DonJop12

First in a humanities subject from a redbrick. Went under 3k fees but would not have gone under 9k. I lose £720 pa to loan repayments that could be going in my attempt-to-compete-with-BTL-boomers deposit fund.

This is one reason why my discretionary spending is next to nil. Nearly £22k saved now. I have this real sense of playing catch-up with people who made better life choices like getting a job at 18 and banking money like there is no tomorrow. Ultimately it was my choice to go to university [First in a social science from a redbrick] but I never appreciated what three years of lost earnings means when you are trying to achieve markers of adulthood. I didn’t exactly hit the ground running [remember the recession?] and there is a sense of deep regret that I’ll never get back the time I’ve lost. It is depressing to browse Facebook and see people from school who left with GCSEs but now have markers of adulthood that I could only dream of.

I only pick up the London freebie papers now to read the weekly property section. Each week a young couple are quoted saying at least one of the following: · The property is close to their jobs in London so they have saved on transport/time commuting · They will soon be ‘staircasing’ to increase their ownership % · They are paying less than they were in rent · Constant references to the “Crossrail effect” and how their investment will pay off because prices will go up · They are close to amenities that would be of interest to young Millennials · They would not have been able to buy without shared ownership aka if you want to buy in the SE this is the only game in town short of inheritance. I am pretty sure that some of the quotes must be made up because there are simply far too many references to the “Crossrail effect”. While reading these articles you look around the tube carriage and see loads of adverts for shared ownership as well. All contain young people who are happy and confident. The shared ownership adverts remind me in many ways of the university propaganda I encountered during my 20s. You are being sold a dream. Meanwhile, I’ve just returned from a tip to a provincial Northern town with decent transport links into Liverpool and Manchester where there are flats for FTBs selling for between 70k and 80k. I’ve come to realise that is a far more sensible next step.

I’ve stopped reading the Standard and Metro. Both have too many advertorial articles particularly around property. The Metro weekly HTB feature was always a particular highlight. I remember one young person being quoted saying “Crossrail will increase the value of my investment”. I don’t know anyone that speaks like that. 😊

My commute involves zone 1 and the encounters with homeless are getting ever more confrontational, even though I am not exactly looking for confrontation. In the past year I have been threatened with physical violence for not handing over money and I have had an East European grab my arm. I don't have all the answers but clearly something is wrong when luxury flats sit empty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Point) surrounded by growing numbres of tents.

What a load of tosh. I’d love to be able to engage in discretionary spending on vinyl and have a spare room full of music. The reason I am not is because I am competing with BTL property-is-my-pension boomers for the first rung on the ladder. My savings/deposit fund will be up to £20,762.36 by the end of the month. I feel like I need to push on to 25k and then 30k. It has got to the point where it is just numbers on a screen. This is bit OCD but I actually have a spreadsheet of the CD collection I would like to own . My taste is actually quite boomer-ish [Springsteen, McCartney, Pink Floyd]. One day… Perhaps it is the time of year but I’m feeling the frustration of trying to save a monster deposit more than usual this week. Perhaps I’m just an entitled Millennial. 😊

I’ve given the matter some thought, and this is what I came up with: A) I graduated at time when youth unemployment was at 1 million and total unemployment was at 2.56 million. Therefore, having now obtained a job in London my instinct is to cling to it for dear life in a way that someone who entered the jobs market during the noughties probably would not feel. I live in a commuter down and you subconsciously associate middle-class adulthood with the Reggie Perrin style commute. C) I also work in an industry where the largest concentration of jobs is in London and there is always the worry that your job opportunities would be worse up North in the event of a job loss. D) Metropolitan snobbery. World class sport, theatre, arts, museums and the like can all be found in London. Of course the irony is that I would need both the wealth and the spare time of a boomer retiree to fully take advantage of everything.

My LISA bonus arrived today. 😊 London property is still unaffordable and seemingly used as the world's reserve currency. 😡

I graduated at a similar time and my CV contains a few short term gigs while I was building up industry experience. The economy was in the doldrums and companies were not rolling out the red carpet. I’m more forgiving that his CV is a bit “bitty”. How wise it is for someone a couple of years out of University to take on that level of debt is another matter. I would be scared to take on half that amount. I’ve saved 20k and can only see a future in Liverpool, Manchester or Sheffield. I’ve come to terms with the reality that home ownership in London or even the Home Counties is a non-starter.

Sad news about HMV. I would love to be able to spend Sunday afternoons browsing the aisles of HMV. I’m someone who instinctively prefers the physical product over streaming and strangely my tastes have started to become quite boomer-ish recently – Springsteen, McCartney, Pink Floyd. However, I can’t start building the CD collection I want until I am an owner occupier. I need the “forever home” with a spare room and a couple of IKEA book cases. A big collection of CDs, DVDs and books is impractical when a landlord could ask you to leave in a couple of months. I used to spend a lot of time in HMV during the mid-noughties. Pre-Universal Credit, Pre-9k tuition fees. It seems like another age now.

Not yet. My current situation is £19,000 savings or £20,000 including the £1,000 LISA bonus. This year I’ve cut out almost all discretionary spending so if the economy goes into recession soon blame me. Without BOMAD assistance I will buying somewhere North of Watford Gap at some point in the future. If the parents choose to help, I will be able to continue living down south where the majority (although not all) of the jobs in my industry are. I think (hope?) the parents would help (to some extent) but only if any future partners parents contributed an equal figure. I’m struggling for the right words here but there is danger of BOMAD money being lost to a future divorce/separation if only one family is contributing.