If you wait for the price crash...

mitchaa

Oliveru wrote: »

Why should I pay for your children if I don't have any myself?

The solution is not higher taxes or blaming others, the solution is for a substantial house price crash so that people on a joint income of £60k can afford a decent lifestyle plus have savings.

It horrifies me that you are so frugal with your spending yet are only saving £5k/ year from a £60k income- your mortgage must be huge so ask yourself how you can be so careful with your spending yet have a large mortgage combined with buying or selling property at the wrong time? If you are going to be so serious about saving money the least you can do is be as knowledgable as me about the housing market.

Sorry you have mixed me up with another member. The £60k income £5k savings was someone else and nothing to do with me.

As to your other point about childcare...You pay taxes towards all the children in the country going to school so why not childcare before school age? In any case if there were 2 working tax paying parents, the 'free childcare' that i am on about would solely be paid for by them out of their own taxation contributions, so you paying for their children would never come into it, would it?

Anyway, just to inform you, you already do at the minute pay for childcare for children that are not yours as a lot of working parents are benefit funded for childcare costs. (Its the tax payer that pays for this, so the free childcare already exists, but only for a certain criteria of people)

Its only the middle/higher earning bunch that do not qualify for help towards childcare costs.

Generali

mitchaa wrote: »

Sorry you have mixed me up with another member. The £60k income £5k savings was someone else and nothing to do with me.

As to your other point about childcare...You pay taxes towards all the children in the country going to school so why not childcare before school age? In any case if there were 2 working tax paying parents, the 'free childcare' that i am on about would solely be paid for by them out of their own taxation contributions, so you paying for their children would never come into it, would it?

Anyway, just to inform you, you already do at the minute pay for childcare for children that are not yours as a lot of working parents are benefit funded for childcare costs. (Its the tax payer that pays for this, so the free childcare already exists, but only for a certain criteria of people)

Its only the middle/higher earning bunch that do not qualify for help towards childcare costs.

It's not free. It's paid for out of taxes. The difference between that and paying for it yourself is if it's paid out of taxes you get no choice and the civil service creams off a percentage.

meester

dannyboycey wrote: »

Your own actions infer at least a degree of judgement over other peoples' decisions. Your comments about 'sensible people', and those living off benefits who are "highly unlikely to contribute" removed any sense of objectivity for me. BTW, if it wasn't for a decade of Thatcher (whom I'd bet my mortgage you voted for) we wouldn't be in this mess at all right now. Brown is a shambles, but Cameron would be worse. Much worse.

I am 26. I am much too young to have voted for Thatcher. By the time I was old enough to buy, prices had tripled under Blair/Brown. It is not something I had any control over at all.

I don't see that what I said is unreasonable. I said, if people have to pay for their children, then sensible people will limit the number they have. This seems rather obvious. Plenty of people would like large families but decide that the financial consequences are too high.

And yes, research does consistently show that those "living purely off benefits are statistically highly unlikely to contribute in the future". Schools in areas with large number of children in receipt of school meals show poor exam results, and the high-achieving ones come from middle-class areas. This is, like it or not, a fact - not a political statement.

adr0ck

MrDT wrote: »

I pay into a private pension. I'd happily claw back my NI contributions to top it up if I could, the state pension isn't exactly something you can depend upon is it?

So, I'd like to support myself in old age is the answer I suppose

you still need people working to collect your pension

if no ones working there is no pension (state or public)

MrDT

adr0ck wrote: »

you still need people working to collect your pension

if no ones working there is no pension (state or public)

To be honest I've not really looked into the ins and outs of pensions. I thought my contributions were invested by a fund manager, and I'd receive an income from the fund when I got old. I thought my NI contributions were used to pay the state pension of current pensioners, and if I were to need (qualify for?) the state pension then I'd be creaming the NI contributions of t'yungins of t'future... Probably just my naive view, I suppose it mightn't be so simple.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

I thought the plan was supposed to be:
Leave school (did that)
Get a job (did that)
Get promoted (never did that)
Meet Mr Right (never did that)
Get married (never did that)

If we are the age of our life stage, that makes me about 17 I think.

Leave school (did that)
Get a job (did that)
Get promoted (haven't done that, but barristers don't get promoted until QC level)
Meet Mr Right (he's wonderful, and his first name isn't "Always")
Get married (nto done that, but not bothered)

ixwood

mitchaa wrote: »

Fair point, you live to your means.

£92pm council tax, i assume only £920pa as CT is usually taken over 10mths. That is cheap, especially so for the south.

My £175pm is the Scottish CT system which takes into account water/sewerage charges on top and works out around £1750pa

It costs me about £70 alone per week just in fuel with travelling to work and social jaunts.

As to food, chineese delivery once a week and there's £100pm or so onto the food bill straight away.

I suppose it depends on what you are used to, im sure you've budgeted well with your income, but thats not to say those with higher incomes dont budget well either, its just their expenditure may be more even for bare neccessities such as housing, council tax and basic bills.

You don't budget well. In fact you're awful at it. Keeping up with the Jones doesn't come cheap I guess.

I laughed at your suggesting it's impossible to bring up a family on one reasonable salary and then finding out you'd got some hideously large mortgage. Smart move!

Maybe you should have put more thought into taking on such a crazy mortgage if it meant you were both forced to work? Or do you feel the need to demonstrate your "wealth" for some reason (insecurity?) and buy expensive showy things?

ixwood

Although it's very enlightening as to why you're so defensive about house prices. Are you the greater fool left holding the overvalued baby?

mitchaa

ixwood wrote: »

You don't budget well. In fact you're awful at it. Keeping up with the Jones doesn't come cheap I guess.

I laughed at your suggesting it's impossible to bring up a family on one reasonable salary and then finding out you'd got some hideously large mortgage. Smart move!

Maybe you should have put more thought into taking on such a crazy mortgage if it meant you were both forced to work? Or do you feel the need to demonstrate your "wealth" for some reason (insecurity?) and buy expensive showy things?

Good god:rolleyes: I have easily managed to pay my mortgage whilst my wife was off on maternity leave. I also kept paying my £300 overpayments too.

Now she is back at work bringing in her usual 100% again so we certainly have no dramas paying our mortgage, its just a little easier obviously.

Dont see the problem personally. If i wanted to keep up with the Jones's i would have maxed out my lending and bought a house at the top of our budget. In fact our mortgage is less than 3 x joint. We could have had 4.2 x joint max lending. Ours works out at around 2.8

Cant see why you are digging at me

mitchaa

ixwood wrote: »

Although it's very enlightening as to why you're so defensive about house prices. Are you the greater fool left holding the overvalued baby?

Wont lower myself to your level with a retaliation.

Easy to be a keyboard warrior in the safety of your own home isn't it:rolleyes: