Another take on 'affordability'.

Really2

lostinrates wrote: »

If you live further from home area (price driven commute) grandparents can babysit less.

But if everyone keeps using averages if has to be used a lot less.:)

Graham_Devon

ukcarper wrote: »

As I said I didn't go to uni you dont have to

Yes, but you cannot say you don't need a laptop for uni, but you did need a special calculator.

And then when I mention the uni fee's students now have to pay, you simply state "they dont have to go". Guess what, you didnt have to buy your silly calculator either! If you wanted to go uni you did. Same as people wanting to go today have to pay fee's.

Grrrrr!!!

sjaypink

Really2 wrote: »

I mainly holiday in the UK and always have hired at least a 4 bed so no extra cost to me.

You not buy him an icecream, bucket and spade and inflatable dolpin then?

I don't think kids are as expensive as all these studies say, but maybe I'm just mean

ETA: I have spent well over a grand this (school) year so far just on trips & clubs

PasturesNew

Cleaver wrote: »

Isn't the average 26k? So, more accurately, each of the couple earns 15% below the average UK wage. Whether you consider that 'well' below is subjective I suppose.

Where I live right now, a full-time female gets £16,500/year (source: ONS stats)

Emy1501

Really2 wrote: »

I mainly holiday in the UK and always have hired at least a 4 bed so no extra cost to me.

Oh so the average person mainly holidays in the UK and hires a 4 bed property even when they have no kids. Next you will tell me that the average person always holiday in the school holidays even when they have no kids of school age.

lostinrates

ukcarper wrote: »

But you don’t need a top of the range computer to get through Uni. I expect I could down load a free app for an ipod touch to do what my calculator did. You missed the point I could have carried on using a sliderule you could go to the library

I absolutely agree with where you are coming from. Bt people at university now are not NOW's potential FTBs. Computers were more expensive when I was at uni. AI shared a flat with a dyslexic (who got a free computer, un means tested) and this was great. Final year and after I needed my own. Everything before that, and I'd set up a business, had been done on a library computer, my friends computer or long hand. TBH, I still prefer long hand. Longhand wasn't acceptable for assignments, otherwise I'd have done that that way too. My computer was actually a big deal of sweat, and I didn't face anything like the debt of today's students. It makes be really uncomfortable though, that the cheap cost on a huge bll of debt is seen as a minor issue. That kind of attitude is unhealthy. Supportable debt, is .....perhaps irreversible. I'm not afraid of it. Kids leaving school then acquiring 10s of thousands of debt many a time never having had a job/supporting themselves, is.....pretty silly. A sizable percentage of those kids are actually going to be nitwits, and their debt unsupportable. A sizable percentage will use it wisely: but they have never been the problem, have they?

eta: I'm actually just about to sit down and rehash my business plan, when I say now I mean...some time in the next week or so...the ''now'' of the non worker. lol. And I wonder what would be said if I said right well, I'm gonna do it all long hand..ll my record keeping and business communications....instead I was told last time I really should factor in industry specific software...I'm really embarrassed but I've never even seen the industry specific soft ware, so how I'll choose I don't know!

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Yes, but you cannot say you don't need a laptop for uni, but you did need a special calculator.

And then when I mention the uni fee's students now have to pay, you simply state "they dont have to go". Guess what, you didnt have to buy your silly calculator either! If you wanted to go uni you did. Same as people wanting to go today have to pay fee's.

Grrrrr!!![/QUOT
But the thread is about people who didn’t go to Uni. you would hope that if you do go you would earn more

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Yes, but you cannot say you don't need a laptop for uni, but you did need a special calculator.

And then when I mention the uni fee's students now have to pay, you simply state "they dont have to go". Guess what, you didnt have to buy your silly calculator either! If you wanted to go uni you did. Same as people wanting to go today have to pay fee's.

Grrrrr!!!

I,m not saying you dont need a laptop just that they a relatively cheap

Graham_Devon

ukcarper wrote: »

I,m not saying you dont need a laptop just that they a relatively cheap

Ok I think the point has been missed.

You were trying to say you had more expensive items to buy, using a scientific calculator as an example.

I stated that a scientific calculator was a speciality in those days, therefore you could not compare it to a normality these days to make the point that it was more expensive in your day.

I accept you do not need a tablet PC for uni. But the tablet PC was only an example of a high tech version of a laptop. The same as your high tech version of a calculator.

So, instead of using the tablet PC, I simply used Uni fee's. To which you said they only pay them if they want to go. Which is fair enough, but you only paid for your calculator becuase you wanted to go to uni.

And now I have no idea what you are trying to say.

But what I'm trying to say is everything is relative. What was expensive in 1970, probably IS normal now. But the complete environment may have changed. Therefore comparions are pointless.

You may have bought a calculator, but did you come out of uni with massive fee's to pay for the privilge? This is what I am saying. Your calculator may have been expensive, but compared to fee's? The entire environment has changed. And they always will have when people talk about how much a washing machine cost them in 1973.

Really2

From what I see on this thread is even though I earn over the average wage I spend less than the average person.

It seems like may want.

A new laptop every year.
2 Reasonably high cost cars.
2-3 holidays abroad even after having children.

the point of the thread is that it can be done.

If you have children you cut your cloth to fit. If you feel you have to take them to the other side of the world twice a year for a good time it's up to you.

But don't complain about the cost most kids are just happy to have both parents together for the week.

It just seems like people want more and no matter what they have it should have no impact on their spending power and what they had before.