My Future

[North London Rent Girl]

What we're talking about is professionals on decent wages totally priced out of anything but inner-city crack dens

Hey, I dream of an inner-city crack den that I could call home! Even that's out of the question. There's really something to aspire to!

Edited February 13, 2006 by North London Rent Girl

[camem']

Hey, I dream of an inner-city crack den that I could call home! Even that's out of the question. There's really something to aspire to!

a den *with* crack ? you must be minted

[right_freds_dead]

Hey, I dream of an inner-city crack den that I could call home! Even that's out of the question. There's really something to aspire to!

why not come and share with me ?

provided you bring your own rocks.

[Time to raise the rents.]

I would be interested to hear your definition of millionaire.

Mmmm, what a silly question.

How about this then, a person who has money or assets valued at over a million more that their liabilities in the currecny they speak of (pounds in my case).

Why, did you think there was a different method to define a millionaire?

[Kayser Soze]

So the current 40-60 year olds have all made a killing in property and should be ashamed of themselves.

So here is a great challenge to the current 20-40s.

In the years to come when someone offers you large fortunes for your property and your mind goes 'ker-ching' thinking of the profit......just say 'no thank-you I simply can't force these silly house prices on the young'

Now you will do that.....won't you......

[Andrew McP]

a person who has money or assets valued at over a million more that their liabilities in the currecny they speak of (pounds in my case).

I suspect what he means is that someone who has £5 in the bank and shares/property worth -- if successfully sold today -- a million isn't the same as someone with a million in the bank. One is real wealth convertable into anything. The other is really only a rather posh betting slip worth a variable amount.

If I had 500k in cash and shares/property worth a notional million more, I might feel confident about calling myself a millionaire.

So the current 40-60 year olds have all made a killing in property

thinking of the profit

Sorry, can't let that kind of stuff slip by. Nobody makes a killing on their own property unless they downsize successfully (which is increasingly hard) or sell up and go live in a cardboard box. Obviously the BTL brigade are in a different situation. You can heap as much contempt as you want on them. :-)

Andrew McP

Edited February 13, 2006 by Andrew McP

[Pablo-silver or lead?]

You tell the kids today and they dont beleive you! However I didn't have to lick road clean with tongue! Or get thrashed to sleep with a broken bottle!

ExeC I can empathise with you're and others situations, however the only relly important things in life are friends, family and the quality of you're interaction with them (relationships).

Here's Pablo's autobiography!

Born 2nd June 1959 in the front room of Granny Williams council house in Conisborough, South Yorkshire (think ‘Kes’ only bleaker). With a tin bath on the wall and an all weather outside toilet. The reason the toilet was all weather, was due to the 6 inch gap at the top and bottom of the door, which let in all the weather. Mother Dylis Mary, Father Lesley. Older sister and a younger brother and sister. When I was 4 my parents bought a brand new 3 bed semi in a village close by. The price was £1,700. The deposit came from my fathers de-mob money after 2 years national service and the sale of his motor bike. The village was called Old Denaby (new Denaby was council/mining estate built around Denaby main pit). My father referred to the village as ‘Old Dene Abbey’. He spent some time working down the mine but he was actually a silver polisher by trade.

When I was 9 my parents sold the house in Yorkshire and we moved to Bournemouth, all very exciting because it was by the seaside. I’m not sure why we moved but it may have been because my father had an affair. We rented a one bedroom flat above a rag trade shop in Boscombe. The flat was not self contained as all our three rooms opened onto a communal landing. The bedroom was large and had two beds in it. My brother and I would top and tail in one and my sisters did likewise in the other. My parents slept on a bed settee in the galley kitchen. The landlord, Mr. Broady owned the shop below and was having the flat above converted, so there was building noise at all hours. We had no TV so each evening our parents would read Richmal Crompton’s, William books to us, that they bought second hand. Its hard to emphasise the cultural difference between South Yorkshire mining communities of the late 1960’s and Bournemouth which appeared to us at least, very posh.

Two incidents from this time are indelibly etched in my memory. A month after first joining school I was confronted in the playground by what to me seemed like half the pupils. I certainly stood out as being different due to my accent and home made trousers. The school bully led the pack. In front of the gathered throng he said I must be having sex with my mother and sisters because we only had one bedroom. I found this hurtful and confusing. It was hurtful being belittled for being ‘poor’ and confusing being accused of having sex with the female members of my family as, I didn’t at that stage, know what sex was.

The second incident revolves around us leaving the Boscombe flat. The landlord had complete the upstairs building work and told my parents he was going to increase the rent for our rooms, which we could not afford. My parents secured the rental of a 3 bed detached house from the council. It was cheap as it was due for demolition.

As we carried our belongings out of the flat the landlord accused my parents of stealing some blankets and sheets. I knew it wasn’t true as we’d had brought them from Yorkshire. He was pulling at the bundle of bedding I was holding and there was no way I was letting go. My mother and sisters were in tears and my father remonstrated with him. In the end he relented but kept our deposit and we went on our way. A month later a small boy followed him from his shop to his detached six bed mansion. That evening all the front ground floor windows were smashed. The moral to the storey is, ‘don’t try and steal poor children’s only means of keeping warm at night’.

I left school at 16 with no qualifications. I had great spoken word power (well I was gobby and opinionated) and could read but I couldn’t write or do maths. I left home at 16 sharing, renting and dosing around the slummier areas of the town. I did a series of dead end jobs and taught myself to write. At 19 I decided I was going nowhere. I had always been fascinated by the military and would listen enthralled as my father reminisced about his time as a driver in the Royal Corps of Transport. I had no intention of being a mattress stacking storman/driver and being brought up when every boy’s hero was John Wayne, It had to be the Para’s or the Marines. I plumbed for the Marines as both the Sergeant and Marine in the recruitment centre, as well as sporting the Green Berets of the Marine Commandos, also had Para wings!

On a cold and frosty Devon morning, January 19th 1979 to be precise, I arrived at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marine (CTCRM). The next seven months of basic training were huge physical and mental challenges for me. I loved it and served 9 years in various Commando units. I’d never been abroad before I joined but during my service I visited Cyprus, Belize, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria and France.

When I left in 1988 I received a MOD funded 6 weeks Sales and Marketing, Exit Vocational Training (EVT) course. At 28 years of age I joined Connell’s Estate Agents (then the largest independent) as a trainee Negotiator. Out of fifty trainees in the south I came top of my course. I also became the most rapidly promoted Branch manager in their long history. I progressed in 12 months from Residential Sales Manager to Branch Manager, running both the Poole and Parkstone branches. When the property bust of 1989/1990 and with both the branches under my management still trading profitably, I decided the property market needed me more than I needed it. I left and got into the newly deregulated telecom market. I worked for Mercury Communications, the only competitor to BT. I won Top Salesman (south) 2 years running and was rewarded with all expenses paid 5 star holidays (with partner) to Hong Kong and Bermuda. I was headhunted to join Nynex (New York New England) Cable and Telecom, to be their Business Customer Account Manager (South of England). I again was top Salesman (for the UK) 4 years running and again was rewarded with all expenses paid 5 star holidays (with partner) to New York, Dubai, Puerto Rico and again Bermuda.

This couldn’t go on and having turned down promotions with Mercury and Nynex, I was head hunted in 1999 to work for a NASDAQ quoted company called Metromedia Fibre Networks Inc (MFN) as Sales Director for the UK operations. This was the Telecom/Internet Boom Bust era. In the Marines I was paid £8k pa and now I had a private office with roof garden overlooking the Thames, six figure salary and hot stock options. This was “Kes to Capital City” local boy done good. I never took it or myself too seriously, as I could see it was all smoke and mirrors. I met some of the biggest characters in the industry; Ivan Seidenberg Chairman of Nynex (now Verizon) from cable splice’s mate to chairman of the second biggest Telecoms company in the word, employing 267,000 people. Bernard Ebbers ex CEO of WorldCom, now doing 25 years for the biggest corporate fraud in US history. At MFN I worked for Vince Galluccio, he bailed out at the top and used some of the millions he made to buy Gristina vineyard and winery on the north fork of Long Island. I along with others stayed and lost a paper fortune.

At the end of the bull run for telecoms/internet dot-com’s. I was made redundant as the company I worked for went into administration and then liquidation (owing me £125K in contracted earnings), cel la vie!

Every generation of school/university leavers and young families faces problems (sorry slipped out of PC management speak) challenges.

Lots of us start with nothing and when we die there is nothing, its never been truer to say "the journey is the destination, enjoy!".

Pablo Silver or Lead?

[CrashBear]

Sounds similar to the situation my girlfriend and I are in at the moment, except that our ages are 29 and 25. I tried an evening job three nights a week, but it started to effect my ability to do my first job so gave it up.

I share your frustrations, just hope that the situation gets better.

Bluechutes

Part of the reason why I have never moved in with a gf is due to the cost involved and lack of flexibility.

Living in a shared house greatly reduces the amount of cash I'm paying out and as a result I'm saving about half of my take home pay per month.

I'm leaving the country in 4 months for a couple of years, if the situation is the same when I get back I'll be looking elsewhere.

[Ritters]

Why, did you think there was a different method to define a millionaire?

It may be suspected that the difference between what you owe and what you own is much less than a million, therefore not actaully being a millionaire because you don't have full legal title to it yet.

Edited February 13, 2006 by Ritters

[liquid]

Here's Pablo's autobiography...

That's a touching story. I liked the memory of the tin bath. My father never got rid of the one he used in his time, and as children, my brothers and I used it as a garden toy. It's still there in the garden now serving as a raised flower bed.

Did your childhood experiences give you a sense of fortitude early on in your life? Is it that that carried you through your young adult years? Thank you for taking the time, and, dare I say it, courage, to put across things that are quite personal. It was enriching.

[brownthing]

Part of the reason why I have never moved in with a gf is due to the cost involved and lack of flexibility.

Living in a shared house greatly reduces the amount of cash I'm paying out and as a result I'm saving about half of my take home pay per month.

I'm leaving the country in 4 months for a couple of years, if the situation is the same when I get back I'll be looking elsewhere.

You old romantic.

[bear_or_bull]

I've just skimmed this thread, but the argument seems to consist of 1 group saying "it's really, really tough starting out today", whilst the other says "rubbish, it was always this tough/tougher back in the day. Suck it up.".

From my observations I'd say that there is some truth in both statements.

In aggregate we are clearly now a society of "I want it now" immediate gratification, which almost guarantees dissatisfaction if you can't achieve all your desires immediately. Marketing has worked its magic on a generation, creating a brand conscious live-now society. And Technology has worked it's magic to create lots of things for everyone to buy...

However, those who say that it was just tougher back in the day need to consider a couple of things. 1) It is genuinely harder to trade up the "property ladder" today. It is possible to look at the history & do the maths, illustrating that those buying today will pay more of their lifetime salary into servicing home debt than any other generation (assuming no HPC or general inflation). This by definition indicates that today is harder than the 70s to put a roof over your head. 2) But life has moved on, so this difficulty is not expressed in tin baths, austin allegros, and leo sayer (oh no, hold on Leo Sayer is #1). Yes the younger generation may have faster cars or foreign holidays, they also have colour tv and computers too. But to a large degree this reflects general progress. That's modern capitalism. Thus comparing lifestyles becomes, to an extent, an exercise in comparing apples and oranges. The math speaks - the younger generation pays more of the lifetime earnings into servicing property debt, and the rungs on the "ladder" are farther apart... So, the younger generation might be able to afford a foreign holiday and look frivolous, but they will never be able to afford a £750k house. Not taking the foreign holiday won't change that.

In the end, are those saying that the younger generation are "complainers" saying that they themselves lived a 1940s lifestyle in the 1970s? As that is what they would have to do if advocating todays generation live a 1970s lifestyle. You have to compare on an equal footing.

Edited February 13, 2006 by bear_or_bull

[Solvent Celt]

I've just skimmed this thread, but the argument seems to consist of 1 group saying "it's really, really tough starting out today", whilst the other says "rubbish, it was always this tough/tougher back in the day. Suck it up.".

From my observations I'd say that there is some truth in both statements.

In aggregate we are clearly now a society of "I want it now" immediate gratification, which almost guarantees dissatisfaction if you can't achieve all your desires immediately. Marketing has worked its magic on a generation, creating a brand conscious live-now society. And Technology has worked it's magic to create lots of things for everyone to buy...

However, those who say that it was just tougher back in the day need to consider a couple of things. 1) It is genuinely harder to trade up the "property ladder" today. It is possible to look at the history & do the maths, illustrating that those buying today will pay more of their lifetime salary into servicing home debt than any other generation (assuming no HPC or general inflation). This by definition indicates that today is harder than the 70s to put a roof over your head. 2) But life has moved on, so this difficulty is not expressed in tin baths, austin allegros, and leo sayer (oh no, hold on Leo Sayer is #1). Yes the younger generation may have faster cars or foreign holidays, they also have colour tv and computers too. But to a large degree this reflects general progress. That's modern capitalism. Thus comparing lifestyles becomes, to an extent, an exercise in comparing apples and oranges. The math speaks - the younger generation pays more of the lifetime earnings into servicing property debt, and the rungs on the "ladder" are farther apart... So, the younger generation might be able to afford a foreign holiday and look frivolous, but they will never be able to afford a £750k house. Not taking the foreign holiday won't change that.

In the end, are those saying that the younger generation are "complainers" saying that they themselves lived a 1940s lifestyle in the 1970s? As that is what they would have to do if advocating todays generation live a 1970s lifestyle. You have to compare on an equal footing.

A very reasonable approach.

We need to look at what % of current incomes goes on purchasing the necessities of life - food, shelter, clothing, transport etc

I read somewhere that Neolithic people spent less of their time working to supprt themselves than we do! Progress...my @rse!

[Pablo-silver or lead?]

Bear or Bull

Is correct in stating that life and expectations change. There is no doubt that this property market has made it much harder and riskier in terms of cost and debt load, to get on/move up the ladder. Here’s an anecdote that proves it.

1963 My father a working class private just left the army buys his first property (south Yorkshire) a brand new 3 bed semi! Price £1,700.

1984 I as a Marine (private earning £8k pa) bought my first property (Poole) a one bed architect designed, duplex apartment with a 26’ x14’ lounge and S/W facing 12’ x 12’ roof garden. Price £24,500!

2005 Someone as a private in the army ftb earning (£16k) wants to buy a property?

New 3 bed semi in a nice village in south Yorkshire = £160k or more? Or my flat which sold last year for £130k.

It certainly is tougher today.

Liquid

We are all products of our environment and experiences. I certainly internalised my early experiences in a way that made me more effective in getting what I wanted in later life. If that sounds selfish it probably is. However having parents that taught the difference between right from wrong, my selfishness is tempered by a sense of equity and social justice. I do feel that for us to reach our individual potential (professional, social, academic etc) we must first grow up and be comfy with ourselves (which for me wasn’t until my late 30’s early 40’s). I do fear for what we as a society have created. If this economy goes pop we will see a lot of the veneer of apparent wealth propped up by the, must have it now, other people’s money and ‘mew to accrue’ attitude going up in smoke. How will two generations of 35 to 55 year olds react to much of their wealth and lifestyle disappearing?

Now a last piece of Barrack/Bar room philosophy (misquoted)

“I felt sorry for myself for I had no shoes. Then I came across a man who had no feet!”

Pablo Silver or Lead?

[cockrobin]

It feels now like i have FAR less money to spend than lets say i did in 1998. I feel that the money i have no gets me far less than it would 7 years ago.

All of this i assume is because of the raises in prices for everything we use. (lets exclude chinese crap for the moment).

Isnt it now going to be far harder for the government to catch all this mess up as a simple 3% -> 8% rise on anything these days is going to be massive, as the previous rises over the past 6-7 years have been so high.

Im finding it very hard to explain what i mean.

My girlfriend and i earn average wages and have 1 child (we are 23+25 years old).

After all our costs (and food) each month we pay out 2.1k a month and we only bring in 2.2k between us.

We have a couple of luxurys, Internet, Telephone, Sky+, sofa and an engagement ring im paying off. other than that its basically cost for living.

What scares me is if prices continue to rise by the non covered up rates like 14% on council tax etc, how are people like us expected to live ?

We want to have a 2nd child, if people like us cant afford to do these kind of things in life what on earth is it going to be like in the future.

We rent, cant afford to save, we cant afford to have a child, we cant afford to get married (i can barely afford the engagement ring), we cant afford to buy a house, we cant afford to save a pension for our old age, it costs my girfriend £2000 a year to go on a train to work, it costs me more in my car. Im trying my hardest to pay for lessons so my girlfriend can have independance and learn to drive also.

I've avoided using too much credit or credit cards.

I just cant see how the general couple like me and my girlfiend will solvantly be able to survive in the future.

Are we expected to cut the little things in our lives to afford to actully live ?

Disconnect my sky TV and pay for a weekly shop ?

Disconnect my telephone so i pay for 1 weeks fuel ?

No internet, my generation dont deserve to be able to afford it?

I must rent, because home ownership is a privlage for the hippy generation not a right for the 80's child ?

We should start looking for a loan to have a child ?

Marrage is just a piece of paper anyway...

I sit here looking at my finances, and i try my hardest to figure out what to do, apart from getting a 2nd job at weekends, theres nothing.

Sorry about the rant.

I know the feeling,

Everything seems to have been made so unaffordable by G****n B***n. I'm beginning to think the only way to a comfortable life is to move to another country.

Perhaps if I fake a illness that renders me physically unable to work I'll be able to live on incapacity benefits for the rest of my life like so many others do!

If I suddenly found out I had a terminal illness which only gave me a few months to live, I'd kill G****n B***n.

[right_freds_dead]

In aggregate we are clearly now a society of "I want it now"

yeah. provided all you want is pop stars, ipods and manbags. gambling, 24hr drinking and easy credit.

if you want anything substantial like a workable fair society and real homes and fair services you can sh1t.

[boom_and_bust]

http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

Edited April 20, 2006 by boom_and_bust