Nationalism (4 Viewers)

[RedSalmon]

We were paying £875 a month in rent for a 2 bed terraced house in Stoke. Renting generally costs a higher % of people's income than mortgage payments which makes it more difficult to put money aside for a deposit. It's a good thing that daft mortgages are a thing of the past but it's just one part of the picture of fewer people in permanent employment, high house prices and more people privately renting than before

Sorry mate but £875 to rent a 2 bed terrace in Stoke seems very high to me. Unless there are aspects to the property I am not aware of the average price should be £650 to £700.

 

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[Grendel]

So the mortgage is over 8 times larger than yours. So are his wages over 8 times more than yours were at the time? Can't do a direct comparison without asking personal information of you both regarding earnings so if we take the average annual income of £35k for today, that would mean wages would have to have been around £4,200 at the time you bought your house to be equivalent. Now I don't know what age you are so I've no idea when you got your first mortgage but you seem to be talking around the Thatcher era so I looked it up and the average UK salary in 1980 was £5,720 and in 1985 was £8,890 (non London)

So if you bought in 1985 the average earnings were over double what the equivalent house price rise has been.

Or put it another way the equivalent mortgage as a percentage of average wages would've been £41k in 1980 and £63,500 in 1985

interest rates were 8 times higher It’s monthly payments - my interest was £434 on a £12 grand salary so that’s without council tax utilities a life etc. had a £300 car and had to take a night job as the rate went up

 

[Evo1883]

For perspective, my dad was taking home between 250 and 300 pound in the late 90s a week at massey ferguson and his mortgage was 150 pound a month, petrol prices were half the price of today, as were insurance premiums and the cost of eating in general was cheaper... He'd pay almost all of his monthly bills in just over a weeks wage excluding food and petrol ... You can't live like that today on 1 wage

 

[Grendel]

For perspective, my dad was taking home between 250 and 300 pound in the late 90s a week at massey ferguson and his mortgage was 150 pound a month, petrol prices were half the price of today, as were insurance premiums and the cost of eating in general was cheaper... He'd pay almost all of his monthly bills in just over a weeks wage excluding food and petrol ... You can't live like that today on 1 wage

Did he have internet, phone, sky TV, new car?

 

[Evo1883]

Did he have internet, phone, sky TV, new car?

Pay as you go phones were the thing then, he used to phone my step mum from work though using the pay phones... Purchased a car outright with money he saved from disposable income, Ford escort lol, we never had sky TV and the Internet came in the house around 2002 after I'd joined the army, might have been a bit later but it was not there when I was at home... When my step mum started working part time, they had an extra 400 pound a month on top of the wages my dad had... They were quite comfortable

 

[Grendel]

Pay as you go phones were the thing then, he used to phone my step mum from work though using the pay phones... Purchased a car outright with money he saved from disposable income, Ford escort lol, we never had sky TV and the Internet came in the house around 2002 after I'd joined the army

The point is luxuries become the norm and the level people expect and people don’t want to go backwards and sacrifice. I bought my first furniture from some second hand store in Ball Hill - now days that would be grounds for poverty from the entitled one here. I paid £30 for an old telly. This was the 90’s

 

[Evo1883]

The point is luxuries become the norm and the level people expect and people don’t want to go backwards and sacrifice. I bought my first furniture from some second hand store in Ball Hill - now days that would be grounds for poverty from the entitled one here. I paid £30 for an old telly. This was the 90’s

I do agree somewhat that there are people around who plead poverty but have all of lives luxuries still, what they actually have is no disposable income left .. After speaking to my grandparents and dad about when he was younger... People literally had nothing at all... As opposed to today where we have little money but plenty of luxuries... Back then they had nothing

However my dad will admit there was a good 15 year period where he was literally quite flush, and had never had it so easy... Basically before the last financial crash

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Sorry mate but £875 to rent a 2 bed terrace in Stoke seems very high to me. Unless there are aspects to the property I am not aware of the average price should be £650 to £700.

Sorry mate but it’s what we paid

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Average annual salary is £27k I think.

I just did a quick google search and a few results came back with around £35-36k.

So had a look on ONS and they have average weekly earnings in Jun 2020 at £530pw or £27.5kpa. A £250k mortgage is therefore around 9 times the current annual income.

AWE: Whole Economy Level (£): Seasonally Adjusted Total Pay Excluding Arrears - Office for National Statistics

So redoing the figures on my last post that would mean average wages would have to have been around £3.5k to be equivalent to the difference in the mortgages. As I've said 1980 was £5,720 and 1985 was £8,890.

So using the 1980 and 1985 equivalents the mortgage at that time would've been £52k and £80k.

I know this is a flawed calculation because I'm using average wages against the known mortgage values of. It could well be that at the time Grendel was earning far below the average while you were earning above the average.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

The point is luxuries become the norm and the level people expect and people don’t want to go backwards and sacrifice. I bought my first furniture from some second hand store in Ball Hill - now days that would be grounds for poverty from the entitled one here. I paid £30 for an old telly. This was the 90’s

All our furniture is second hand. Neither of us drive either

 

[RedSalmon]

Sorry mate but it’s what we paid

I do believe you and was not questioning it. Sounds like you were being had over. Just checked Right Move and the highest (at this moment) rental price for a two bedroom house in Coventry is £800, and that does not mean they are going to get that much.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

I just did a quick google search and a few results came back with around £35-36k.

So had a look on ONS and they have average weekly earnings in Jun 2020 at £530pw or £27.5kpa. A £250k mortgage is therefore around 9 times the current annual income.

AWE: Whole Economy Level (£): Seasonally Adjusted Total Pay Excluding Arrears - Office for National Statistics

So redoing the figures on my last post that would mean average wages would have to have been around £3.5k to be equivalent to the difference in the mortgages. As I've said 1980 was £5,720 and 1985 was £8,890.

So using the 1980 and 1985 equivalents the mortgage at that time would've been £52k and £80k.

I know this is a flawed calculation because I'm using average wages against the known mortgage values of. It could well be that at the time Grendel was earning far below the average while you were earning above the average.

Perhaps, our mortgage payment for now is £1100 a month and the interest is fixed for another 4 years. The hardest part without question was the deposit and associated costs of buying rather than the monthly payments. I’d be genuinely interested to know what kind of deposit G had to pay

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

No I used an extended mortgage for other reasons and cashed an endowment in for an investment - all about choices

So you haven't ever moved to a more expensive house thus increasing the amount you'd need to repay over time? Because I seem to remember you asking me a similar question a while ago to which I replied I was still in the original house I got. It seemed inferred to me therefore that you had.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

I do believe you and was not questioning it. Sounds like you were being had over. Just checked Right Move and the highest (at this moment) rental price for a two bedroom house in Coventry is £800, and that does not mean they are going to get that much.

Nah it’s fine, we were on the edge of Stoke nearer to city centre which bumped up the cost of places on our street. There were problems with mice all the way through the tenancy and he did nothing about it. Much happier having our own place.

 

[olderskyblue]

I had an endowment mortgage, when the interest rates went up to 16% I worked overtime on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and also had a sideline of drawing up house extensions for people for a few quid. No luxuries. 15” telly, cheap car, season ticket was my only extravagance.

no idea how that compares to modern times really, but it was tough.

my first stereo system I got for £112 and paid monthly over 2 years.

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

All our furniture is second hand. Neither of us drive either

How do you both get to work ?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

How do you both get to work ?

Bus

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

I had an endowment mortgage, when the interest rates went up to 16% I worked overtime on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and also had a sideline of drawing up house extensions for people for a few quid. No luxuries. 15” telly, cheap car, season ticket was my only extravagance.

no idea how that compares to modern times really, but it was tough.

my first stereo system I got for £112 and paid monthly over 2 years.

Absolutely agree. I remember 16% . Worked 16 hour weekends for about a year on top of the other 5 days and it was difficult.

Nowadays you'd be getting a dominoes delivered once a week, buying half a dozen netflix films and your carpets would remain threadbare. .....and you'd be telling everyone how you've never got any money.

 

[Sick Boy]

The point is luxuries become the norm and the level people expect and people don’t want to go backwards and sacrifice. I bought my first furniture from some second hand store in Ball Hill - now days that would be grounds for poverty from the entitled one here. I paid £30 for an old telly. This was the 90’s

Plenty of young people still live this way, you’re just generalising. When I moved back to the UK in 2014 all our furniture was secondhand from house clearances. I’m now in the best state financially I’ve ever been and a lot of it is thanks to working 100+ hours a week.
Saying that though I’m now 35 so not sure I quality as young

 

[shmmeee]

Plenty of young people still live this way, you’re just generalising. When I moved back to the UK in 2014 all our furniture was secondhand from house clearances. I’m now in the best state financially I’ve ever been and a lot of it is thanks to working 100+ hours a week.
Saying that though I’m now 35 so not sure I quality as young

I know people that only heat one room of their house and people with no telly or internet or phone. It’s just lazy generalisations.

 

[wingy]

Here's one thing that isn't available to current purchasers but I think was for buy to let, and Joe public back in the day.

 

[Sick Boy]

I know people that only heat one room of their house and people with no telly or internet or phone. It’s just lazy generalisations.

Yeah I remember when I was about 24 and living in a flat that didn’t even have central heating.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

The point is luxuries become the norm and the level people expect and people don’t want to go backwards and sacrifice. I bought my first furniture from some second hand store in Ball Hill - now days that would be grounds for poverty from the entitled one here. I paid £30 for an old telly. This was the 90’s

And stuff like washing machines, video recorders, dishwashers were the luxuries of their era and the equivalent of iPhones today and cost a fortune. My grandparents paid over £400 for their first VCR and each tape cost a fair few quid. Makes netflix look positive VFM if you bought as many film/programmes available on VCR at the time.

You seem to have made this all about yourselves when the main people that I thought were being discussed were older than that. Those that were young adults in the 60's.

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

I just did a quick google search and a few results came back with around £35-36k.

So had a look on ONS and they have average weekly earnings in Jun 2020 at £530pw or £27.5kpa. A £250k mortgage is therefore around 9 times the current annual income.

AWE: Whole Economy Level (£): Seasonally Adjusted Total Pay Excluding Arrears - Office for National Statistics

So redoing the figures on my last post that would mean average wages would have to have been around £3.5k to be equivalent to the difference in the mortgages. As I've said 1980 was £5,720 and 1985 was £8,890.

So using the 1980 and 1985 equivalents the mortgage at that time would've been £52k and £80k.

I know this is a flawed calculation because I'm using average wages against the known mortgage values of. It could well be that at the time Grendel was earning far below the average while you were earning above the average.

Good post .
An 80k mortgage would have bought a good property in the 1980s in the Coventry area, especially with a deposit on top.

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

Plenty of young people still live this way, you’re just generalising. When I moved back to the UK in 2014 all our furniture was secondhand from house clearances. I’m now in the best state financially I’ve ever been and a lot of it is thanks to working 100+ hours a week.
Saying that though I’m now 35 so not sure I quality as young

Great stuff. Its just bloody difficult and somewhere along the line everyone has to work their bollocks off, go without holidays abroad and takeaways three days a week . I've got 20 years and more on you but I remember my 30s and early 40s being a time of long hours and cutting back, particularly when the kids were young. Then it got easier bit by bit, but I learned from it not to waste money.
Sounds like you're doing the right thing.

 

[wingy]

Here's one thing that isn't available to current purchasers but I think was for buy to let, and Joe public back in the day.

Oops tax relief on the interest up until around the mid eighties .
Some gymnastics going on here .
.
First time buyers now have to compete against buy to let ,developers) do uppers .
They did back in the day but strictly by business's, not entrepreneurial Joe public.
Another thing changed in the eighties was finance/ loans increased to five from three and what they were for purchasing
None of us needed 35yr mortgages either to make those initial buys.

 

[NorthernWisdom]

didn’t even have central heating.

Erm, the first place in my life that I lived in with central heating... is this house!

 

[eastwoodsdustman]

Which ties in to the whole issue. I tried to get a mortgage on the place I've just purchased that ran to 67, retirement

Which ties in to the whole issue. I tried to get a mortgage on the place I've just purchased that ran to 67, retirement age, couldn't get one as £550 a month was apparently unaffordable. So now I have a mortgage that runs into my seventies and there's no way I'll be able to retire while I've still got payments to make.

why not overpay on your mortgage and bring down the term. You can then retire earlier!

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

And stuff like washing machines, video recorders, dishwashers were the luxuries of their era and the equivalent of iPhones today and cost a fortune. My grandparents paid over £400 for their first VCR and each tape cost a fair few quid. Makes netflix look positive VFM if you bought as many film/programmes available on VCR at the time.

You seem to have made this all about yourselves when the main people that I thought were being discussed were older than that. Those that were young adults in the 60's.

Absolute loads of older people don't and have never owned a dishwasher. When they bought the first video recorders I'm sure they sat down with a pen and paper and did the whole money out/in before they bought one. Same with their TV because a lot of people rented in the 50s and 60s before they could afford to buy.
Owning a TV or VCR was a luxury.
Having netflix, an iPhone, a 4K TV are seen as a necessity , when we all know they're not.
The mortgage always came first.
Now it's a mobile phone and takeaways.

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

...and what a bloody waste of money 4K TVs are !

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Absolute loads of older people don't and have never owned a dishwasher. When they bought the first video recorders I'm sure they sat down with a pen and paper and did the whole money out/in before they bought one. Same with their TV because a lot of people rented in the 50s and 60s before they could afford to buy.
Owning a TV or VCR was a luxury.
Having netflix, an iPhone, a 4K TV are seen as a necessity , when we all know they're not.
The mortgage always came first.
Now it's a mobile phone and takeaways.

Again assuming that all older people made the calculations on affordability and no younger people do. It's lazy assumptions. Why did those people rent a TV/wireless/white goods in the 50's/60's? They were unnecessary luxuries. What about those people in the 50's/60's that were the 'Carnaby St' set spending huge amounts on fashionable clothes? Others that would spend a fortune in places like record shops? There are people on here who talk about loads of gigs they went to when they were younger - how is that not a luxury expenditure? Trips to the cinema to see films were frequent. If everyone was so poor and scraping by paying their mortgage how were such industries able to survive, let alone be thriving as they were? There were people then who were profligate with money just as there are now. Just as there are plenty of people now who are careful with money as there were then. Difference is that those that want new things and to show off now can do so for everyone to see on SM. The ones who are quietly going about trying to earn an honest living to have that 'normal' life and raise a family aren't courting attention so you don't hear about them. But they exist and there's LOADS of them.

So let's take the ones where the mortgage came first. Do you assume the same is not true today? Except for most people it's rent, because they can't get a mortgage. They try and save to get a deposit together so they can get one but wages are going down in real terms while house prices rise above inflation. So by the time they've raised the amount they needed when they first started saving the amount they actually need to save has doubled so it feels like they're chasing an uncatchable target. Whereas back then the amounts required for a deposit were much lower, if any was needed at all because with secure jobs lenders were much happier to hand out 100% mortgages than they are today.

Then you take into account the fact the older generation either had free higher education along with a grant and the ability to sign on while a student, or it wasn't necessary for them to earn a decent living, could leave school get a well-paid secure job in a factory and that was them sorted. Nowadays it's almost standard to require a university education just to be considered for a low-paid entry level job which will hopefully lead at some point to a more well paid one unless you want to spend your entire life in minimum wage dead-end roles. And that isn't free anymore so they've got that to pay for along with all the associated costs. And if you're doing that you're reducing the time available to work to get the money to pay for it. So many have to resort to student loans which need paying back, and the level of debt they incur doing so affects their credit rating making it harder for them to obtain a mortgage. Not to mention the profligation of the buy-to-letters who can afford to gazump them on anything they can afford because as a business they can raise more capital. So then those youngsters then have to rent these houses off them for a bigger monthly outlay than a mortgage repayment would be so they've got somewhere to live, giving them less ability to save to get a deposit for a house. It's a vicious circle.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

...and what a bloody waste of money 4K TVs are !

Wouldn't know. I don't own one. Nor do I have a dishwasher even now.

 

[chiefdave]

Meanwhile the value of the house goes up 300%

Was talking about this thread with my Dad last night. Checked how much he paid for their house, nice big detached house in Styvechale with a huge garden, and if the value had risen in line with inflation today it would cost less than I paid for my 2 bed terrace but in reality is worth at least 2.5 times as much as my house, probably nearer 3 times.

Add in wage suppression and there's a fundamental issue. Someone posted on here about working in the public sector and their wages in real terms going down 20%. Wish they hadn't as I've worked mine out now. I'm private sector and have had one pay rise since 2008 which it real terms means my salary has been cut 22%. Since starting work in 1994 the industry standard for annual leave entitlement has dropped from 30 days to 20 and hours have gone through the roof while overtime and TOIL have pretty much disappeared. When I started a 35 hour week was the norm (9-5 with a lunch hour). These days my core hours are 50 hours a week but its rare that the reality is less than 70 and as a salaried employee those 20 plus extra hours are unpaid.

But I pay £8 a month for Netflix which seems to supersede everything else and mean you can't complain.

 

[Grendel]

Was talking about this thread with my Dad last night. Checked how much he paid for their house, nice big detached house in Styvechale with a huge garden, and if the value had risen in line with inflation today it would cost less than I paid for my 2 bed terrace but in reality is worth at least 2.5 times as much as my house, probably nearer 3 times.

Add in wage suppression and there's a fundamental issue. Someone posted on here about working in the public sector and their wages in real terms going down 20%. Wish they hadn't as I've worked mine out now. I'm private sector and have had one pay rise since 2008 which it real terms means my salary has been cut 22%. Since starting work in 1994 the industry standard for annual leave entitlement has dropped from 30 days to 20 and hours have gone through the roof while overtime and TOIL have pretty much disappeared. When I started a 35 hour week was the norm (9-5 with a lunch hour). These days my core hours are 50 hours a week but its rare that the reality is less than 70 and as a salaried employee those 20 plus extra hours are unpaid.

But I pay £8 a month for Netflix which seems to supersede everything else and mean you can't complain.

House prices though are governed by interest rates which are now suppressed to all time lows. If they went up to the levels they were they’d slump and your payments would go up and your house value crash

You also are not typical of a private sector employee and are in a wrong industry

 

[chiefdave]

Again assuming that all older people made the calculations on affordability and no younger people do. It's lazy assumptions.

Not sure why this is so difficult for the older generation to grasp. Had the same with my Dad who was convinced I was pissing my money away as he couldn't get his head round me having the job I have, and working the hours I do, and struggling. In the end I had to sit him down and literally go through my monthly budget and even then I'm not convinced he's grasped it.

Seems there's an issue with the modern equivalent of what they did back in the day being seeing as extravagant. Going down the local for a couple of pints was fine but the modern equivalent isn't. Popping down the video store to hire a video fine, Netflix or Sky subscription is blowing your money. Even bigger things, we went on a family holiday to the south coast every year. Self catering in a caravan so far from extravagant. The place still exists and a week there next summer is a couple of hundred quid more expensive than a week all inclusive in the Balearics but we all know which one would be viewed as more extravagant.

Nobody is saying that every minute of every day was fantastic for the boomers but if you look at the thread that was on here about when people would live if they could go back and choose there's a reason why people pick that generation.

This was shmmeee's post that seems to have upset some but the posts they are making to dispute it are perfect illustrations of the point he was making.

I’m not for writing off generations generally but in terms of being soft and entitled the boomers have the millennials beat on every count. All while wearing the clothes of their parents to pretend they won a war. They then spend their retirement whinging others might get a fraction of what they got.