For those who think we had it easy...

Sammy85_2

You dont HAVE TO go to university to get a good job.

I left school at 16 with a good set of GCSEs (if there is such a thing these days!!) I worked full time for a year as a receptionist whilst i saved up a bit of a "float" for going to maritime college. 4 years from that i'm earning a good wage, have a career for life, several properties and i still have time (and more importantly money) to enjoy holidays and nights out! Oh and 3 years of apprenticeship on less than minimum wage and guess what.. no debt. Its called living to your means. (even if that is only £100 a month after rent)

So excuse me if i get angry when people say they HAVE TO go to university but it simply isnt true.
My parents didnt go to uni, they left school at 16 too and they both have excellent jobs and worked bloody hard to survive the 80's interest rates with 3 kids. No one in my family has bothered with uni, we've all gone out into work at 16 (some straight into a job and some through apprenticeships) and we've all ended up with good jobs and careers for life.


What people are afraid of these days is good old fashioned hard work. 3 years partying at uni sounds great, maybe i should have gone and done media studies or a tourism degree or something of that sort, got myself 20k into debt (but had a great time p"ssing it up the wall) and have little/no job prospects. Sounds like an excellent plan!

Meanwhile, some people have to work.


(Sorry for the rant but it annoys me when people expect something for nothing! )

lynzpower

IN FACT, i wish I hadnt done a degree at all, for the use it is.

However, when you are 16 years old, and your teachers/parents/freinds/ osciety in general all telling you this is something you need/should/ is a good thing to do, you can see why so many go.

they dont stop advetising student debt on the radio it seems these days- i tihnk the government should be prosecuted for ramming debt down the throats of kids and telling them its the only option.Banks wouldnt be albe to get away with advertising debt to kids in the way the government do :wall:

adouglasmhor

My job has promotion and pay bars for people who do not have a degree or an HND, I do not know what my HND in the History and Manufacture of Historical Arms and Armour or my B. Sc. in Mining engineering bring to my job as a local govt. administrator but they spare me from these pay ceilings.

seven-day-weekend

We bought our fist house in 1976. We had to pay a mortgage indemnity premium merely because it was an old house (more than 100 years old). We paid the mortgage through thick and thin - one average income (we got a lodger), holidays staying with friends etc. We even managed on a student grant - we again had a lodger and got a cash meter for the gas and electricity and if we couldn't afford to put any money in them, we went without.

We also had our son a few years later and I stayed at home with him. Everything he had was second- or third-hand, or in some cases (with furniture etc) taken from the local tip.

I remember we couldn't afford our 10% of the Home Improvement Grants that were being bandied around our area, so didn't have one and just did the house up as and when we could afford it. We had woodlice in the dining room and earthworms coming up through the quarry tile floor as it was just laid straight onto the ground.

A few years later we were able to afford our share of a different type of grant so improvenments went along quicker!

The point I'm trying to make is, yes, we had our own house, but we had to rough it, make compromises and go without quite a lot to afford it. In some ways it was fun because it was a challenge!

One good thing about the 15% interest rate is that we continued to pay the same amount when the rate went down again and paid our mortgage off years earlier.

We still have this house and our son lives in it with two lodgers.

ginger_nuts

we bought our first house in 1991 .The asking price was £19,250 which we couldnt afford .Our max mortgage was £17,500 ,but we got the house for £17,000 . We had to pay the indeminty insurance because we didnt have a 20% deposit .We didnt have double glazing ,the furniture was secondhand .The hall and stair carpet came from my brothers house .Our one luxury was to buy a washer dryer ,that cost £400 .(before that we washed everything by hand )

We didnt have a credit card or debit card ,.I bought a secondhand suite off furniture for £500 ( I still have it ) there where no DFS buy now pay later sales .
The following we bought a video ,it cost £310 .

jyonda

So only 16 years ago you could buy a house for the same price as 30 odd washer dryers. Now it would be about 300.

TTMCMschine

Sorry running horse, and the others, but this is what you remind me of:
(if you it won't work look up monty python: four yorkshiremen sketch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

It's interesting that you compare what terrible jobs you had back then, and how you struggled to get on the ladder. Some of those jobs today wouldn't get you a house. You wouldn't beable to borrow the money or get on the ladder at all.

Someone mentioned talk about borrowing a 100% mortgage almost as if it's a good thing, that because the rules are far more lax today that's better. It's not - interest rates wouldn't have to go anywhere near 15% to cause havoc. BTW they were 15% for how long? Borrowing is overstretched with historically low interest rates. It's almost as if you think cheap borrowing is better, it's not if house prices are so high! If the interest rates were as cheap as they are today you'd have probably had no problem. Our problem is even with lower interest rates they are unaffordable. The rates are only going to go up are well. My friend who was a teacher in the 70's when inflation was rife saw a 25% increase in his pay. Would that happen now?

Ii am not willing to buy a house because they simply aren't worth it. It is far cheaper to rent and save (and no i don't have a credit card, any debt, or go on flash holidays - in fact i only just got a passpart this year for the first time and i'm 31. These hardship stories of how you could only have potatoes and gravy for six weeks because you had no money - you think this is a good thing? A house is worth losing sleep everynight when you don't know where you're going to find the money? Running horse - you should be called high horse and get off it. You and your fellow elders may not have hurled insults as eay to spot as name calling, but i find your tone patronising and in parts insulting. From where you're sitting you make anyone who hasn't bought a house sound like some lazy, stupid moron who's never done a days hard work, and just hasn't bought a house because they want a fast car and a flat screen telly.

And those of you who think second hand is a thing of the past? Yes, guess what i have second hand furniture and hand me down clothes! My washing machine, freezer and most of my furniture are second hand. Cheap white goods are not a good thing either. Look how long some of your expensive white goods have lasted. Cheap things break, and we have turned into a throw away nation. It is sad that we think it is better to throw something away than have it fixed.

Yes house prices have always been a lot, but there are times when in relation to anything else, the value is too expensive - this is now without a doubt.

BTW whoever complained about young people being rude - you think it's only the younger generation who are rude, and that being rude is some recent thing that's only happened - you ought to meet some of the elderly people i've worked with - rude is an understatement, never once provoked. I've been sworn at, hit and spat at. They didn't learn that on the streets recently did they? I've met some pretty rude nasty middleaged people in my time as well. Road rage etc.

You'd think you were a bunch of war veterans the way you all go on.

tr3mor

iamstacie wrote: »

My parents bought their first house in 1984 (when I was 2) for around £13k, when mum was working as a checkout assistant and my dad was a driver for a bakery, neither earning a decent wage...

I don't think I have it easy, but I'm aware that I have it a lot easier than they did. A house such as the one I was brought up in is now worth around £120k, which is very attainable if I were to put a bit more effort into saving, and even at the rate I save it wouldn't take me anywhere near as long to save up 10% as it took my parents on dual income 23 years ago.

I assume you're not a checkout assistant or a van driver then!

Running_Horse

TTMCMschine wrote: »

Sorry running horse, and the others, but this is what you remind me of:
(if you it won't work look up monty python: four yorkshiremen sketch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

Of course the same could be said of those who complain they can't buy the dream house they want despite saving no money for a deposit:

In my day houses cost one million pound, all you could get were a multiplier of eight times yer income, student debt were £20,000 per year, and all we could afford were a shoe box in't middle of't motorway. Older people don't know how lucky they are.

Old before their time my friend.

Running_Horse

Sammy85 wrote: »

You dont HAVE TO go to university to get a good job.

I left school at 16 with a good set of GCSEs (if there is such a thing these days!!

I left chool with 5 CSEs (remember them?), and got my degree part time while working full time. No debt. My degree didn't get me my new job after redundancy, but the dedication it showed probably did.