Certainly not at the moment. I share a house with a few of my friends (they drive me crazy but i love them) I could never afford to live alone right now
you can claim housing benefit after youre 18 i dont know of any stop point. If your rent exceeds your earnings then housing benefit will top it up, they can pay abit towards your rent or all of it depending on your earnings :)
ive know people way over 25 get housing benefit :) and pretty sure you can have it on any rented accomodation xx
and 50p canned dinners are my secret to affording to have my own place. Though i rarely live alone, ive always got someone here to look after and feed :) which thanks to 50p cans isnt much of a problem but dont know where id be without them. Them and 11p noodles, oh and its 35p for 6 cupasoups and each cupasoup can be mixed with pasta. Its not glamorous but its edible :) xx
It would be impossible for me to live alone because it too expensive and that makes me feel like im a waste of space :(
I reckon it never was that easy to get started on the property ladder. Back in the early 70s house prices were lower relative to incomes but that was, in part, due to the building society restrictions on lending. Effectively they didn't lend more than 3 times the annual income of one of the parties to the mortgage and often allowing nothing (or at most 0.5 times) against the income of any other party to the mortgage which, of course, put the lone buyer at less of a disadvantage than they would be today. However, you had to have been saving regularly with the particular society for 4 or 5 years before they would even contemplate giving you a mortgage. If they turned you down you were screwed - banks didn't do mortgages.
One thing that helped us was the ability to rent a total $h!t-hole of a place while we saved - the sort of place health and safety considerations have wiped off the map years ago. One of the ones we spend a couple of years in had only one 13 amp socket for the whole flat, no heating, rotten sash windows that needed a couple of copies of the Telegraph to seal the draughts and an 'Ascot' water heater that produced a piddle of tepid water for the sink when it deigned to light. There was a communal bog/bathroom of indescribable awfulness shared by 5 flats. On the other hand it only cost 10 quid a week which helped us build up some savings.been there done it. I meant to this time but fell in to a houseshare by accident. IT's hard work sometimes but if you're smart you can do it on less than you're earning. I was paying £550 plus all bills when I was on £15500.
Work out your costs, set it aside, see what you've got left.
Now budget food. That's the hard part to be honestit takes effort. You need to plan ahead and cook several servings at once. Maybe even devote a Saturday to it and cook batches to fill the freezer. If you can have all the food you need and petrol/train fares set aside it makes the rest of the month a lot easier.
Don't expect an amzing home and lots of spending money. This is made up for by having your own place - depending on your personality it can be really worth it!
Try to make sure you treat yourself occaisionally. If that's once a month you go out and don't worry about money then do it. It keeps you sane and it's amazing how little you can live off if you need to when during the last half a month you're skint because you spent the first weekend after payday drinking!
consider getting an evening job. Even one night working a bar might net you after tax £20 ish. That's nothing. BUT during that last week or two before payday that will feed you and maybe even get a bottle of wine for Friday night.
Having little money can take some getting used to but once you do you start to realise how little you can survive on and still have a great time.
Get a big enough place so you have spare room(s) and then rent the room(s) out on a monday to Friday only let.
You get extra cash, plus the spare room for the weekends when you actually want it, sorted.
Not sure on how it works in Scotland but I do know that in England they changed it at the beginning of this year so that anyone under the age of 35 now only qualifys for the shared housing rate. There are some exceptions but they are very few and need extreme measures such as severe diasability and live in carer. You now have to be 35, as opposed to 25 which is what it used to be, to get single persons accomodation allowance.
I'm not sure which moron thought this would be a good idea or how they can suddenly tell people who have been living independantly for years that they now don't qualify and must move to cheaper shared accomodation or basically be screwed over and have to pay the extra rent themselves. Thankfully I only got caught in this change over for 8 months and have somehow managed to survive til I turned 35 this week so therefore qualify for full single persons allowance again.
So basically unless you are a couple - you will then qualify for full amount as you're not single (seriously who works this crap out) or over 35 you will only get a much lower amount of housing benefit (which when I checked won't actually cover the cost of shared housing anyway in my area).
Also a note to the above, if you claim housing benefits and have more extra bedrooms than you need, you do already get a deduction from the maximum allowance they would award you but from next year I'm aware that they are trying to introduce a new rule so they can affix a set amount to it. For example you have 2 bedrooms but only use 1 then they deduct £11 a week per room from your benefit. So once more they are out to screw people over, so all those people who have had houses for their kids and have extra rooms cause their kids have now moved out, if they don't find smaller housing (no matter if they have spent 25+ years in that house and spent £££'s on it making a nice home) they will have to pay extra to top it up. And those who have been trying to get smaller accomodation and been on waiting lists for years to do so ... well tough it seems they will deduct it from you too even though you've been trying to do what they want for years anyway.
So in summary either hook up with someone when you're a teenager, get preganant or claim asylum to get housing covered in the UK.
Know how you feel - I'm in the same position, but different profession... It is really gutting to get so far and yet not be able to get over the final hurdle!! Good luck with it all though!! :)
*Bump* I know this is a really old thread, but I'm thinking of moving out after New Year with my OH. We both work full time and have steady incomes, but we also both have a car each. Now I've sat and wrote a budget out and we can just about manage it - but my big question is, should I give up my car? I love driving and nearly have 2 years no claims, I love the independence a car gives me, but an extra car is more money we don't have really...
So should I give it up? But then I'll never build up my no claims, and if we argue over who gets the car on our evenings off or somethig silly... I'm nervous! Do you think it's a bad idea?
PS Also tips on living cheaply and thriftily are still welcome! Keep 'em coming!
Do you live in a place that has decent public transport? Or is everything so close together that you can get everywhere you need by bicycle? I come from Munich, and whereas I've had a driver's license since age 19, I never owned a car until moving to France. One look at the German Automobile Club's calculations for the true monthly cost of a car (which includes savings for a new one) convinced me that even a very good, expensive, new bicycle would be an absolute bargain (it has been, I still have it, 20 years later). In the very rare cases when I needed a car and couldn't borrow one from my mom or sister, I rented one.
Of course, the insurance payments for my first owned car were quite shocking - but still much less than a car would have cost me in the 15 years when I didn't have one. As you already have 2 years of no claims, you hopefully won't be considered a novice driver when you buy a car again. Actually, you might want to check that out with your insurance company, and maybe ask them what your situation will be if you continue to drive your OH's car. And make sure that you keep proof of your two years car insurance without claims!
But there's one big question: Why do you want to give up your car and not your OH his? Does he really, really need it? The most economical solution would be to have no car at all ;)
On living cheaply in general: Dont buy anything you don't need and make things last by maintaining/repairing them as needed - I nearly bought a new hairdryer when I discovered that I could clean the air filter on my old one and then it would stop switching off all the time. (Incidentally, hoovers - including Dyson! - also need their air filters cleaned to continue working properly.) This hairdryer is a reputed brand - Braun - but I still haven't finally decided whether supposedly high-quality, high-priced products are really worth it in the long run. Most of the time I'm also very happy with Lidl products (their special offers like tools etc. - the food and drink they sell in France is generally excellent) (the infrared massager is crap, though) - their electric jigsaw lasted 3 years for 30 Euros and I used it for construction work (which is more than its intended purpose).
You can save an enormous lot of money if you can do your own plumbing and electricity repairs (I don't, I'm too chicken), as well as decorating work (painting, tiling) if the house needs it (I do lots of it).
Try to find used furniture, I believe the Ikea stuff of 10 years ago is better quality than what they are selling now (I'm disappointed by the current offer, luckily the house is furnished). (You might want to keep the bigger car until the new place is furnished ;) - most private sellers won't deliver).
Get a library card and try to find a library that has a good DVD selection. How much is the annual telly fee (if there is such a thing where you live - in France it would 130 €) and is it really worth it?
Okay, this post is getting much too long so I'm stopping here - maybe more will come to me later.
we are a family of 4 and my partner works (20) for minimun wage and we dont get any help at all from government in short he is working for less then what people on bennifits get we did a calculation and we would be better of by 10 pound a week not working its hard we are young and struggle but we do it
Im in similar place, no hope of moving out, prices have risen so high in our area, and very little people r on high waged jobs I earn no where near 20k a year not even 10. Most in my area r the same.. I will have 2 move in with some1 to b even able 2 rent
@HappilyExperimenting, one thing I had forgotten: Avoid paying interest if at all possible. Meaning no hire purchase, no credits - I don't even have a credit card in the true sense of the word (my Mastercards word as charge/debit cards or whatever it's called when the money is debited from the account pretty much immediately - meaning the card costs very little and there's no interest at all to pay). It's much better for the money to be in your account, maybe even earning interest for you, until it's enough to buy whatever you want to buy, than buying on credit and having monthly reimbursements plus interest to pay! Depending on the shop they might even offer you a discount when you offer to pay the amount in full immediately (I got quite a considerable reduction on my glasses once that way).
There is very little you need so urgently that you can't save up for it - says the woman who moved into a French farmhouse without heating, bathroom, useable kitchen and only one electric outlet in a back room... And that's the answer to the OP's 3-year-old question: If you can't afford to live in the way you want to live where you are now, you either compromise on your way of life or you move into a part of the world where you can afford to live!
May or maybe not much help but, I live alone and have for years, I have recently fairly recently bought my own house a mortgage on it and still own a car that I've had from new with no claims still before I had it. I don't spend money on the same pointless things as my friends, but as you can see from my past purchases wishlist, I spend plenty of money on here. If you have kids, then you have another problem entirely, but I ensure that I have the best bank accounts, credit cards, utility suppliers and insurance I can find. The 2 latter ones save me a lot of money on what I could be paying. My banking and credit card habit maybe not the best recommendations for most.
As someone who was once a mechanic, cars are a bit of a lottery, which I have an unfair advantage in. Own what you can afford and know when not to throw money on it. I am generally a low spender and rarely bother with expensive holidays or similar. So I can suggest prioritising what you spend money on. I keep an Excel sheet documenting all the money that I own and owe and keep e calendar reminders of payments and so on.
Best thing I can suggest is figure out what you have and where you spend it, and decide from there what needs to go. For housing you could take advantage of schemes like help2buy if you need to get on the property ladder.
*BUMPITY BUMP*
Yep, me and my OH are still looking to move out to a new place together! I am currently trying to arrange viewings and was wondering if anyone had any tips on estate agent's fees, how to haggle for rent prices and what to look out for when viewing a property! (Any warning signs etc.)
I know about asking where the stopcock is, and gas, leccy, water bills, meters etc, checking lights and plumbing... Just wondered if anyone had any hints/tips! Thanks :)
Essentially you have to make a choice between living alone and being skint or living in a houseshare and having money to save/go out. I am currently on sickness benefits but I'm hoping my health will improve enough that I'll be able to begin working in the next year. I won't be on a huge income (probably 22k) and I live in Central London. I've done the calculations and it is just about doable. Use an income tax calculator to work out your take home pay then budget for everything (rent, gas, electricity, phone, Internet, council tax, TV license if you have a TV, netflix, travel, food). What you are left with is money for clothes, going out etc.
I have friends that earn more than that and claim they can't live alone on that amount but I also have friends that earn less and manage (living in a cheaper area, although still in London). Really it comes down to priorities. What is more important to you? The area, living alone, having money to buy clothes/go for a meal or the pub once a week?
Could you avoid agent's fees altogether by finding somebody to rent from privately, via ads (newspapers or internet, whereever they are in your area) or word of mouth?
As for things to look out for - I think the biggest scourge is humidity, so look out for damp spots or mould in corners, near the floor or behind furniture. Assuming you are not searching for some isolated place I'd also try to talk to the neighbours - firstly to find out whether anything's wrong with the property or its surroundings, secondly to get a feeling for whether you want to live next door to them.
But then that assumes that you are in a renter's market - when I last rented I was happy to even get the place (there were two other people viewing it)!
It may be worth checking out housing association houses - they seem to be much cheaper to rent than private lets.
Good luck. I have always lived with family, a roommate or a partner but went through a time where partner lost their job and had to live off mine longer than expected. Frankly it was incredibly stressful living month to month and having no savings at the time. You will need to budget for emergencies hon.
It's depressing to think i'll never live alone, but it is almost a certainty. 26, disabled, never even finished highschool properly due to ill health, unlikely to ever be capable of working and if i ever was it would be part time likely less than minimum wage.