Do you fear for your financial future as Mr & Mrs Average.

lostinrates

FBaby wrote: »

I'm not from this country originally, but I wouldn't go back to my country, despite its stereotype of residents having a much better lifestyle there. Wherever you live, you will find yourself facing the same issues, worries, questions. Home is where you make it home, the rest is about choices and consequences wherever you are.

Dh an i are anglophiles who chose uk. It feels like home to me, my parents are in uk atm, one full time one for six months a year. Dhs family are not.

We are not average, we are lucky enough to have an above avergae household income but also above average commitments.

We feel very committed to uk, having bought a reno project here and having a small menagerie of animals and a new start up business, but for various reasons we were pushed to look at the maths, and there is no doubt right now we would be financially better off elsewhere.

People who kove to run away from stuff will find people are people, troubles are troules, but some troubles are more easily solved with financial freedom.

We are the people who could jump ship if our tax gets less tenable, we already see that we would be financially better off elsewhere and increasingly feel that the social climate is becoming less pleasant too. We want to stay, we plan to stay, we make financial sacrifice to stay, but there may come a time where making that sacrifice is too much.

There is no doubt the last few years have been hard on many, and easiest on those who benefitted from the boom before hand i think, but i don't think things are set to improve much in the near future. If they do not get too much worse thats ok for us personally, if they do i think we will have to leave. Our effective tax rate is essentially punitive, we don't live together weekdays so dh can work to afford our lifestyle. A few of our friends have jumped ship..both uk and non uk, in the last couple of years, they are a loss both fiscally and imo for uk society.

We count our blessings every day, and appreciate being lucky, i don't want my post to be a long moan.

claire16c

Judi wrote: »

For years my husband has wanted to emigrate (back to Canada - his place of birth). Ive always been the one who has put her foot down and i really dont want to go but as time goes on i'm finding theres less reasons for me to stay.

My sister lives there with a Canadian, and if it wasnt for him shed be back here most likely to be with family, so if you want to move Id only do it for reasons like that.

There are some advantages of living there I guess, houses are cheaper for one, but jobs there seem to be quite insecure in the fact that they can get away with giving out temporary contracts all the time - which go on for a very long time considering they are 'temporary'. And then you arent entitled to the benefits permanent staff are. Holiday pay etc, is not good either compared to the UK. She works for a government run company and they are making cuts just like they are here - she got made redundant last month and had to reapply for her old, lower paid job, which she got, but obviously isnt what she really wanted.

Petrol is cheaper, but you have to drive further to get anywhere anyway, my sister doesnt walk anywhere anymore as everywhere is too spaced apart. The snow was fun for her at first, but now shovelling the driveway and having to drive to work in quite scary conditions with no such thing as a 'snow day', the novelty has definitely worn off.

We have riots in London, they have riots after Hockey games.

I think people always think the grass is greener, but it really very rarely is.

desert_rose

We're Mr and Mrs Average I guess but didn't buy into the 'spend spend', ideology of the past few years simply because we'd accrued a lot of debt that had to be paid off.

Now, debt and mortgage free, we're saving regularly and haven't reverted to our spendthrift days of yesteryear!

Point is, even with rising bills, fuel and suchlike, you can still live very well indeed in this country with a little thought, planning and by taking an anti-consumerism stance to buying stuff.

As a previous poster said, the shops are still heaving and supermarkets are still doing a roaring trade.

I think that part of it is to do with expectations. We have very high expectations these days compared to just ten or twenty years ago.

Gloomendoom

FBaby wrote: »

I'm not from this country originally, but I wouldn't go back to my country, despite its stereotype of residents having a much better lifestyle there. Wherever you live, you will find yourself facing the same issues, worries, questions. Home is where you make it home, the rest is about choices and consequences wherever you are.

Well said.

I've been lucky enough to travel around the world a bit and the thing that has struck me is how similar everybody's problems are... no matter what country they live in.

DylanO

claire16c wrote: »

My sister lives there with a Canadian, and if it wasnt for him shed be back here most likely to be with family, so if you want to move Id only do it for reasons like that.

There are some advantages of living there I guess, houses are cheaper for one, but jobs there seem to be quite insecure in the fact that they can get away with giving out temporary contracts all the time - which go on for a very long time considering they are 'temporary'. And then you arent entitled to the benefits permanent staff are. Holiday pay etc, is not good either compared to the UK. She works for a government run company and they are making cuts just like they are here - she got made redundant last month and had to reapply for her old, lower paid job, which she got, but obviously isnt what she really wanted.

Petrol is cheaper, but you have to drive further to get anywhere anyway, my sister doesnt walk anywhere anymore as everywhere is too spaced apart. The snow was fun for her at first, but now shovelling the driveway and having to drive to work in quite scary conditions with no such thing as a 'snow day', the novelty has definitely worn off.

We have riots in London, they have riots after Hockey games.

I think people always think the grass is greener, but it really very rarely is.

Wolves, mooses, bears - spiders the size of bloody dogs during fall. I'd rather deal with a riot than a spider.

JodyBPM

We're Mr & Mrs Average (and 2 little averages) for our area, and we've just paid our mortage off after 9 years. We've done it by not having mobile phones, not eating out or getting takeaways, growing and cooking veg (even when brussel sprout curry for the 4th time, or rhubarb and apple crumble for the 5th time was boring), not having sky (or any other package) tv, lowest broadband use, clothes only from charity shops or online offers (no more than £4/item (adult) or £2 an item (children).

The drop in the interest rate speeded up our mortgage free plan without a doubt, but we'd have been there in a year or two anyway.

It's very doable, if you are prepared to work at it, and make sacrifices, for everyone to save the money for a deposit/ pay their mortgage off. But it takes a lot of effort and sacrifice that a lot of people aren't prepared to do.

toomanyshoesfortwofeet

I think the obvious difficulty about this question is that everyone pretty much self certifies as being average. No doubt this is because they are constantly surrounded (geographically and socially) by people who operate in the same financial bandwidth.

Further to this, I think there's a gulf between Mr & Mrs average who bought a house 10 years ago and Mr & Mrs average trying to pick up the scraps after the housing boom.

I find the former quite smug and the latter desperately out-manoeuvred.

FatVonD

We're finding things quite tough at the moment. I've been lucky enough to find an ongoing freelance position since being made redundant last year but it's at 75% of what I used to earn and has no benefits such as sick/holiday pay or employer's NI contributions.

DH's industry has been hit terribly by the recession and after running expenses if he's left with £70 in his pocket then it's been a good week. Things may be looking up on that front as he's got an interview for his first ever 'proper' job later this month.

We don't spend a lot of money, I have a PAYG phone that is only used in case my son/his school need to get hold of me in an emergency or to text if I'm running late. We have the smallest cable package (we live in a dip and get no TV reception without it.) I'm not remotely interested in fashion, hate shopping and after a week commuting i'm more than happy to stay home at the weekends.

Our food bill has risen enormously, I recall when DH and I first met (5/6 years ago?) I would do a big shop when I got paid which would come to about £120. We no longer have a chest freezer so I have to shop fortnightly but that fortnightly bill is around £120 nowadays. Food seems to be our last area to economize in, I do try but I've recently been diagnosed with a B12 deficiency so I'm trying to eat more red meat and more healthily in general so that's kind of gone by the by.

I was overpaying my mortgage (by reducing the term) before being made redundant but I've had to put it back up to the original term so I don't see us being mortgage free any time soon.

On the subject of mortgages (I'll probably get flamed for this :eek:), I know things have changed since I was young (less social housing though single people weren't top of the list for it then anyway and still rented privately) but there does tend to be a sense of entitlement to home ownership nowadays. When I bought my first flat (in 1981?) it was pretty unheard of in my social circle and things were really tough, (I was always having my phone cut off :eek:) I borrowed the deposit from my dad and worked 2 jobs for years to keep up the repayments but most people in those days rented and nobody was outraged if they couldn't get on the housing ladder and maybe things are going full circle.

Spendless

JodyBPM wrote: »

We're Mr & Mrs Average (and 2 little averages) for our area, and we've just paid our mortage off after 9 years. We've done it by not having mobile phones, not eating out or getting takeaways, growing and cooking veg (even when brussel sprout curry for the 4th time, or rhubarb and apple crumble for the 5th time was boring), not having sky (or any other package) tv, lowest broadband use, clothes only from charity shops or online offers (no more than £4/item (adult) or £2 an item (children).

The drop in the interest rate speeded up our mortgage free plan without a doubt, but we'd have been there in a year or two anyway.

It's very doable, if you are prepared to work at it, and make sacrifices, for everyone to save the money for a deposit/ pay their mortgage off. But it takes a lot of effort and sacrifice that a lot of people aren't prepared to do.

Well done. :T Though I have to say between choosing to pay a mortgage for a long time or eating sprouts even once, the mortgage would tempt me more. Do you mind sharing how much your mortgage was at the beginning?

We perhaps even out as Mr and Mrs Average as though Mr S earns a far greater salary than the norm for the town in which we live, I am not currently working having lost my job at end of 2011 when my employer lost its contract. I anticipate a long time to find another due to living in a town of high unemployment the last one took an 18 month search. Due to a critical illness cover paty out from an endowment DH had when he was single we are debt free :j with savings that offset about 60% of our mortgage and can be fully offset within 4 years. We were fortunate to buy this hosue before the boom, but went thru a lot of years of stress with houses in negative equity before that. We haven't benefitted from low interest rates as we are 5 years into a 7 fixed rate at 5.39 and though once or twice we've looked at coming at the £1200 fee and the thought that the minute we do rates will rise has put us off.

We holiday each year usually abroad, but not an expensive package deal. We often stop in chalets/caravans on keycamp sites. In addition we have either done a CP or Butlins w/end to accomodate taking an elderly relative with us.

Hubby has a company car, whilst I have a 'cheap' (no more than £2k) paid for in full car to do the running around. DH uses his company mobile and I have a PAYG. We do have sky but only have the full package when a deal is offerred to us.

House decoration and refurb is done on a as and when needed basis.

I find I struggle more with the rising cost of food and children expenses. My just 12 yo has flat feet so has been in expensive mens sized shoes which never last long for years.

We frequently don't qualify for reduced rates on anything due to where we live eg breakfast club for my DD is £4 a day, my sister who has the same household salary as us and lives 2 miles down the road pays £1 as she lives in a more deprived area, but I chose where I live due to the schools, and I'd rather have that. it does make me a huge fan of vouchers though. :rotfl:

Dunroamin

JodyBPM wrote: »

We're Mr & Mrs Average (and 2 little averages) for our area, and we've just paid our mortage off after 9 years. We've done it by not having mobile phones, not eating out or getting takeaways, growing and cooking veg (even when brussel sprout curry for the 4th time, or rhubarb and apple crumble for the 5th time was boring), not having sky (or any other package) tv, lowest broadband use, clothes only from charity shops or online offers (no more than £4/item (adult) or £2 an item (children).

The drop in the interest rate speeded up our mortgage free plan without a doubt, but we'd have been there in a year or two anyway.

It's very doable, if you are prepared to work at it, and make sacrifices, for everyone to save the money for a deposit/ pay their mortgage off. But it takes a lot of effort and sacrifice that a lot of people aren't prepared to do.

Although this is all very laudable and MSE I couldn't and wouldn't live like this. Suppose (heaven forbid!) that something had happened to one of you and you had to look back on all those wasted years which could have been filled with pleasure and happiness as opposed to rhubarb and sprouts.

I'm all for being non consumerist but life is for living and not just for saving for the future.