Another take on 'affordability'.

Cleaver

tara747 wrote: »

Good points. And very true. But my post sums up the dilemma of many people our age, we do still want to have a life as well as a mortgage.

What I'm about to say isn't a relfection on you by the way.

I sometimes wonder whether 'our' generation (I'm in my twenties) equate 'having a life' in direct proportion to spending money. I'm not saying that we should live like monks or paupers, but I'm not sure buying lots of stuff each month, having loads of holidays and a nice car is the path to happiness and quality of life. And whilst there are plenty who realise that, I think there is a significant proportion of under thirties who have been brought up through the booming noughties, in a celeb-obssessed culture, who do feel that bling and 'stuff' is necessary to get on life and be happy. Unless you have three holidays a year, a new car every three years and 5 meals out a week you can't be happy. Which is rubbish really, isn't it?

And some 'stuff' is obviously important. Shopping, eating out, seeing the world and other stuff like that is fun. But it's not really the be all and end all. I've said before on here that the missus and I used to spend quite a lot of money and sat down one day and just decided to really watch what we spent. And we actually found that our quality of life went up as we enjoyed the treats more when we had them and saving up for 'stuff' made that 'stuff' more rewarding.

Just some opinion and waffle from me there.

tara747 wrote: »

And we are also conerned about IRs rocketing.

Now that is a really good point. We're on an offset variable rate mortgage, and I have to admit that I keep taking a peek at the 5 year fixed rates that are on offer...

tara747

Cleaver wrote: »

What I'm about to say isn't a relfection on you by the way.

I sometimes wonder whether 'our' generation (I'm in my twenties) equate 'having a life' in direct proportion to spending money. I'm not saying that we should live like monks or paupers, but I'm not sure buying lots of stuff each month, having loads of holidays and a nice car is the path to happiness and quality of life. And whilst there are plenty who realise that, I think there is a significant proportion of under thirties who have been brought up through the booming noughties, in a celeb-obssessed culture, who do feel that bling and 'stuff' is necessary to get on life and be happy. Unless you have three holidays a year, a new car every three years and 5 meals out a week you can't be happy. Which is rubbish really, isn't it?

And some 'stuff' is obviously important. Shopping, eating out, seeing the world and other stuff like that is fun. But it's not really the be all and end all. I've said before on here that the missus and I used to spend quite a lot of money and sat down one day and just decided to really watch what we spent. And we actually found that our quality of life went up as we enjoyed the treats more when we had them and saving up for 'stuff' made that 'stuff' more rewarding.

Just some opinion and waffle from me there.



Now that is a really good point. We're on an offset variable rate mortgage, and I have to admit that I keep taking a peek at the 5 year fixed rates that are on offer...

Good post.

I would agree with you wholeheartedly - most of the peeps I know equate fun with spending money - almost all on 'stuff' rather than experiences (and some of them have the CC debts to show for it, nightmare!!). Nobody I know who is my age (bar one) has any savings whatsoever, homeowners or not.

OH and I, otoh, prioritise and spend very little on 'stuff' but we do *love* to travel so we will spend about £3k or so each per year on holidays. We do not begrudge this as it is our passion, but we ensure that we can afford it by being super frugal elsewhere.

We would be happy to go on fewer (or cheaper) hols for a year or two while buying and doing up a house - maybe even skip them altogether for a year :eek:, but after that we would want to keep travelling. I would sacrifice most things to have a holiday, so this is important to me.

The IR thing really scares me. They can only go up. I am so tempted to wait till they do go up before buying, as prices will defo drop more when they rise!!!! And I'd rather buy a £100k house at 10% than a £200k house at 5% (deposit and overpayments have much more effect the cheaper the house).

Cleaver

tara747 wrote: »

OH and I, otoh, prioritise and spend very little on 'stuff' but we do *love* to travel so we will spend about £3k or so each per year on holidays. We do not begrudge this as it is our passion, but we ensure that we can afford it by being super frugal elsewhere.

We would be happy to go on fewer (or cheaper) hols for a year or two while buying and doing up a house - maybe even skip them altogether for a year :eek:, but after that we would want to keep travelling. I would sacrifice most things to have a holiday, so this is important to me.

You sound the same as us. We like our house and are doing it up slowly, but given the choice between spending £3k on a new driveway or £3k on a trip to Japan then it's sushi every time.

tara747

p.s. can't remember if I've mentioned it on this thread, but we have seen a house that we like the look of...

tara747

Cleaver wrote: »

You sound the same as us. We like our house and are doing it up slowly, but given the choice between spending £3k on a new driveway or £3k on a trip to Japan then it's sushi every time.

Mmmm (((sushi))) :rotfl:

sss555s

When we bought our house i was 24. I had a blitz on savings the previous 3 years and had saved what was to be a 28% deposit.
The cost of the house was about 5 x our wage.

On that base tara you should easy afford a 300k house and have around 84k saved if you were trying as hard as i did back in 1990.

The point i'm making is that it wasn't any easier then and the interest rates were far higher. My mortgage was over half my wage and i had a 28% deposit.

I think you get back what you put in and i maybe did it a bit quicker because i did without holidays for a couple of years though i never felt i missed out in anything.

I think you have a better level than me as your saving and holidaying but the flip side is it will take you a bit longer.

Well done on the savings and you look in a good position and it's always worrying when it comes to time to put your money where your home is

tara747

sss555s wrote: »

When we bought our house i was 24. I had a blitz on savings the previous 3 years and had saved what was to be a 28% deposit.
The cost of the house was about 5 x our wage.

On that base tara you should easy afford a 300k house and have around 84k saved if you were trying as hard as i did back in 1990.

The point i'm making is that it wasn't any easier then and the interest rates were far higher. My mortgage was over half my wage and i had a 28% deposit.

I think you get back what you put in and i maybe did it a bit quicker because i did without holidays for a couple of years though i never felt i missed out in anything.

I think you have a better level than me as your saving and holidaying but the flip side is it will take you a bit longer.

Well done on the savings and you look in a good position and it's always worrying when it comes to time to put your money where your home is

We worked out that we will have £89k saved by December 2012 if we keep going at this rate. Which would be a fab deposit. But we *do* like this house we've seen a lot.

Your house was 5x JOINT salary???? :eek: There is no way we will be borrowing more than 2.5x joint salary, tops.

sss555s

tara747 wrote: »

Your house was 5x JOINT salary???? :eek: There is no way we will be borrowing more than 2.5x joint salary, tops.

The house was but the mortgage wasn't because of the deposit.

The mortgage was 3x salary

tara747

Ah right!

The house we've seen is £190k but we think £175k is more like it. Wanna see some pics and give me an opinion?

tara747

OK here they come anyway! :rotfl:

Huge kitchen:




Nice garden:



Oops, why are they so small???