Forum menu
I'm 38 and single with no kids.
Earn between £32-35,000.
Mortgage paid off
No other debt
Have a few thousand in the bank for emergencies.
Also have a non-contributory work pension, although I don't expect that to last for ever.
I feel fortunate. I know from the 'canteen chat' at work that even on a decent wage it's difficult with a family, even up here in Cumbria.
5lab - we've looked into it. No go, we'll be penalised if we wanted to. Hence it all sitting in savings until the term is up. Good ol' Santander.
I have planned for the worst and happy that I can provide well for my wife and kids in the event of my death or redundancy.
I have £0 debt outside of a 35% LTV mortgage, but if I left London I could make this £0 pretty quickly I think.
As someone said above, I feel for those being made redundant in these times of little opportunity. I don't take my good fortune to date for granted.
@jota 180 - not that easy mate. Ive worked hard since I was 15. I held down 2 f/t jobs for 2years and no matter what I do its never enough. I just dont have good fortune in life. Cant see anyway to improve or better our situation so now I just accept it. Kids are all ok though and thats all that matters to me.
What would be considered a level of debt relative to income which you should not exceed?
For me, 2.5 x joint earnings. We're comfortably below that, and could always sell assets to cover if either of us had a prolonged period of 'resting'.
Mortgage - 80% ish.
No other debts.
Modest savings.
Secure job.
Nothing to complain about.
I owe £50k on my mortgage - property apparently worth £180k
Joint income £45k
2 kids
2 dogs
No credit cards or HP
Age 41
feels like a flippin struggle at this so god knows how people with a mortgage bigger than mine manage
26 years old
No mortgage
Earn between £22k/26k
£1k savings
£20k Student debt
£2800 Bank loan for car
Credit card with a limit of £500 that i pay off every month (bought to improve credit rating)
£400 left on some finance i took out on my Mac (again, only taken to improve my credit rating)
I dont feel stretched. Only recently started saving any money, which will eventually be used for a house 10 or so years down the line.
What would be considered a level of debt relative to income which you should not exceed?
depends on personal circumstances - if you've a wife and kids to support, quite low. if you're a batchelor with no other outgoings, quite high. Also depends on interest rates. I currently assign approx 65% of my take home income to servicing my debts (but I could reduce that if I wanted)
@jota 180 - not that easy mate
No, it's not easy, that's for sure
It's where we found ourselves in the 80s but in retrospect starting again was the best thing we ever did
When it got to the point where we had £12.50/week to live on, we gave in
39, wife and 2 kids.
no debt, no property, tiny income, loads of time!
The most vauble things we have are my 2 cheap bikes 😯
I consider myself screwed...
Yeah cider me too. Big debts,low income no property. Not much hope either Im afraid. Got a funny feeling theres a lot of people in Britain like that.
im 24 and earn 37.5k
Have a 90K mortgage and some student loans outstanding and a couple of months pay in savings.
Just got engaged to my girlfriend who's phd finishes soon so i might have to support us for a bit but will be fine. Once she has a job too i think we will be a very succesful professional young couple.
I realise how lucky i am but i do feel very little connection with leftytrackworld on here.
Titus, I was much like you until I split up with my missus earlier this year, paying a mortgage meant for two single handed sucks!
No (real) job.
No (real) assets.
21 years old.
Around £15k debt.
Why have I been tagged?
You're on now 🙂
Not as financially stable as we were before been laid off 3 years ago...
Luckily though, unlike the government, we hadn't blown the good times - and while we've a mortgage (its at 0.6% for life), everything else had been paid for.
Trouble is, I'm earning now what I was 10 years ago - and I can't see it improving quickly, if at all.
Married with two kids, £14k in combined debt, which was racked up when we were both working, now I work part time and were both classed as full time students. We dont own property but get by with a slowly decreasing amount of debt.
Titus if I had been earning that much at 24 years of age I wouldnt have been getting engaged !
"When it got to the point where we had £12.50/week to live on, we gave in "
What do you mean by that? Did you declare bankrupt?
Why is that dunc ?
Open question
What % of your after tax were your first mortgage payments ?
Sorry Trail what are you asking?
Why you wouldnt get engaged if you earned that at 24 - why does money make a difference ?
Surely if your going to get engaged youd do it if you were on 10 or 40k surely ?
What do you mean by that? Did you declare bankrupt?
No - we sent everything back we had on HP, telly, washer, some furniture etc.
Then we just just lived day to day on what we had coming in
Ah I see - Yep each to their own and all. I had a fantastic time in my 20's travelling, buying nice cars etc etc, going to the pub etc etc. and I didnt earn any thing like that amount. With that kind of disposable income at 24 you can have lots of fun, and few commitments.
Jota - Thats a very brave and good thing to do. A lot of people would just declare bankrupt, which is a bit of a cop out really.
I suppose we're quite lucky being reasonably solvent (no debt, no kids, good jobs, reasonable savings) and in the context of some of the above, probably better to leave it at that.
Poor sods above who have to scrape around each month to make ends meet though.... 🙁
Of those that are 'financially stable' how secure are you in your job?
Would it all come tumbling down if you lost your job?
My mate lived the high life on tick age 18-21
Was 60-70in debt or there abouts on loans to cover loans when suddenly his flash car went and he was skint
Did wonder how he did it on his wages - just presumed that living with his parents rent free let him spend more
Fast forward to age 25 and his mrs tells my mrs they cant get a house as aberdeen houses are stupidly priced
Wonder if she knows they will have incredible trouble getting a mortgage...he went bankrupt
I have nothing but respect for familys who work and are living hand to mouth through circumstance. I have no time for folk that smoke/drink/fancy cars/ other luxary goods and claim poverty.
Fair enough dunc - each to their own ! If i didnt have my mrs id be skint but id have a power of bikes living in the spare room and a v8 landy .....would it make me any happier though ?
A lot of people would just declare bankrupt, which is a bit of a cop out really.
It is, but in effect pretty much what banks did to us without so much as an apology
Gary M - For me, no I dont think it would. If we both lost our jobs tomorrow, we would have to sell up, sell the car, etc etc. That would still leave us with cash in the bank to the go out and buy a small house.
The thing to do though is not kid yourself you can continue on with the same lifestyle and end up further and further in to debt.
As to stable employment, well both of us work for the NHS, Mrs FD will always be able to get work with her skill set, as there is a shortage of people in her market. I would perhaps struggle, but I would turn my hand to almost any thing if needs be.
Of those that are 'financially stable' how secure are you in your job?Would it all come tumbling down if you lost your job?
I'm sure the wife would find another job quickly. I work in a niche industry and wouldn't be guaranteed of finding a job that paid as well so cutbacks would be necessary in that situation. Luckily my job is secure so no immediate worries but we're saving a minimum of £1k a month at the moment with a view to clearing a £12k loan in a couple of months then it'll be a serious assault on reducing the mortgage to ensure that should the worst ever happen, we won't be stretched too thin.
[i]For me, no I dont think it would. If we both lost our jobs tomorrow, we would have to sell up, sell the car, etc etc. That would still leave us with cash in the bank to the go out and buy a small house.[/i]
So that's assunmong you could sell your current property then?
We are classed in the stable side. No mortgage, no cc debts (paid off each month) and money in the bank. Good income per year - but have one son at Uni and another about to start to eat into our savings. Biggest worry is that I am approaching 50 and my pension looks might small and a long way off - assuming that I ever get to retire!
I have no idea how my kids are ever going to be able to afford to buy or have a decent pension - but that is another discussion point!
with some of the debt people are saying they have, i would not be able to sleep.
Would it all come tumbling down if you lost your job?
I'm the sole bread winner but we have no debts
So not tumbling down but losing 90% of our income would start to hurt our lifestyle hard a few months in, maybe 6
Sort of depends how well we could switch to survival mode only
We're probably stable and having no debt and savings means we could exist for a year or two without income (or selling body parts). This would eat away our savings which would obviously put us in a much less comfortable position. Both of us are in transferable roles so we should be able to get going again if we needed to.
We've (well me really) deliberately cut back on expenditure over the past couple of years and I'm not nearly as much of a spend thrift as I was. Any excess now goes into cash savings. I have a bit in the stock market and my pension is obviously tied to that but performance is pi$$ poor so we'll be relying on property and cash come the day....
At the moment since we have no house and have small out goings we could live for 3 years on our savings alone without finding other jobs
I have a varied skill set and can work hard so dont think id find it hard to get a paying job - it wont be what i do now but i could get work .
With respect to my current job im trying to stay in ops for a while despite my boss pushing me towards middle management because as an ops man im versatile across alot of product lines in the offshore industry - as a middlemanager im a drain on resources where ever i go. Long as i am willing to travel i might as well stay in ops
My mrs is a teacher on the other hand - none are safe !
Which is why im loathe to go out and get a sizable mortgage despite being able to "afford " it
Ton - why though? 15 years ago I nearly lost my home when I was made redundant and didnt have a penny to my name. Mrs FD was in a similar stuation 10 years ago (we only got together 6 years ago).
So both of us in the last 15 years have been absoltuely broke. We have both worked dam hard since to get to where we are now where we have a nice comfortable home, nice cars etc. Yes we use credit, but we use credit we can afford. As I said above credit/debt is only bad when you can not afford it. We know their is a risk if tomorrow we both loose our jobs, but the risk is minimised in our opinion and would still leave us with cash if we had to sell everything up.
"So that's assunmong you could sell your current property then?"
Yes agreed dependant on us selling our houses, but one currently has over £100k equity in it based on current market value in the area, so we could sell way below market value, and the houses are selling in our area.
We could never afford to but the house we live in..nice area, great schools etc, so we rent instead (£1000 a month unfortunately), but i also put over £1000 a month into my pension as well. 2 (oldish) cars paid for, 3 bikes paid for, trying to save for a house deposit but lif e aint cheap, so it isnt going that well!
£1000 a month to rent a house, that would serioulsy stick in my throat.
No kids, no car, no mortgage, no loans or CC bills.
Very secure public sector job which gives me 'key worker' status for low rent property plus two small but growing businesses whose running costs are just a website plus my own time and expertise.
Never been more secure or financially stable and hope to be able to expand my businesses next year - may even take early retirement and cash in my public sector pension if my plans comes good 😀
Own our house.
Wife in work.
I'm not, been looking for 9 months.
Very lucky to have been the saving sort over the years and have 6 figure savings otherwise we'd be sunk.
£1000 a month to rent a house, that would serioulsy stick in my throat.
It's all relative. We pay just over that to rent a 2-bed flat. Similar one in our block is up for sale at 370k - that would cost me £1700+ to mortgage and wipe out my savings in the process, assuming I could find someone willing to lend to me in the first place. Just interest only is nearly as much as our rent, but we're not liable for service charges, fixing the boiler, etc. Plus we would lose a load of money upfront in taxes and fees to buy, and more again when we came to sell.
Who'd buy in this sort of market? Either you give a grand a month to a landlord to provide a roof over your head or give the same to the bank for lending you the money to be lumbered with some bricks and mortar.
It's all relative. We pay just over that to [b]rent[/b] a 2-bed flat. Similar one in our block is up for sale at [b]370k[/b]
£370,000 for a flat??? Whereabouts, Kensington? 😯