Ooh Look. Gordon U-turns on childcare vouchers

[onebatmother]

Well I never.

wotcha onebat.

it means if emigrate to country (ie lower house prices etc) have no prospect of return.

true, fishie. but if you live elsewhere you don't get the opportunity to make london money and your house still costs a fuckload. if i want a hoose i'll have to move further than i already live from my folks.

i've had a look at the site linked to elsewhere and i really just cannot see how the £150 figure can be correct, the houses round here and beyond (believe me, i've been looking all over the half-decent areas in this town) are at least double that, which means that there must be heaps of three bedders elsewhere at £75ish and below. it's just not true. even a shite flat round here of that size is min £270 and nicer one are faaaaar beyond.

I'm from Edinburgh. I'd love to move back to live there, got lots of friends, family. Can't afford it though so I don't. Meh.

That's not a dig btw, but a lot of us do make compromises due to house prices, job availability etc. Not just a London thing - really, it's not.

exactly spicey, and we just don't see you whinging about it, which is a good thing.

re the pensions, i don't believe i have ever seen a londoner offer to give some of their house equity back into the system to make things more equitable across the country.

oh, and lahndan money distorts local markets as well, btw. one of the reasons that nice areas up here shot sky-high in the last decade was the return of 'ex-pats' who'd made their dosh abroad dans le big smoke and were now returning to have families and take advantage of grandparents etc.

I think I'm massively lucky aitch - because I can afford to have a child and earn enough not to live hand to mouth as a single parent. Having said that, I cannot afford more than one child - I simply can't make the sums add up.

I would like to see good quality affordable childcare available for everyone so that it made financial sense for people to work if they wanted to rather than having to stop because they are making a financial loss if they continue.

amen to that, spicey.

OBM but it isn;t always a matter of choice - I'm lucky that I have had property in London for many years so reasonable level of mortgage.

My friend who is an IT person whose income hovers around the higher rate band, single mother as her husband ran off leaving her with debts, house sold to pay off debts.

A two bed ex council flat in a not particularly nice but not horrendous area was £195k. Transport into city is terrible which means she struggles to get back in time to pick up her DD from CM's. She has no spare cash after paying CM fees of £50 per day.

Do you really think that its right that the govt who only a few years ago gave her a small tax break on paying her childcare fees, now takes it away.

Of course she could always move even further out - spend more time commuting (already an hour) in order to save money but then she wouldn't be able to rely on her mother (who lives locally) helping out.

This is the kind of people who will suffer - people on lower incomes will get the money back some other way (though if you are working I fail to see how 2 hrs of extra nursery time for 2 yr olds will help), people on much higher incomes will hardly notice.

If I had to pay equity in my house back I'd be well fucked come retiring as I can't afford to pay into a pension and have childcare and have a mortgage if I want to live in a nice house within a reasonable distance of my family (foolish me why don't I move into a one bed flat the other side of london - I'd be far better off ).

Of course I'd actually prefer that my house wasn't worth a ridiculous amount of money and that my mortgage cost half what it does. But that wasn't my influence - I have never sold a property except to buy another to live in, have never been left property by a parent/grandparent, never sold quickly to realise a profit.

yup, something's got to give, kewk. a looooot of people don't have pensions these days.

in japan you can now get inheritable hundred-year mortgages, lenin. that'll be us next, if the banks ever start lending.

Kew, your friend is in an invidious position: the situation viz lone parents is wrong. I think the application of that is limited though - the proportion of high-earning single parents whose ex-partners contribute nothing is probably low. Perhaps it will be addressed.

But wrt:
"I can't afford to pay into a pension and have childcare and have a mortgage if I want to live in a nice house within a reasonable distance of my family"

I know. It's awful. None of us can.

me; 2 bed, interest only, grotty east london, no pension for me or dp. dp.. getting on a bit too ;)

But we could both downsize or move area.

ooh, I like the sound of heritable mortgages. Is there a good reason why I shouldn't? (like you can't tell from the above resumé..)

i'm no whizzkid onebat but i think that anything that makes houses easier to buy just has the result of putting the prices up by that amount. subsidising stamp duty for first timers was mooted i think, but as nice as it sounds all it was ever going to do was raise the amount that peope were prepared to shell out by the amount saved.

it might be different now that loan to value is supposedly becoming more realistic but those of us who own have got equity to spend so might use that.

up here, for example, people are still paying over the valuation price, so they're finding the money somewhere. and so long as they're prepared to do that, nothing changes.

spicemonster you and me both. I'm not sure why they can't keep the eligibility the same and limit the tax relief to basic rate level rather than removing it completely from higher rate taxpayers.

right-o. We're al' doomed, then.

you sound quite whizzy, btw

we ARE all dooomed

they should cap mortgages at 3 x salary

anything more than that is UTTER MADNESS

if i tell you that my pension plan = encouraging one or both of my dds to have a recording career in japan at the age of fifteen or so. (without which they're not going to uni.)

is that a clanging chime?

Excellent choice Aitch

I just have to make sure that whoever is the Current Mr Morningpaper has a massive pension

that's my Best Pension Plan

I'm planning on hawking my DS out fairly soon to keep me in silks and furs. He builds a mean train track. Surely there is some value to be had from that?

Yah Aitch I am well into the christmas spirit after watching my very handsome MP turn on the christmas lights

did I mention that already

he is deffo on my Next Mr Morningpaper shortlist

Yes I will have a pension that will keep me in gin as long as I don't exceed a bottle a week

But it won't cover the Tena ladies