We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum. This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are - or become - political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

How to be mortgage-free, prosper and increase

12467

Comments

  • hornetgirl
    hornetgirl Posts: 6,155 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker Mortgage-free Glee!
    I'd like to echo what others have said. There is no magic answer. For me the keys are:

    Accept that you can't have it all.
    Watch the budget carefully.
    Think mortgage every time any money comes your way.

    I still spend the same £25-30 per week on food as I did when we bought our house (1991). We both drive second hand cars. Loads of stuff in our house has been handed on to us (dining room suite, curtains, spare bed etc).
    We will pay off our mortgage in September 2008, after having remortgaged a couple of times to buy 2 BTL properties. We talk about the date all the time because we are so excited by the prospect, and find it really motivating.
  • Prudent
    Prudent Posts: 11,565 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Good advice- inspirational story etc -but the reality is the vast majority of people unfortunately could not afford to buy house/flat on just one income.

    If you are single you have no alternative. I am a single parent and had to buy on one income. I did it by buying a property in bad condition (though in a nice area). I had to do it, which wasn't easy with a very demanding job plus being a single parent.
  • jonnydoe
    jonnydoe Posts: 253 Forumite
    chris83 wrote:
    And no you aren't right. You will learn eventually that there are hardships for everyone at every stage of their life regarding money, not just you.

    Did I say anywhere in my post that I, personally, am in this position of having 15k student loan etc? No ,to the contrary, and I bought my house at a good time also and consider myself VERY lucky and happy... I also went through the high interest rates.. I'm not a youngster ;) Having a (devalued) degree nowadays doesn't guarantee a job but it can guarantee 15k debts. I graduated when degrees were worth something..

    Anyway, this is way off the point which is to pay you're mortgage off early you have to increase income or reduce outgoings. Timing is a big factor..

    Eg

    Person A and person B work in same office, both roughly same age have degrees etc etc..
    Person A bought a house 6 years ago and now has over 80k equity, person B still lives with his mum and has £0k equity.. Person B would have to save up 80k in 6 years!!!
  • jonnydoe
    jonnydoe Posts: 253 Forumite
    moggins wrote:
    This is exactly what we did 7 years ago, we'd hunted everywhere for a house that was big enough and were frequently being told by estate agents that we wouldn't find anything like that for what we could afford.

    Please note the words 7 years ago these are very important... Timing is vital..
  • Imelda
    Imelda Posts: 1,402 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Hi all,

    I have been reading this thread with interest as I took out my first mortgage last year, the biggest financial decision I have ever made. The points I would like to make are:
    1. Affordability is definitely a different kettle of fish nowadays, my parents borrowed 2.5 times their joint salary to buy their house in 1974. If my OH and I were to do that there is no way we could afford the same house today (and we are graduates earning £100,000 + per year combined).
    2. University, jobs that were done by unskilled, unqualified 16 year olds 30 years ago are now done by graduates of 1/2 years. I work in banking and there is no way I could have got my job without a degree, whereas my boss (15 years older than me) doesn't even have A Levels.
    3. I agree, expectations have changed, they always do, people of my grandparent's generation didn't even expect to be able to afford to buy their house and just rented. Today's "essentials" are yesterday's luxuries, it has been the same for every generation.
    4. Pensions, I am not sure that I will even get a state pension, let alone one that i will be able to live on. My parents don't face that worry, they retire in the next 2 years, have state and civil service pensions (final salary). I get 5% put into my pension by my employer, statistics say I should be making that up to 13% at least. And what will I get out of that? Who knows, it all depends on the stock market and annuity market in 40 years time. I am female and I cannot afford to give up work to have children, where will my pension come from?
    Sorry this has all turned into a bit of a rant! I didn't intend it to, I just wanted to highlight the issues concerning young people today (I am 26) and to keep this debate going as I think it raises some interesting points.
    Saving for an early retirement!
  • Old_No.7
    Old_No.7 Posts: 113 Forumite
    Hi, sounds like jonnydoe is more concerned about (young) people getting onto the property ladder than paying off the mortgage just yet, but either way you have to find ways to keep costs low, or make more money: there's isn't much more to it, budgetting, I'm afraid, no magic trick, but that does mean everyone can do it! You have to be a bit creative in finding solutions to problems, and don't assume that where people end up in life is where they started out. As mentioned by the others: buy smaller, out of town, run down, get a tenant for a while or keep costs low somehow.

    I couldn't afford to buy in London on my own, so bought with a friend. That's an option for young people which doesn't require more income. We bought a 2 bed place, and I took the living room as my bedroom, so we could rent out the 'spare' bedroom to another friend. Owning with someone else means that the costs are all halved (council tax, bills, and repairs and maintenance), and the rental income made living there very cheap. Which meant I could save up for other things (for instance I managed to pay off my student debt much quicker after we bought the flat!) There were definite drawbacks (not much space, finding a new tenant when friend left, no room for overnight guests unless they stay in your room, etc), but we both knew this to start with and saw it as a means to an end, and I would definitely recommend it. If i suggest this option to others who complain they can't get on the property market (and I admit you have to be careful (and lucky) in chosing who you partner up with), people come up with all sorts of excuses. They don't want to share anymore (I shared till I was 33, and there was no living room in the property!), they don't want to live over a shop (we bought cheaply that way: it's a lovely flat though), they don't want to live in zone 3 (we agreed we didn't either, but didn't have a choice) etc. If there are so many obstacles in someone's mind, they'll never get there.
  • Caixta
    Caixta Posts: 226 Forumite
    We slept on an air bed for months. People won't do that now, they want all furnished, all new, straight away.

    We did that too! My husband and I got an airbed when we bought our first home 12 years ago. It was such a giggle - the thing used to "walk" around the room during the night. Every time one of us turned over, it must've shifted along the floor a bit. Some mornings I'd wake up with my nose pressed against a wall on the other side of the room and wondered how I'd got there :rotfl: It's nice having a proper bed now, but a lot of our furniture is still second hand as with 4 kids it's hard to justify something brand new that we would have to be all precious about. We've learned to love the "eclectic newlywed look" and remind ourselves that this stuff is helping us drive down our mortgage.

    You're right, it's all about priorities.
    "By not unsettling men, you will reassure them. By unsettling men either through timidity or malice, you are always compelled to keep a knife in hand." - Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527
  • MORPH3US
    MORPH3US Posts: 4,906 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    @ seven-day-weekend,

    When you say "we bought a house we could afford on ONE salary" do you mean that one salary could pay off your mortgage payment, or do you mean that you could effectively live off one salary and save the other one?

    Myself and GF have just purchased a 3 bed terrace that is 9 years old. 100% Mortgage = repayment will be £737 and we intend to overpay the max (20%) each month = £885.23

    That leaves us about £300 left out of one salary and a whole other salary, but obviously we need to add bills etc on to that!

    M
  • I mean that we could afford to pay the mortgage and bills on one salary, but most of the time in the early years, there was only one of us working anyway....at one point neither of us were and we lived on a student grant plus income from a lodger....and if we had no money we went without until we had some. We always paid the bills but occasionally had to live on peas on toast for a few days because that is all we had in the cupboard till some more money came in.
    (AKA HRH_MUngo)
    Member #10 of £2 savers club
    Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton
  • cupid_s
    cupid_s Posts: 2,008 Forumite
    I think people generalise so much with regards to what people of my generation expect. Me and my husband are both at university (we're both 24 in our 7th year of study) and bought our first house just over two years ago.

    To save for our deposit we had to live with my parents for 18 months, and whilst living there we got married (cost us only about £4500 including honeymoon as our parents helped out). For wedding presents we asked for cash and vouchers and with that bought our bed, tv, microwave, washing machine, and almost everything else we needed, and our sofas were secodn-hand from my mom and dad-in-law.

    We took out the maximum mortgage available to us and we still needed £30000 deposit to buy even a really small house in a not that nice area.

    We don't have a car - we cant afford to learn to drive never mind buy a car and insure it. We don't have sky tv, internet access, hell we dont even have a home phone because we are saving like crazy to repay our mortgage early to have any hope of ever being able to buy a house large enough to raise a family in!

    We have worked ridiculously hard at saving, lived with my mom and dad for a long time after being used to our independence and that was difficult. We think before we buy anything and our only real luxury are our holidays.

    It just annoys me when people say we find it so difficult because we have so many luxuries and refuse to go without these. Not all of us do - or at least some of our generation consider having their own house to be the biggest luxury of all.
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 348.3K Banking & Borrowing
  • 252.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 452.4K Spending & Discounts
  • 240.8K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 617.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 175.6K Life & Family
  • 254K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.