A Millennial Speaks out

Arklight

Millennial Guardian journo on £40k a year (which is what she believes is an average salary for a journalist) can't afford a house in London.

But I find the argument that I could afford a house simply by going without luxuries for a few years hard to swallow when the average deposit for first-time buyers is £32,899. In London, it is more than three times that: £106,577. But I have decided to test my assumption that, as a single twentysomething committed to living in a major city, I will never be able to buy a house.
I will record all my spending for a month, then the money-saving expert Martin Lewis will assess the results. I call him the day before I start my diary exercise to discuss. (The same day I buy a £100 Taylor Swift ticket – not a coincidence, but not the most expensive seat available, either.)

A Millennial earlier today



https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/29/can-you-really-save-for-a-deposit-by-ditching-coffee-and-avocado-toast-i-tried-to-find-out

Insert Boomer anger and twin dichotomy of "The young don't know they're born" and "Things were so much better back in the 70s before the EU, below.

PasturesNew

Ditching coffee and avocado toast....

I have no idea what this is as I've never bought coffee and didn't know a thing called "avocado toast" existed.

That's the thing - their "norm" isn't "THE" norm for the majority of people.

Maybe if she weren't such a whiner she'd have been able to do it the way most people do it - get a bf/buy together Preferably a rich/er one.

As for "(The same day I buy a £100 Taylor Swift ticket – not a coincidence, but not the most expensive seat available, either.)"

I've never been to any concert - and the cost doesn't stop at the ticket does it. What about transport, something to eat, to drink? She might like a new top to wear....

I think my favourite is probably her Day 28, a Monday:
Lunch out £14.10
Uber from work to restaurant £10.35
Dinner out £17.92

Right....

ukcarper

Arklight wrote: »

Millennial Guardian journo on £40k a year (which is what she believes is an average salary for a journalist) can't afford a house in London.




A Millennial earlier today



https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/29/can-you-really-save-for-a-deposit-by-ditching-coffee-and-avocado-toast-i-tried-to-find-out

Insert Boomer anger and twin dichotomy of "The young don't know they're born" and "Things were so much better back in the 70s before the EU, below.

It’s possible to save £32k on £40k a year after all if they saved £10k a year they would still have £20k a year to live on. Her problem would be finding a property for £200k.

Arklight

ukcarper wrote: »

It’s possible to save £32k on £40k a year after all if they saved £10k a year they would still have £20k a year to live on. Her problem would be finding a property for £200k.

She did say she'd need £100k deposit to buy a 1 bed flat.

Lokolo

That article is absolutely ridiculous. She is 3 years younger than me and it makes me sick that shes just so casually spending money like she is. And then wonders why she cannot afford anything.

The other thing is - why does she have to live in London? I work in London, but don't live within the M25. Around my area you can get 1 bedroom flats for £200k, 2 beds for £225-275k.

She spent £140 EATING OUT!? and ALSO £140 on groceries!?

Arklight

Lokolo wrote: »

That article is absolutely ridiculous. She is 3 years younger than me and it makes me sick that shes just so casually spending money like she is. And then wonders why she cannot afford anything.

The other thing is - why does she have to live in London? I work in London, but don't live within the M25. Around my area you can get 1 bedroom flats for £200k, 2 beds for £225-275k.

She spent £140 EATING OUT!? and ALSO £140 on groceries!?

It's the London life!

GreatApe

Her problem is expecting to be able to buy one whole house in the most expensive city in the country with only 1 wage and no parental help and with almost no savings

Has that ever been the norm?

In most of the country for most young people they should start working age 16 stay living with their parents for 10 years and buy outright age 26. Not quite possible in London but for 80% of the country it is possible.

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

Her problem is expecting to be able to buy one whole house in the most expensive city in the country with only 1 wage and no parental help and with almost no savings

Has that ever been the norm?

In most of the country for most young people they should start working age 16 stay living with their parents for 10 years and buy outright age 26. Not quite possible in London but for 80% of the country it is possible.

She's Australian so I'm not sure how the daily commute from her parents' house would work out. She's also after a one bed flat not an entire house.

spadoosh

Its blatantly obvious that owning a house isnt a priority for her.

Plenty of options available, if you wont flex, you rule out the options.

She can spend her money on what she wants, just makes her look a bit daft complaining she cant afford something wehn shes doing little to try.

I occasionally get upset im not super rich. Then i remember im bone idle. Still, ive got a house, wife and child because that was always a priority for me. Its rubbish paying 20% of our earnings paying someone else to look after my child but then our priority at the moment is to be mortgage free before shes 10.

Going back to being annoyed about not being super rich. She earns more than our joint income (both FT) but apparently needs the concept of opportunity costs explaining to her. Whilst im sure she has fun, if I earned that wage the only things that would change is we'd be mortgage free in 3 years. I suspect if she doubled her earnings she still couldn't [STRIKE]afford[/STRIKE] prioritise a house.

LydiaJ

I don't perceive her as whining, at least not by the end of the article. She did the spending diary, she discussed it with Martin, she came to the conclusion that she can have a house in due course if she wants it enough to be willing to make changes to her lifestyle. This shows the exercise was an effective learning experience.

Be realistic - most people consider that the spending patterns of their peer group are "normal" and "reasonable". All of us on here spend without a second thought on things that would seem to be wild extravagances to the global poor. Meanwhile, spending much less than all your friends is hard - taking lunch into work may seem like an easy thing, but if if means that every lunchtime you have to stay behind while all your work friends go have lunch out together, then the discomfort and feeling of deprivation are going to be a lot more significant than for somebody whose peer group don't do that.

It takes an exercise like this and some straight talking from someone like Martin to show someone like the writer of the article that they could in fact have a happy life while spending a lot less money than all the people they regularly spend time with. Rather than blasting her for not seeing it beforehand, why not be pleased that she got the message eventually?

Furthermore, she has earned some money writing about it in a way that will get the message across to a few people in similar situations. That is also a good thing.

SuperHan

That article just supports the "milennials choose not to buy" argument.


Some of those costs are so easily avoided too. I only shop in the sale/Primark for clothes, for example, and manage to dress myself well. I had my hair cut and coloured in London at one of the trainee hairdresser academies for £20. It looked EXACTLY the same as if I'd paid £180. I don't really get that opportunity now I'm back home up North as it's hard to come by trainees that do flexible appointments and hair colouring. She's passing up a huge money saving opportunity presented to her simply by living in the city.


We bought with the help of our parents, but paid the deposit they loaned us back in just under 5 years (and got married and went on two very extravagant holidays in that time). It would have been tough to do it alone, and we would have had to rented for a little while longer, but we could have done it - and done it faster if we really commited to the money saving.


We have committed now as we are going to buy a new house even though we can't sell our flat, and again, it'll be difficult but my mindset is sufficiently changed that the thought of spending £80 on shoes makes me shudder!