to reaally not be able to understand why, people say they can't afford to buy or rent a house if they are working?

[iamtrickyjigsaw]

i mean me and dh don't earn much, but we managed it just about.
i just can't understand all these peple on here saying i can't afford rent or a morgage.

PS Before you laff, remember there was a time when secondary education costed serious money and people couldn't believe it in 1944 when it became completely free for everyone for the first time.

quite, full time child care for 2 + children can be equivalent to a second mortgage ...

the OP has clearly not read a newspaper for the last 18 months, if she has to ask this question

if you can find an affordable property, you are hard pressed to find a decent mortgage at an interest rate that will allow you to actually meet the repayments..

and i agree with expat !

I have no idea what it like for people not like me?

Who do you mean exactly? Do you include people who are 20 years behind me? Why do people think they should have it all in their twenties? The rest of us had to work to get where we are by our mid 40s. We even delayed parenthood until we could afford children.

I believe the argument goes like this. People are suppposed to have kids in their teens and 20s because their girls' bits are biologically programmed to do so, and the offspring are more likely to be healthy. If they leave it until their 40s they're more likely to experience problems conceiving and the risks of the children having health problems is higher. So actually they're doing what they're meant to be doing, it's society that has lost the plot a little.

SqueakyPop on Sun 26-Oct-08 14:43:14
"So you make your choices, upwind, and live by them.

When we were first married we used garden furniture in our living room because we did not consider that we could afford the real thing. That was in the mid-80s - so much for average salaries being able to stretch and stretch.

I don't see many young people nowadays willing to put up with that."

Perhaps not willing, Squeaky, but I know a fair few people who haven't got much choice in the matter. And surely that's how it was in the 80's too?

We were lucky getting married in the 90's, when mortgages were at their lowest.

10 years later, working couple on similar wages among our friends seemed to have far less money to spend and still couldn't manage a mortgage.

Nothing to do with us being more moral or more austere- just lucky in our timing.

I don't know. I remember my mother telling me that the first Christmas dinner she and my father spent as a married couple they had beans on toast! They were renting privately and both working. The first time she tried a new butcher, when they had finally bought a place, she asked for a particular cut of meat to do in the slow cooker and the man apologised and offered her a bone instead- he thought she'd wanted it for a dog!

SqueakyPop on Sun 26-Oct-08 15:39:10
"I know prices are higher now and it is a greater struggle, but those of us who bouth in the 80s and 90s had to work hard to get there. It wasn't easy. It mean going without and not being able to do up a house on day 1."

Ah, the 1980's that era of moral austerity and self-restraint. [smile}

I am old enough to remember the 60's, the 70's, the 80's and the 90's, and I think my generation (born in the 60s, married in the 80s/90s) had it better than any generation before- and possibly than any generation after. Doesn't stop some of us from developing into crusty old curmudgeons the day we spot our first grey hair.

Seriousl, cory?

I was born in 1965, married in 1986. I definitely think those who were 10 years older than me were much better off.

Perhaps it is a case of the grass is always greener.

"I am old enough to remember the 60's, the 70's, the 80's and the 90's, and I think my generation (born in the 60s, married in the 80s/90s) had it better than any generation before- and possibly than any generation after."

I think this gets to the nub of the problem - many people of your age grew up in a world where things were getting better. We have made such amazing technological progress in those decades with marvellous things like the internet, mobile phones, ipods etc. Some people are extremely reluctant to countenance the possibility that quality of life for younger generations is not that good - two incomes and long hours don't necessarily mean you can afford a home suitable for a family. All the gadgets and gizmos in the world won't compensate for that.

I firmly believe that almost everyone who is priced out of decent accomodation would happily live on beans and toast for a while, as some of our parents or grandparents had to do - if it made any difference. It doesn't, we have no realistic hope of things getting better for us. We just have to manage as best we can and enjoy the advantages we do have.

Not sure that's true squeaky - my parents were born in the 50s and borrowed 6X my dad's salary to buy a house in teh 70s.
I think times were pretty tough!

However, I don't know how people get on the ladder now when just starting out. We were lucky enough to buy in the late 80s and I got a 100% graduate mortgage and 'made money' on each subsequent property meaning we never needed anything like 100% again.

It was all about 'right place, right time' for us. Saving up for a deposit woudl have been impossible on the salaries we had then adn living in London.

You can't get 100% mortages now I don't think.

Oops, sorry, we bought in late 90s, not late 80s (I was doing my GCSEs then!!)

We bought in 1989 (top of the market) in Surrey. When we sold in 1997 (expanding family), we sold for our mortgage, which meant losing our deposit and all our home improvements.

It wasn't easy in those days. We did not sweat money. Friends had to club together to buy their first house.

We went through quite a few years of permanent overdraught.

I guess we should start doing the "When I was a lad" thing, "our protein was squashe racoon..."

My dad was born in 1930 and bought his first house in 1969. It was £4500. No idea how much his salary was - perhaps about that number. I know he was on about £10k in approx 1980 - when he was the head honcho of the Scottish branch of a pan European company.

We are similar to GDG and were lucky enough to have bought in 1998. We borrowed 2k from my Mum and brother and managed to scrape up 1k. Then had to pay the 2k back very quickly so I think we ended up taking out a loan for it.

DH was self employed so a little difficult to get a mortgage but not too bad (I was pregnant at the time). We were able to borrow something like 3.25 times his salary which was enough to get us a 3 bed semi in Poole that needed a bit of work, couldn't believe our luck. When we sold 18 months later we had decorated etc and prices had started to go up so we had more money to put down on our next house.

I was discussing this with my Mum now. If we were able to get a deposit together now, which would be unlikely, 3.25 times DH's salary (has doubled in the last 10 years) is enough to get us a one bed flat, possibly two bed if very lucky.

I feel extremely lucky that we were able to do what we did and know that a huge part of it was purely down to luck.

I may have lived on beans and toast as a student, but the students I teach now are doing the same and going straight from uni to a second job to pay off their fees. We never had to do that. We did our course work and then went out partying. They do their course work- and then go to work.

iamtrickyjigsaw I cant because I can afford to pay rent but I cant afford the huge deposit I would need, its so much up front when after bills and dds costs I have £20 a week left

I worked when I was at uni - made good money too.

I worked when I was at uni - made good money too.

Lots of people work when they're at uni to support themselves. Difference between our day and now is that students also need to work to pay for their education, before they've even started thinking about buying beans and toast. So they need to work that little bit more. This is a problem when you try to organise any out-of-hours activities, so many of them couldn't afford to be there if they weren't tied up with a job. Good jobs are harder to come by, now that more students needs them.

did you have children at the time though squeaky?

and more and more qualified people become unemployed, too, cory .

Indeed, expat.

And as for mortgages...the house we bought 15 yrs ago would now fetch between 3 and 4 times the price. Our income has gone up over those years (mainly through dh being promoted) but it has certainly not quadrupled. We would not be buying today if we were first time buyers.

if the guvmint paid carers how much it would cost to have dd in residential care - 100K a year, we could afford a house.
Until then, nope. No holidays or gadgets either.

WEll you said it, you don't understranbd. End of