Renting in your 40's and staring into the abyss

wotsthat

lisyloo wrote: »

I see a selfish person who had too many kids, didn't plan financially and is now whinging that the safety net doesn't allow them to live to the standard they want.
I don't agree it's a valid complaint.
It's astonishing to me that people expect a high standard of living once they've fallen on hard times when they did nothing to help themselves.
They should expect support but at a safety net level that is fair to tax payers.

This is how good clickbait works. We're given someone's opinion, very few details and then left to build the story ourselves.

It's nothing more than the tactics used by street chuggers 'excuse me, if you could would you want to help babies who might die before they're three?' I say no and walk away and hate them for trying to use guilt to extort their commission.

antrobus

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I am pretty sure it said in the article that her husband became disabled and now can't work. They have three children so its quite possible that after paying market rent in Colchester she can't get save for a mortgage....

Not in that Guardian article it doesn't.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/may/10/generation-rent-whos-listening-private-rental-market-ed-miliband

It says that "Fiona Elsted lives with her husband and three children – aged 11, eight and six – on the south side of Colchester in Essex" and that "She and her husband work at the University of Essex". There is no mention of any disability whatsoever.

I can confirm that there is indeed a Brendan Elsted employed as a teacher at the University of Essex.

Sapphire

lisyloo wrote: »

The problem is as you say differentiating between the genuine cases and the dysfunctional and then (as you say) what do you actually do with the dysfunctional.
I think we agree on many things.

So out of interest, would you vote to come out of Europe?

I'll cease talking about my transport experiences, since they are obviously different from yours.

I'd say we do agree about a lot of things. On voting to come out of Europe, I am still thinking about it. I have to say I am hard pressed to find reasons (on the face of it) why we should stay in the EU. Other northern European countries that are not in the EU are successful without membership, and I don't see why we shouldn't be. My main issue with membership is unrestricted immigration (both from the EU and outside it), including of people who come here from poorer countries mainly for benefits, courtesy of UK taxpayers. Many come here to breed, then go back to their countries of origin, where they still receive benefits from UK taxpayers! That is just not right and it has a detrimental effect on our country's economy.

I do also do have concerns about loss of identity and the repercussions all the immigration will eventually have on social cohesion. In London, at least every second person you hear is foreign, and such massive immigration appears to have occurred just during the last few years. London has always been a magnet for people from abroad, who have generally been beneficial to the UK, but immigration has never happened on this enormous scale and within such a small period of time, and I do worry about the social repercussions in many respects.

Perhaps recent immigrants are favoured in place of the indigenous population in some cases? There seems to be social deprivation among the indigenous white population in some parts of the country. I am not sure how this came about. Perhaps these are people from families that were employed in all the industries that thrived in this country but are now gone? It's a terrible waste of people who could be productive if they were, say, given apprenticeships so that they could develop skills and some pride in themselves. Physically, they could certainly do many of the jobs currently fulfilled by migrants. I do believe this part of the population needs help, but I'm not sure how its probably deeply ingrained problems can be solved.

Bit of a rambling, shambolic post…

shaggydoo

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Fiona Elsted is in her mid 40s. A university lecturer, mother, .

Born in the late 1960s she's had plenty of chances to make money and buy a house. She was in her early 20s in the late 80s to early 90s.

University lecturers have always been poor. She also must have spent years of her adulthood in academic study doing masters and Phd, etc. If she wanted to own a home she should have picked a different career. Spending years in academia comes at a price.

What a whinger.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I bought a house in London on a university secretary's salary, after ~10 years of saving. Please explain why I'm supposed to feel sorry for those on 2 x university lecturers salaries who claim they couldn't do the same.

If I'd spent the five years I lived alone in a one bed flat splitting the rent with a partner I could have saved ~£30k. Can't be bothered with couples who moan about money when they're automatically at an advantage.

antrobus

shaggydoo wrote: »

Born in the late 1960s she's had plenty of chances to make money and buy a house. She was in her early 20s in the late 80s to early 90s.

University lecturers have always been poor. She also must have spent years of her adulthood in academic study doing masters and Phd, etc. If she wanted to own a home she should have picked a different career. Spending years in academia comes at a price.

What a whinger.

According to the Guardian she "spent most of her 20s overseas"

On her blog she says that;

I waited too long to buy because I worked outside of the UK for a number of years after graduating. When I came back I started a family, got married and so couldn’t/didn’t want to buy something too small to live in.

It would appear that one of her complaints is that the PRS does not provide any kind of long-term stability for tenants. Which it doesn't; but then ASTs was never designed to in the first place. You would need something else to deliver that.

remorseless

antrobus wrote: »

According to the Guardian she "spent most of her 20s overseas"

On her blog she says that;

I waited too long to buy because I worked outside of the UK for a number of years after graduating. When I came back I started a family, got married and so couldn’t/didn’t want to buy something too small to live in.

It would appear that one of her complaints is that the PRS does not provide any kind of long-term stability for tenants. Which it doesn't; but then ASTs was never designed to in the first place. You would need something else to deliver that.

she's mid 40s, so her stint abroad was like 20 years ago... nice for dinner party story but pretty irrelevant as excuse why she didn't put away any moolah for a deposit in the 10/15 years she has been back! Giving the benefit of the doubt, still not sure what is the morale of her story!

Mummyisbeauty

From her age she had plenty of time to buy in early 00s. She also knew she was struggling to afford a deposit for a house with her first child, if not surely she would have bought. Yet she still had child two and three.
It was her choice to travel the world and settle in Essex.
In life we have choices and to be honest it feels like the article is a plug for her blog.

lisyloo

What a whinger.

Social media has brought whinging to a new level.
Certain things are harder than they used to be, but people still need to take responsibility for their actions and decisions.
I had a whale of a time at university. I went parchuting and got my pilots licence and I got a 2:2. There are now some top jobs I'm barred from.
I'm not sure whether I regret it or not, but the consequences are totally 100% my responsibility and no-one else's.

Mummyisbeauty

Plus she wasn't hit by huge student loans by going to uni and possibly even got a grant...