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! 😡😡

Dh and I were saying the same thing earlier (and He doesn’t know about this thread). His first flat was damp, had a fly infestation and needed complete redecoration. His sofa was third hand. He was doing two jobs to pay for the mortgage, plus doing all the renovations etc himself.

There is a lot I dont quite understand. My parents dont pay anything for me since I was around 20. I came to UK with 400 euros in the bank account and was paying back in 2013 when I moved here for a Room in a shared house in North London 750 pounds, all by myself. Sounds to me ambition is not there, If you guys keep helping out how would they solve their problems? are you raising their kids too? My husband came alone to UK as well 18 yrs ago no financial help , and now we both owned a house in South east. What jobs do they do? They surely need to go get a better degree. We Also did not get anyhelp from any of our parents. I just dont get it. I mean, its HARD, bills are high, mortgage is insane, add kids to the pot and is CRAZY but we can still save, travel, pay stuff, sacrificing holidays etc. I do not think of helping finantially our kid over 22 years old. Husband thinks the same. Good luck.

I think you’d benefit from reading the OP’s posts re income and childcare (or rather the lack of)

When people start out, they're skint. That's how it is.

I think they've been very naive to think two cars is a necessity rather than a luxury. If they're having to borrow often to cover their costs, there's something wrong there.

My husband and I are fairly mid to high earners after our whole careers of working like dogs to progress up the ranks.

We've never bought a new car, and we only have one car. We've occasionally had two cars, when we needed them for work. My husband bought a cheap, but reliable, old car for £450 on Ebay, then sold it again a year later for more!!

People are so naive, they think a new car and a new home is a necessity when they start off, but none of the previous generations had that expectation.

We never went on holiday except camping, we budgeted food carefully.

It's worth it now, we're debt-free and hoping to pay off our mortgage in our fifties. But you choose your own kind of hard, to be fair to them.

As to this being the fault of someone else ir the nation as a whole - it's not a helpful argument. You can't choose what's in your control or not, you just have to make the best of it.

I would be surprised if it didn't. This barmy government is raising taxes for us all so they can keep the illegal boat people in clover.

I wonder how many on minimum wage will have to start paying tax when they get it?

Like all Labour governments, they give with one hand and take back with the other.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

I would be surprised if it didn't. This barmy government is raising taxes for us all so they can keep the illegal boat people in clover.

I wonder how many on minimum wage will have to start paying tax when they get it?

Like all Labour governments, they give with one hand and take back with the other.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Mortgages aren’t any cheaper than renting for most people.

We are very luckily fixed at 1.1% until end of next year (renewal was in Covid times), but mortgage will increase and we’re expecting it to go from £500 to at least £800 per month as a guess. Plus own maintenance and insurance

Agreed that the cost of living is outrageous, but renting isn’t their problem here

We pay close to £1200 pm for our council house and manage okay on just my husband’s income (no benefits other than the usual child maintenance), with three young children. Something’s not adding up here - £860 pm is very good for a house, especially if both are working full time. Where I live, rent for a two bedroom house starts from around £1500 minimum. Unfortunately, it sounds like they aren’t budgeting properly each month. Hope you can get some answers soon.

I would love to only have to pay half of £860 rent, mine is £975 and estimating landlord will up it to £1k at least in July and my take home is less than theirs. I don't drive so at least don't have those costs

Yes but son doesn't have two new cars, his car is 11 years old. Living within your means is a better option.

@Allthenameshavegone1972 you're really getting it handed to you aren’t you.

I feel for you and your daughter. Whilst I agree that £3,700 pcm is a decent wage, especially with no childcare costs, if they’ve gotten slightly in debt with Christmas etc. it is almost impossible to get yourself back in the black.

I am however an accountant, and if you or your DD has access to a laptop Microsoft Excel has free household budget templates she could use to get her family back on track. I actually set one up for my in-laws when they retired and they love it.

The issue isn’t CoL its their money management, that rent is half our mortgage and we aren’t on loads!

There's so many more bills in England than northern Ireland. We just pay our rent £500 for a large 3 bed house and we pay our oil and electricity but that's it. There's no water or council tax or and prescriptions are free too. I don't know how people live over there.

If she feels comfortable doing so why don't you all sit down with last month's bank statements and try and understand where their money is going? Come up with how they can cut down.

But don’t you pay a rates bill?

Everything is really expensive nowadays but unless they’re in an expensive CoL area it shouldn’t be that much of an issue. They should have enough to get by monthly for sure.

Do you think there’s any chance they have previous CC debt that they’re paying off? That could be creeping up on them and it’s very tempting to acquire debt - I’m a single parent and my CC has saved me many times over the last few years and now I’m paying it off.

Wow some of these comments. Guessing some posters have never had a bad month or 2 ie cooker/washing machine braking, something braking that needs sorting asap. Since ( Im assuming ) they bring in same amount of wage as each other, Could they set up direct debits for anything paid monthly through your daughters wages then split his weekly wage between them

@justasking111 did you miss the bit where I said their cars weren't brand new?

Incredibly cheap rent ! Split that 50/50 and that's what I was paying in early 90s...for a tiny one bed.

Less than, actually.

Agree - it's surprising how those little extras add up e.g. Sky TV, Netflix etc etc. I would say that a lot of people nowadays (that makes me sound old!) don't know how to economise or "cut their cloth" and dare I say it... go without!

You and in-laws down size and give money to children to buy house.

Things are tough atm OP, but as others have said, if they are both working full-time, even on minimum wage, they should be managing relatively comfortably without needing help from you or the in-laws. Their rent is low in comparison. I wouldn't commit to working forever, just to subsidise them - they need to take responsibility for themselves but it's probably a good idea to help with budgeting including getting to the bottom of where their money is going.

Had my annual pay increase and nursery fees increase letter on the same day, so that's the pay rise gone! Better than no pay rise though, I appreciate that, but had hoped I might be able to build a bit of a savings pot.

@Ladymeade nobody seems to wait now, if you can't afford it don't buy it, don't put unnecessary purchases on credit etc.
My financial situation is better than the op's daughter by a long way but I don't have sky, a leased car or take aways.
I live in a very desirable area in a three bed house, not missing out on anything by not having a take away coffee everytime I leave my house.
I don't have to "keep up with the Joneses"
Maybe I'm old fashioned in my thinking, as I said before a sibling has been made bankrupt more than once, the thought of that makes me feel unwell.

Defend them all you like, op, but the money is going somewhere. A lot of money.