of

What do you mean about permission?

Didn't you just ask her?

What did you need permission for?

I wonder if living with the in laws for so long has skewed things a bit for them.

It's. Bit worrying they weren't able to save in this period but I'd assume when your granddaughter was small your daughter worked less.

But when you don't have your own home and little control over these areas it's easy to develop a bit of a Next habit because DGD needs to look nice/needs new clothes (and it gets you out of the house).

You don't have to do anything wild to start eroding income. Buying new children's clothes from these places is expensive. Mine wore mostly second hand or things picked up cheap in supermarkets etc.

But when you feel like you can't provide your own home, it's common to compensate in other ways. Studies have shown those on the lowest incomes the most resistant to charity shops for example because it's tied up with status.

I wonder if they've got into a few of these habits and now see it as a need. If so, you need to introduce her to Vinted.

Couple this with a couple of expensive car loans (are they PCP or loans to pay them off? Hopefully the latter) and money can run through your fingers.

If her in laws are better off they may also have GD likes heinz beans or kellogs cereal type habits that force up the shopping bill. Chinese on a Friday is a tradition in their house and they've carried on etc.

They probably have quite high insurance costs on their cars too but they are getting older so hopefully have shopped around.

I don't think it will turn out to be anything crazy that they are doing, just a small overspend in lots of different areas and a slightly skewed version of essential.

It's probably a good thing you've got to this position as a bit of guidance might help them considerably in the longer term.

The money saving expert boards are excellent for a statement of affairs/budget to see where costs are high.

They also provide good budgeting advice because it isn't just about what goes out every month. You need to factor in annual costs like Christmas, birthdays, car repairs and divide it all by 12. I think you said one of them is paid weekly which can also make budgeting harder if you are not on top of these expenses.

And how did you “check”?

This year I downloaded an app on the playstore called easy budget it's free and let me put every single out going in a calender (no matter how small) including food shopping on the date it's paid, it let me select if it is reoccurring I then added 150.00 for spends and 60.00 for extra and can now skip forward through the months and see it building up slowly by this time next year I will still be in debt but if I keep up this positive mindset I will have been able to pay some off and not be living paycheck to paycheck. I recommend them doing this then they can really see where their money is going

They should be saving for car costs and Christmas. Get them to look at how much their cars are costing them and when it will be possible for them to reduce this whether it's by switching to those which are cheaper to run or by keeping the cars they have after the loan runs out. That could potentially free up hundreds of pounds a month.

Christmas can be done for not much if they don't have the budget for it. They need to start saving now for next Christmas and only spend the amount they've saved.

I suspect they're also spending a lot on bought lunches, coffee, takeaways etc, that can add up to loads over time.

If they can't pay their rent because the above is what they've spent their money on, that's their responsibility to solve not yours.

Usually the answer is move somewhere cheaper but £860 for a 3 bed house, does seem pretty cheap compared to many places, and fairly affordable for 2 people working ft.

However if they only have 1 child could they move to a 2 bed, if they want to save?
(But also need to work out where all their money is going each month)

A mortgage is unlikely to be much cheaper than £860 for someone starting now with a liw deposit plus they'll have buildings insurance and maintenance costs to pay.

My spreadsheet had a type called Leisure followed by coffee. Fascinating stats to see how much I spent on that!

This can't be for real. If it is OP, don't give your dd any more money, they have enough including enough to save if they wanted.
I'm single parent and my take home is less than their combined (no government top ups or including maintenance) and I have a mortgage of £1100 a month and several DC and I save and we go on holidays.

Don't change your work plans to subsidise them.

As most people have commented if they both work they should be able to cover the rent themselves and they need to have a good look at how they are spending their money and budget better.

Ways to be money savvy:

• no pay-monthly TV packages (netflix, Disney plus, sky, virgin etc)
• cheap mobile phone contracts - SIM only once handset is paid off
• haggle with broadband providers etc
• cut back on all luxuries... You mention swimming lessons, they are (sadly) a luxury... Cut out all non-essentials
• budget strictly for weekly food shop
• buy second hand - so much second hand stuff is brilliant quality

... Then once things get easier and they've stopped spending on all non-essentials, look at what they can afford to reintroduce.

That's what I was thinking... something doesn't add up!

It suggests OP has access to her daughter's accounts! Online or something.

My DS paid a mortgage of around £750 as his first home ( 2 bed flat) 3 years ago. Put down a £40K deposit. Prices have not risen since then for that flat (he's moved.)