[user104658]

Originally Posted by kirklancaster

My wife works 60+ hours per week on minimum wage. I have worked all my life (sometimes for as little as £10 per day in real terms) and we have genuinely struggled at times - adverse times - bringing up three children. We made sacrifices; very real sacrifices; like only having one real holiday in 21 years, and even selling our home and possessions when times went really bad (the property crash) but the results of all this is evident every time I see what brilliant decent, educated, hard-working kids we have.

One of my sons has held part time jobs all the way through school from being 12 and has continued to do so through University where he has incurred loans of £30,000 in gaining his Law degree. The other is the same and took a below minimum wage B.S. job which first entailed him carrying out the most mind-numbingly menial drudgery, but he is now on £25,000 + company car with another firm - solely because of the experience he gained with the other firm.

I know everyone is different, but sometimes people seem comparatively 'well off' when the truth is - as you say - that they worked damned hard, made great sacrifices, and budgeted and planned.

Kirk - I genuinely don't mean this to be offensive to your age - but I do think it's important to realise that the world today for young people trying to make it is entirely different to the world as it was even just a few decades ago. My wife's parents (who are in their 40's) have tried to sympathise with us at times when we have been struggling for cash in the past, as they "struggled" too, but the differences really are enormous. Her dad talks of how he worked many hours, and of jumping from job to job frequently. Which is all well and good but - put simply - in most medium-sized-or-smaller towns today working huge numbers of hours is unrealistic (there are not the hours available for everyone) and jumping straight from job to job is very rare, too (there are not the jobs available, either). They also bought their first home in their 20's (in the 1980s) for £12,000. Taking inflation into account that's a current price of £30,000. Now, we can't realistically buy a two bedroomed property in the area we live in for much under £100,000.

Also, I've mentioned my rental costs to older people at work (most of whom snapped up council houses for peanuts a few decades ago) - £525 per month for a two-bedroom semi detached house - and their jaws have almost hit the floor. We're looking to up-size to three bedrooms and there's nothing in the area for under £600pcm. Getting a first-time-buyer mortgage for anything more than a small flat is almost impossible, even though the outgoings on a mortgage for a similar house would probably be less than £600 a month. Lenders are just unwilling to commit.

Gas prices have soared, electricity prices have soared, public transport is utterly extortionate. If you have more than one person to transport, it's ALWAYS cheaper to drive, which is utterly stupid. And that includes factoring in road tax / car upkeep / insurance. And yet - running a car costs a lot more than it used to, as well.


These aren't excuses or designed to play down the achievements or the hard work of previous generations. I'm just saying that it's impossible to directly compare the problems faced by young people and young working families today to how things have been in the past. If I was the age I am now 30 years ago and in a comparable financial position to where I am right now... I would almost certainly have owned my own home for several years, and I would probably be seriously considering self-employment. Today, both of those are unrealistic for at least another 5+ years, even though our financial position is (I would guess) a fair bit better than a lot of parents in their 20's with two young children. In just over 5 years, I'll be 35. 30+ years ago that was really old for a first-time buyer. Today? I only personally know 3 people my age who own their own home. It's a very different world.