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! 😡😡

The household has £3700 take home pay a month and no childcare costs. Yes housing costs are high everywhere at the moment but £870 a month isn’t huge for that take home pay.

Yes there are slum landlords and bad landlords and greedy landlords that charge a fortune but if the conservative government hadn’t meddled and left everything alone the natural conclusion would have seen the property market flooded with a huge choice of properties

Renters could then pick the best and most competitively priced properties and this naturally would have driven out those who were offering substandard or cheaply done properties at over market rent and these places would then come back on the market as they would be just not profitable.

Squeezing landlords so they can’t put expenses against tax and other legislation has meant fewer and fewer rental properties. It has also meant that the renter is now covering the extra tax that the landlord has to pay.

The supply of rental properties and landlords has naturally fallen which is what the government and a lot of people wanted so naturally things will be more expensive as it’s a lack of supply and a higher demand

A lot of the nicer places or those where a landlord would renovate or maintain a property to a very good standard are now just as profitable as holiday or short term lets

Can I suggest you sit them down and take an honest look at their incomings and outgoings, in an attempt to understand what’s going on and where their money is going?

You could agree to continue to help them out with rent occasionally on the basis that they agree to this meeting.

You will soon find out where the holes are in their finances… and if they won’t agree to the meeting then a) you know that there’s money being spent that they aren’t comfortable with you seeing (drugs, alcohol, nights out, gambling, clothes etc etc) and b) they don’t need your money that badly.

If they’ve nothing to hide and they need your financial help, you can have a good look at the specifics of their situation and figure out ways to save or extra income streams like part time jobs, Vinted, benefit options, shopping points, boot sales etc.

IMO the most loving and parental thing you can do is support them in the management of their finances, rather than continue to plug a seemingly bottomless hole.
Hope this helps! ✨

@Hotstraw of course I realise you can switch off notifications. Then you always get one snarkliy coming back with ooh I see op's not gonna come back now she doesn't like the answers. Not that it would bother me lol.
You can actually close the post so no more comments?

I thanked everyone for their comments ages ago & said it had been done to death now, but still the comments keep coming telling me what has already been said a zillion times over. Posters will end up talking to thin air as I won't be coming back!

Glad they can afford swimming lessons when they can’t afford their rent…

My son has had a lovely landlord reasonable rises annually. However, he's died, nephew inherited the whole portfolio. We're all on tenter hooks because he's swapped estate agents. Someone on MN their landlord has just insisted on a rental increase of £400 pcm.

It's so precarious.

Of course they aren't.
But the over financed, stick everything on klarna, entitled to holidays and days out constantly crew would obviously prefer to blame the misfortune of others rather than their own poor choices.

I get that times are hard and rents are ridiculous, but your DD's rent sounds cheap as others have pointed out. £430 per adult is not much at all and for a house? How can they not afford that? And you seem to say they were paying £660 a month not long ago?? I remember paying that for a studio with a shower cubicle in the kitchen and toilet in the hallway, shared with a neighbour 20 years ago. Or 12 years ago paying £1200 a month on one salary for a mouldy 2-bedroom flat with weak floorboards.

My nephew who's autistic has just inherited his mother's tenancy the rent for a two bed with no kitchen units (they rotted) a toilet that leaks and windows that let a Gail through has gone from £846 to £1800 a month.

My sons fooked then.

yes but even your 'in line with' isn't the same as 'significantly more than'
My original comment was in response to someone who said 'they can't even afford the rent, how could they afford a mortgage?"
the only possible interpretation of that is that mortgages are always far more than rent, and rent is easier to afford
thus my response that this is not always the case, in fact it is very common for it to be the opposite

even if my mortgage vs rent example was an outlier in terms of the difference this doesn't change the overall point. ignore the specifics if it confuses you but

tl;dr : mortgages aren't necessarily always more expensive than renting. That's it. That's the entire point I was making.

@Flavourful

They don't have childcare costs but on this instance, why should they get UC? To subsidise their mis management of money and car finance? No wonder this country is in a mess!

In no way does it “confuse” me, I’ve been a home owner for 20 years and have taken out several different mortgages. The person making it confusing for other readers was you, by not acknowledging that your small payments were down to your mortgage being a small percentage of the house value.
I’m just saying your £300 mortgage payment vs over £1k monthly rental value is not a comparable illustration for suggesting that it can be cheaper to buy rather than rent. I do get your point that often buying is cheaper, and I agree with you.

Thank you.
I wasn't "missing the point" at all. Anyone who says "My mortgage is £300" when comparing to FTB's who are renting and looking to buy is talking at cross purposes. It's got nothing to do with anyone being on a fixed rate. The fact is that there are no purchase mortgages available that will cost £300 a month on an average property without a massive deposit. And I mean - 60% of the house massive. And really - the statement if you can't afford rent, you can't afford a mortgage is true because you are unlikely to have savings and you'd still have to pass affordability checks.

You sound well meaning (and your daughter's in laws )BUT they need to adult up !

My parents are always assuring me that when my mortgage goes up in a few months that they won't see me go short etc .
Yes, it will be an extra 150 ish a month ( going from 1% to 4.5%) BUT I can manage it . IF I was destitute/ kids needed something then I wouldn't let them go without but I do have to budget / forgo stuff!

My parents lived frugally when they were younger - yes they are baby boomers now BUT I am an adult and they should enjoy their money. As should you !

SOmetimes tough love is needed

It depends where they live because in my area £860 isn’t considered cheap, for what I’m assuming is a 2 up 2 down. A mortgage would be much less.

Our mortgage was about £700 for a 2 up 2 down. This was in the SE about 5-6 years ago though.
our mortgage is substantially more now though :(
I agree their rent is cheap… but times are definitely tough. Interested to know how much their bills, plus council tax is… plus cost of food

I'm sorry you're getting such stick. I can totally understand how they'd be struggling. After rent, council tax, car and petrol, gas and electric, phone bills, food etc there can't be much left every month. Then there's just been Xmas (both working can leave it tough to budget, esp with the guilt of a child wanting this that and the other - and as a hard working parent wanting to spoil them)... on that wage it just takes a broken washing machine, MOT, or a burst tyre etc and you're in the red. It's really tough!

My husband works full time take home £1,700 ish I work 30 hours £1,400 occasionally I get over time which might give me an extra £150.

our rent is £850 we also have 4 children. We get child benefits which is used to pay childcare. We have a car on finance. Then the regular bills.

We are getting by albeit we live month to month now & we have no savings anymore but we manage it without parental handouts.

I think they are doing something wrong and you need to be thinking of yourself. If they can live rent free they need to be moving out and doing that if they can’t afford bills alone.

Our household income after tax is between £4k and £5k my partners a tradesman and earns more in the summer months. Theres been times where we've really struggled on that income. Our outgoings were huge. We have managed to bring it all right down and we ginally feel like we are living again. Times can be really tough. I do suggest sitting down with them and going through their finances. What your doing isn't sustainable long term or fair on you