Inspirational story about what can be achieved

bugslet

ukcarper wrote: »

I hope it was but I’m not sure , imagine going through life if you though by 30 all your best times were behind you.

I'm naturally optimistic/hopelessly naive:)

lippy1923

I'm aiming to be mortgage free by the time I am 30. Hopefully my life wont have passed me with no hope for the future lol

westernpromise

lippy1923 wrote: »

I'm aiming to be mortgage free by the time I am 30. Hopefully my life wont have passed me with no hope for the future lol

Ant and the grasshopper. People who haven't done what you have done will glare at you enviously and vote Labour for you to have it all taken away from you.

Graham_Devon

All kudo's to her if she genuinely did it on her own.

Have to admit I'm struggling with the sums though.

So, she's got a £120k house and no debt (so I'm assuming no mortgage).

She did this by the time she was 20, so had around 3.5 years after leaving school to amass savings of £120K plus fees (and furniture and all electicla goods judging by the pics)

So, on the principle that she was working all these jobs, she would have to be earning approx £44,000 per year before tax.

That's if she spends not a single penny on any clothes, food, rent, car, transport. Based on the fact she had several jobs, I'm assuming she had transport. And taking a look at her lips, she certainly bought makeup.

She let's assume she runs a car, buys food, you know, the usual "living" stuff outside of utilities and rent. She's need to be earning what, 50-60k per year before tax, having no qualifications, just left school to save that amount of money. That's on the assumption she pays no rent.

If she pays rent to her parents, buys her own meals and cloths and runs a car, we're looking closer to £70k per year.

Either way, I can't get the figures to stack up in my head. Either she earnt a lot and her parents paid for literally everything for her including clothes, food makeup and all transport.....or she earnt an incredible amount of money for someone whos' just left school with absolutely no qualifications on an apprenticeship scheme. She mentions bonuses - they must have been colossal.

Like I say, well done to her if she genuinely did all that herself. But something doesn't stack up.

Maybe I've just read it wrong, and she doesn't see the mortgage as debt - but I'm not the only one judging by the comments on the article.

In that case, saving 6-12k in 4 years (no idea if 5% mortgage on say a HTB scheme or 10% mortgage of more) while living with your parents rent free isn't exactly mind blowing stuff and hardly worthy of a news article.

The majority of people would be able to save 6-12k deposit if their living expenses were paid for by someone else.

A mate once said to me his parents didn't help with the mortgage when he bought and he's done it all himself. The rest of us couldn't quite fathom it out.

Transpired later, yes, technically he was correct, the mortgage WAS his. But the real truth was that his deposit (which was double his annual salary) was handed to him by his parents. All about how you word things!

GreatApe

The norm should be kids leave school at 16 work for 10 years while living with their parents and save up £100,000

If most kids did that they could partner up. Spend £120,000 outright on a house and put £80,000 towards their pensions. They would have sorted out their housing and pension (worth >£500k in today's money if compounded at 5% for 40 years) by age 26

Instead somehow we have created a system where kids leave school age 22 with £60-£80k debts and get a crappy job while paying rent and not saving properly. Their net worth by age 26 is negative to the tune of tends of thousands compared to the min wage stay at home kids that have house and pension sorted by age 26

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

All kudo's to her if she genuinely did it on her own.

Have to admit I'm struggling with the sums though.

So, she's got a £120k house and no debt (so I'm assuming no mortgage).

She did this by the time she was 20, so had around 3.5 years after leaving school to amass savings of £120K plus fees (and furniture and all electicla goods judging by the pics)

So, on the principle that she was working all these jobs, she would have to be earning approx £44,000 per year before tax.

That's if she spends not a single penny on any clothes, food, rent, car, transport. Based on the fact she had several jobs, I'm assuming she had transport. And taking a look at her lips, she certainly bought makeup.

She let's assume she runs a car, buys food, you know, the usual "living" stuff outside of utilities and rent. She's need to be earning what, 50-60k per year before tax, having no qualifications, just left school to save that amount of money. That's on the assumption she pays no rent.

If she pays rent to her parents, buys her own meals and cloths and runs a car, we're looking closer to £70k per year.

Either way, I can't get the figures to stack up in my head. Either she earnt a lot and her parents paid for literally everything for her including clothes, food makeup and all transport.....or she earnt an incredible amount of money for someone whos' just left school with absolutely no qualifications on an apprenticeship scheme. She mentions bonuses - they must have been colossal.

Like I say, well done to her if she genuinely did all that herself. But something doesn't stack up.

Maybe I've just read it wrong, and she doesn't see the mortgage as debt - but I'm not the only one judging by the comments on the article.

In that case, saving 6-12k in 4 years (no idea if 5% mortgage on say a HTB scheme or 10% mortgage of more) while living with your parents rent free isn't exactly mind blowing stuff and hardly worthy of a news article.

The majority of people would be able to save 6-12k deposit if their living expenses were paid for by someone else.

A mate once said to me his parents didn't help with the mortgage when he bought and he's done it all himself. The rest of us couldn't quite fathom it out.

Transpired later, yes, technically he was correct, the mortgage WAS his. But the real truth was that his deposit (which was double his annual salary) was handed to him by his parents. All about how you word things!

I think it’s possible depended what she got paid in her 5 gigs and commission from company but hardy typical.

westernpromise

GreatApe wrote: »

The norm should be kids leave school at 16 work for 10 years while living with their parents and save up £100,000

If most kids did that they could partner up. Spend £120,000 outright on a house and put £80,000 towards their pensions. They would have sorted out their housing and pension (worth >£500k in today's money if compounded at 5% for 40 years) by age 26

Instead somehow we have created a system where kids leave school age 22 with £60-£80k debts and get a crappy job while paying rent and not saving properly. Their net worth by age 26 is negative to the tune of tends of thousands compared to the min wage stay at home kids that have house and pension sorted by age 26

There isn't really a way for a 16-year-old's labour to be worth so much that they can save £10,000 a year after expenses. Minimum wage for an under-18 is £4.05 an hour. This is much closer to what most cheebies are worth in the job market. 37.5 hours a week on that money is just over £150 gross, from which there will be expenses; food, clothing, transport. JSA for an under-18 is £58, for example, so presumably that's the least they'd spend. This would mean that £92 is the most they could save assuming nil rent.

To save even that much is probably economically irrational, however. First, if they lose their job aged 17 having accumulated £6,000 in savings, those very savings lose them their entitlement to any benefits. If out of work for a year, which is not unlikely among 17-year-olds, savings are a liability, not an asset. They would then spend half their accumulated savings over that time if we say that £58 a week is what they need, which is being a mug.

Second and more important, if 26-year-olds all had £100k in savings, houses would cost £100k more.

Finally, there is this. Before I went to university I amassed about £2,000 in savings from an office job (this was in money of 1982 so equivalent to £9,000 or so today according to https://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php). Having a habit of thrift, I used to work in the library once at university, because it was heated; if I worked in my room I got a bill from the college for use of the 2-bar fire. A friend asked me why I didn't just use the fire anyway.
"It's expensive," I said.
"Use your stash to pay for it."
"Then I'll use up my cushion."
"So what? You'll make your whole £2,000 back in the first three months you're working when you graduate. What will a few hundred quid saved on heating now matter to you then?"

And he was of course right. A few thousand quid makes a huge difference the quality of life of a 16-year-old, but is of absolutely no significance to a graduate 22-year old.

Malthusian

stator wrote: »

It is.
Speaking as someone who is no longer young, life sucks once you're 30+.
Your health starts going down hill, you can no longer play the sports you want to or take up new ones

Victoria Pendleton packed in cycling at 35 and became a successful jockey. Jo Pavey returned to running at the age of 40 with a 1 year old baby and 5 year old son, and won the European Championships and a Commonwealth bronze.

The reason you stopped exercising and can't take up a new sport isn't because you're in your 30s, it's because you can't be arsed.

Malthusian

The trouble with these stories is that they make owning your own home seem like something exceptional. Something that can only be done if you're a highly driven salesperson who earns large amounts of commission and therefore has earnings well beyond the average 20 year old. People don't read these stories and think "I can do that too", they think "I'm nothing like her, I'll never afford it, I may as well carry on spending the money on online poker".

Even the article itself reinforces this, with text like "Buying a house is fast becoming a thing of the past for young people in the UK." (Becoming? Buying a house before the age of 30 wasn't a thing in the past either.) The headline says it was down to graft but the body says she was "lucky". In fairness this is Ladbible, not the Financial Times.

There are two types of articles about saving for a house that appear in the newspaper. The first is the one at the top of the thread, about an exceptionally driven and high-earning young person who saves most of their above-average earnings and has bought a house in their early 20s. The second is the Grauniad woe-is-me story about a person in their late 30s, often a single parent, who spends all their earnings on what they view as essentials and will be a lifetime renter.

These are the two extremes of the spectrum. Between these two extremes lie the vast majority of people who at some point, usually in their 30s, get a payrise, stop spending so much on crap, meet a partner and pool their resources to buy a house. But they don't make a good story, the extremes do.

Graham_Devon

westernpromise wrote: »

There isn't really a way for a 16-year-old's labour to be worth so much that they can save £10,000 a year after expenses. Minimum wage for an under-18 is £4.05 an hour. This is much closer to what most cheebies are worth in the job market. 37.5 hours a week on that money is just over £150 gross, from which there will be expenses; food, clothing, transport. JSA for an under-18 is £58, for example, so presumably that's the least they'd spend. This would mean that £92 is the most they could save assuming nil rent.

I can only conclude that she saved, what, 6-12k for a deposit in 4 years while living rent free with her parents.

She has a mortgage, but that's not seen as debt by the journalist of the lady in question.

I am, though confused therefore about the article and why it's written. It's not exactly earth shattering to have saved for a deposit (in an area which seemingly has below average house prices) while earning and, presumably, having no rent, council tax and utilities to pay. So I just don't get what the article is trying to prove.