Can you run me through how you managed to purchase, upgrade and pay off a house in 9 years on a low wage?
I know this has been covered now but in generic terms surely it all comes down to how much the house cost in the first place. Paying off a house costing under £50k in 9 years isn't that unbelievable, do £500/month and that's what £54k paid which I guess isn't far off covering the interest.
Personal circumstances are not relevant, everyone has their own choices and lives. Earning the same means you are starting at the same place.
A person earning more is doing better, the only exception are perks of the job. I.e. TFL employee's have free travel, my colleague spends £200 a month, and so that would be worth £3500 pre-tax.
Not argue, earning more does not make you spend any more, it allows you to.
A person can spend their money however they like. But you can never justify spending more then complaining X is not enough, if you are say, above the average even.
Yeah I've never really bought into this "oh if you earn more your outgoes scale with it so you aren't really any better off", because people conveniently overlook the benefits they get from their increasing spending, i.e. they live in a much more expensive house than someone else, drive a nicer car etc. That's a choice they've made.
Since buying this house my gross income has increased by about 5x (takehome more like 3.5-4x) and my wife's by about 30%. Mortgage and student loan is paid off, didn't just rush out and buy a nicer house (although in hindsight with property market trends we'd have been better off doing so!). Car is worth about £6.5-7k so nothing too fancy. Haven't taken an overseas holiday since 2012. Now part of that is down to having kids which admittedly does cost a lot but I've also taken the opportunity to grow savings a fair bit. The one area I am majorly deficient in is pension, statement the other day said I should expect not much more than £300/month when I retire haha, so I need to sort that out. My pension pot is actually smaller than my ISA pot! I've let myself down a lot here because I regard myself as pretty savvy with money, good at maths etc but I've always made excuses around pensions, some sort of irrational fear of locking money away "oh but what if we want to move house I might need both the capital and not want my income to look lower on a mortgage application"
Anyway the point is I don't really think about money in the sense of "how much do I have, can I afford to buy X, now I'm earning this much what should I spend my money on, if I max out a mortgage what mansion could I move to?.." etc. Earning more money allows me to not really care about it that much, I just build up some funds, occasionally splurge some of it, whilst I'm certainly not rich I'm also secure enough to not be worrying about where the next pay cheque is coming from in the short term. I took 4 months out of work between jobs recently, and at no point was I getting concerned about it. And that's not me saying "check me out, billy big shot" but more an illustration that earning more can take away a lot of money pressures if you aren't playing keeping up with the joneses. If we had done a house move to a big house, family holiday to Disneyland, flash motor etc then maybe I'd have less flexibility/security.
. I doubted it as our house (a 3 bed detached), cost 68k when it was built in 1996 so that's why yours seems suspiciously low.
can carve ourselves a reasonable life, yeah so house B in Cornwall was 100k (pfft wtf ect) , I know the jury found me innocent (not a majority) of the purchase price of house A, but.............. a lot of work involved but tbh not that much (garden was an wild jungle), its just how some of us poor people roll ,making the right decisions and investments ,gambles outside of work if a decent wage cant be had ,i dont think i am good enough at anything to paid well from it
