Do you wish you prioritised travels or property?

[saffagraffuits]

If you were in your early 20s again, would you prioritise travels/experiences or getting on to the property ladder sooner?

We have two dc, and it is interesting the different approaches they've taken.
DD has prioritised travelling and seeing the world. She goes for months at a time. She's now 30 and hasn't started saving for a house deposit. Earns a decent wage (£50k). DD wishes she'd saved and bought the flat.

DS has prioritised getting a deposit for a flat with his girlfriend. He's 26 and just bought (with enormous mortgage) a £500k flat (London). He currently makes the same amount of money as his sister, but is likely to earn a lot more in future. DS has voiced that maybe he should have had more fun and bought at 29-30 rather than 26.

Both! We could have bought a cheap flat with a 100% mortgage when I was in my early 20s, but we stayed renting for some reason, and I had dc young as well. No property, no travel. Life has taken a fair few twists and turns since then, though.

I prioritised buying a house and now am really glad I did. We are mid 30s and now have a 4 bed in the southeast and have two young DC. We have enough money and stability now to be able to spend more money on family holidays and days out, as well as being able to save for our kids futures. We couldn’t have lived like this if we were still trying to get on the property ladder when we had DCs.

I bought my first flat at 25 on my own, had plenty of holidays but no long term travel because I had a job. DH then moved in so we had a flat I could afford on my own and two incomes. So managed to travel (albeit in 2-4 week chunks), save for bigger house deposit and wedding, then sold the flat and bought our house when we were 31, DS not born until I was 34, so had a good mix. The mortgage on that little flat was less than the rent most of my friends were paying even in house shares.

Property. One of my kids bought when they were 20 after saving like crazy. Nearly paid off their mortgage now so has money to travel

I lived and worked overseas in my 20s. Then moved back to the UK and bought a house.

Pre starting a family I had a job that involved lots of travel. After starting a family I had to change careers completely (well, I didn't have to, but being away from home so much didn't appeal any more).

Travel. You'll never get that time back. Why anyone would want a dream home and to spend their twenties picking out wallpaper in B&Q is beyond me. Yes you can travel when you're older but even at 35 it's harder to strike up conversation in a youth hostel. You're old to them! Plus your standards are probably higher. I thought nothing of sleeping on floors in my twenties. Travel when you're young, hot and fearless.

I prioritised property and wish I’d travelled. I have never done a “months at a time” trip and wish I had.

I’ve travelled plenty since, but never that long trip.

I’ll be encouraging DS to do both! Work for a bit, buy a property and live in it for a couple of years, then rent it out and go travelling.

I am saving to be able to help him to do that.

We bought a house in our early 20s, obviously much easier to do 20 years ago! We had holidays, up to a month, to places we wanted to visit, but didn’t want to go travelling for months at a time. So no, no regrets.

Both sound too extreme for me tbh! I love going on holiday as opposed to "travelling" I'd never be the sort to travel months at a time, so for me it's finding the balance between affording the home I want whilst having enough disposable income to have regular holidays.

I bought in my mid-twenties because it was the only way of leaving home - I couldn’t afford to rent. I knew security and independence would always be important to me, and made job and home my priority.
Some friends who travelled instead have ended up with different lifestyles, others came home and ended up in a similar position to me.

Lol at the youth hostels comment though - I’ve stayed in several this year and most of the occupants seem to be over 40. Same with the local festival campsites. I do avoid school holidays if I can.

If you get a professional international job you can do both. Career and cultural experiences and in some jurisdictions you can even save money as they have far lower tax rates and then come back and buy. A few uni friends did this because they were not going to get family help so they lived abroad 10 plus years and could buy when they got back. Some got very lucky due to the pound tanking against the currency they had saved in.

I think you can travel at any age (health permitting), it will be different depending on what age you. My friend's parents used to go back packing all over, but now choose to stay in good hotels as they are in their 70s.

There's no shelf life to travelling, but there is to property, unless you earn shed loads. I'd prioritise property asap and then once financially stable I'd prioritise travel. Might mean you don't end up in a 5 bed house, and you opt for a smaller house all paid off to allow you the money to travel.

We wouldn’t have been ble to buy in our 20s anyway so we travelled and had fun. I think your children need a lesson in being grateful and settled with their choices/

I didn't prioritise either! I worked ft from 16 and pissed it all away on nights out and takeaways, lived at home until I was 27 with no savings to show for it I wish I prioritised property, although im a homeowner now. (I'm 30)

I travel lots with my job (became cabin crew at 24) so have seen lots of the world and get cheap flights

I bought property early at 23 and prioritised overpaying mortgage no regrets. Mortgage paid off by 29 and then prioritised travel. I did get cancer in late 40s but no regrets as then had travelled a lot. And having financial security is good. My grandmother always told me owe nothing to anyone including the bank hence paying off mortgage quickly. That was very good advice.

This. I travelled when young and there’s no substitute. It put me a little behind property wise but I don’t regret it for a minute

Your ds is in a good position if him and gf do want to travel in a couple of years they can rent out their flat while they're away - win win!

It depends on the money you have and if you plan to get a partner have a family Most people want to work up career ladder in their 20 and 30s and it makes sense to take debt on then to buy your property
Many older people do travel properly these days and even do vol work which is a great way to travel as you meet the locals
It is very easy to think grass is greener etc and many think you can have it all but how many do?
Teaching English as a Foreign Language,is popular You do a months,course and work abroad
which will pay your expenses
There,is also,summer work in the UK often with free accommodation

I didn’t buy my first house till I was 30 & about to get married. Did plenty of travelling in my 20s & no regrets about that. I did hate having to move every 6-12 months when renting though.

But things are a lot different now, property (and rent) costs more as a proportion of income. My one slight regret is that we bought a smaller house first so that we could still afford holidays, if we had bought a larger one then before house prices took off, we would have saved quite a bit/paid off our mortgage earlier. Our kids are unlikely to have that scenario to worry about.

Travel and don't regret. It was something DH and I discussed before we were married and we were both on the same page. We don't regret. We had friends back then who literally had no life and done nothing but work to save for house deposit.

I don’t fully agree with this. I do think travelling in your 20s is a fantastic thing to do if you can afford it, and I would err on the side of doing that rather than living a miser’s life to save for property. But I don’t think there’s an age limit on travel. I met a 76 year old solo traveller on my last trip! I was also mentally quite unwell for a lot of my 20s and very anxious, I wasn’t in the right mindset to travel and my anxiety held me back a lot. It works much better for me to do it in my 30s now I’m mentally healthy, can get on a plane or boat without thinking it’ll crash or sink, and can truly appreciate the world

I lived abroad for most of my life, I’ve run my own organization and done a lot of things with disability internationally, it has not always been easy, but that has been my experience abroad. For me, it definitely wasn’t traveling, living somewhere is far from traveling, but it did give me a lot of experience to learn local languages, like Vietnamese, Really get an understanding of how the local culture worked and it has served me well in the long run. I have only had a property since March, in Greece, fix, of course I would end up having a property in a foreign location, again, it’s not easy, I have been through the two floods this past September, and a wildfire in July. Some days, I feel like giving up, some days I’m OK, and some days, I’m in between. I would have prioritize living abroad, though, rather than owning a property, it is very very difficult for me to settle down, especially with the energy that I have.

I'd do what we did and prioritise property. This is because we'd already had children at age 21 so there was no contest. We wanted to build up assets for our future because we weren't thinking about just ourselves anymore.

However, had we not have children so young, I'd like the think I'd have prioritised travel until 25 and then knuckled down to saving for a deposit. But, if there were no kids to think about by age 25 we may have just carried on spending.

I wa saving every penny for the property when I was younger, I am now have got 2 property one which is BTL one which is I living in now, so I have never regret that because I am now travelling a lot as I no need to worry about the financial.