Rant About House Prices!

BitterAndTwisted

From your own calcs it looks like you could save up a decent deposit in 12 to 24 months, so I don't understand what you're moaning about quite honestly.


I suggest you stop feeling hard done by and knuckle down and get saving properly.

borkid

When we bought our first 1 bedroom maisonette in North London in 1975 we paid £11500 (about) for it. As far as I remember we had a joint take home pay of about £190 per month. We had no help at all from family. OH had been working for 2 years and was still training so a lowish wage, I was in research. We tried lots of building societies and finally found 1 about 8 miles away who would consider my earnings. We needed a 10% deposit. To save the deposit we saved all my earnings apart from my travel costs to work. We cooked from scratch and bought bacon bits, ham bits etc instead of whole pieces because it was cheaper. Shopped in markets where possible. Clothes second hand or found in the sales. We had no phone, no TV , nowadays though we would have needed the internet for study but then everything was out of books. Luckily OH books and college fees were paid for. No holidays although we did travel to visit family once a year.

When we finally moved into our own place we had no furniture, well one bookcase, a coffee table and an inflatable mattress. My boss lent me the money to by a cooker as we were cooking on a borrowed camping gas burner.

Yes it is hard but both my children have managed to buy their own places but sacrifices were made.

A lot is about lifestyle luckily we enjoy reading , walking cooking and gardening which all contribute to keeping the costs down. For furniture you should try freecycle or cheapcycle.

dtsazza

CharllieSays wrote: »

Going on last month, took home £2268.40 combined (estimating his figures based on £18k on http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php). I know he got another £100 in call out on top of that, but that went on petrol money for previous month to clear card.

Rent: £510
Fuel (bf's work): £380
Transport (my work): £194 (usually buses, but had to get train twice due to bad weather)
Uni (due Sept): £148
Internet (use for work/study): £28.42
Food: £95 (roughly - we had my sister stay for a weekend, so a bit more than usual)
Sister's Birthday: £35
Mother's Day card/pres (I don't get to see her much, so feel like this is justified): £30
Mobile: £5 or less (I'm on PAYG and barely use it)
Prescriptions, painkillers, etc (endometriosis): £18
Heating: averages £44.52
Water: averages £38.80
Council Tax: £118
TV Licence: £12.13
Toilettries: £32 (buy in bulk, but probably higher than average due to above medical annoyance)
2 books for uni (get as many as possible in library): £32.80
Car insurance, tax, etc: Have no idea, as partner sorts this out.

Total: £1721.67 (+ whatever for car)

I've probably missed things out here, as only have bank statement and bill receipts to hand. I know my boyfriend had to buy another pair of work boots, as his (literally) fell apart! I don't know how much they cost though. I put £380 into ISA at the end of Feb .

I don't know where we can cut back to save any more. The food bill is likely to go up in future, as a lot of things make my endometriosis worse and that in itself costs money. But for now we just buy cheap, durable stuff in bulk (pasta, noodles, tinned stuff, etc) and arrange cooked meals on Sunday nights to freeze. I can get away with skipping meals, but my boyfriend has a really physical job and has to get enough calories.

* And most of the flats in this area without gardens are for rent. There are very few places that don't have a small garden of some sort. I wouldn't care if we just had a window box. A garden isn't essential at this point. It's just that all the properties we've seen had gardens anyway.

The fuel seems really high, though that's coming from someone who doesn't own a car. I presume that public transport isn't an option (or it's more expensive) - but what about getting a 125cc motorbike or 50cc moped? When I was in my first post-uni job, I used to commute 50 miles each way on a Yamaha 125, which I bought specifically because it was cheap (to buy) and very cheap to run (~90 mpg). It was fine, even driving on dual carriageways, and would likely cut your fuel bill in half. Alternatively, do any of your boyfriend's colleagues live nearby, could he carpool with them? That would also cut the fuel bill in half. Both options might be slightly convenient but would earn you £200/month...

£194 month in buses/trains for you works out at £9.70 per weekday. That seems high for buses; is there not a monthly season ticket thing you can buy? For example, a Basingstoke Megarider costs £43.50 per month (typical small town in the SE), and I'd be surprised if there wasn't something equivalent you could buy.

Or looking at it from another angle, you're spending £570/month on commuting. I'd be surprised if that's cost effective - even if you were paying £1,000/month for a place within walking/cycling distance of work, you'd be better off by £80/month.

The internet bill seems very high - you can get perfectly serviceable broadband for around £10/month. The only difference would be slightly slower download speeds if you're downloading large files - but given your financial position that's not worth paying £18/month for! (And the cheap version is fine for Youtube/iPlayer.)

Water bills could be high too - we pay £20 direct debit and at the last statement had a large surplus. Are you on a meter? If not, are you living in a house with more bedrooms than people? Check the guide on this site for reducing water costs - ditto with electricity and gas.

Gifts this month are fine, though if £65 is an average monthly expenditure then that needs to come down given your financial situation. Don't give away so much of your money that you become miserable yourself; give more personal, less expensive gifts instead.

Ditto with Uni costs - I presume that you don't buy two books every month, but even so consider getting second hand versions. Or even PDF scans if they're available online, depending on how often you need to refer to the books - I found that a lot of the reading list on my course was barely used.


Even so, this is still £500/month spare without addressing the large transport costs, which isn't too bad to be putting away. Improvements will further lessen the time it takes to save up that deposit, and I absolutely agree that saving £1,000 a month should be possible based on bills of around £600/month.

borkid

Re prescriptions, would it be cheaper to buy a prepayment card ( not too sure what it is called but a set fee for set time)? Also ask your doctor if (s)he'll prescribe pain killers. Mine used to prescribe paracetamol for me as they were needed to control my pain.

19lottie82

OP,

1) Where do you live (rent) just now?

2) Where do you want to buy?

3) Where do you work?

sinbad182

dtsazza wrote: »

How much do you consider it costs to have some kind of life? Again the issue probably comes down to expectations.

It's definitely not the case that you need to spend loads of cash. Part of my "life" is cycling round to friends' houses and playing (European) board games - net cost, zero. Or taking a DVD out of the library, buying a bottle of wine, and watching with GF/others. Or walking/reading in the park on sunny days. Or meeting people for a coffee and a chat.

Having a life doesn't mean spending £30 in the pub, or on cinema tickets + popcorn, or gig entry every day. The main component of having a life is spending time with other people, and that's free. If you choose expensive activities it will cost a lot, but I can say from experience that I have a great time with my friends doing things that cost essentially nothing.

Yeah, tbh that sounds rubbish and isnt really 'living'.

The_Green_Man_2

Xiderpunk wrote: »

Well unfortunately thats the way it is. The OP either wants a house or they don't. Can not have it both ways, save and spend is a contradiction in terms.

I bought my first house at 21 years old. It was £46,500 and a two bedroom terrace cottage. I could only get a mortgage of about £30,000 so the rest was savings. It also needed a great deal of work. I had to live with no central heating.. just a single gas fire for two years until I could afford to get heating put in. I did not complain, I was prepared to make the sacrifice to get onto the housing ladder.

Times have changed, people today want and expect it all, instantly.

You had a home with a gas fire? Luxury!

We had to live in an 'ole in'th road and eat grit!

Cornucopia

From what I've seen, it's always been hard to buy one's first home.

I bought mine in 1988 - a tiny flat in London, but in a nice area.

I borrowed 4x my income, and had a 10% deposit from family.

I had an interest-only mortgage, and even then, when rates went up, I was paying just over half my take-home to the mortgage each month.

GDB2222

borkid wrote: »

Re prescriptions, would it be cheaper to buy a prepayment card ( not too sure what it is called but a set fee for set time)? Also ask your doctor if (s)he'll prescribe pain killers. Mine used to prescribe paracetamol for me as they were needed to control my pain.

It's about £100 for all your prescriptions for a year. https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ppcwebsales/

It saves money if you have over one prescription a month on average.

Dukesy

sinbad182 wrote: »

Yeah, tbh that sounds rubbish and isnt really 'living'.

Sounds just fine to me... I swear some people must have a seriously stunted attention span or something to feel it necessary to spend, spend, spend in order to keep themselves constantly entertained rather than just being able to enjoy a walk or nights in with their OH/friends and a bottle of wine.