[beermaddavep]

Sadly even a well paid full time job is no guarantee of regular rail trips(unless youre a train driver)-I averaged 4 long distance GB trips in the last 4 years- best advice I can give is live it up at mum/dads in employment after finishing uni/college/school and make sure you go on any dream trips BEFORE getting into the mortgage/kids rat race cos after that unless youre lucky you can forget it until retirement. Also make sure that you don't overstretch yourself when looking for somewhere to live- a nice but costly house can very quickly become a gilded cage.

PS fast cars are nice but a sporty classic is cheaper to insure, also a good TDi such as a polo 1.9 will easily burn off most petrol hatches and still do 70mpg....

[Simming]

getting a house in cornwall is only possible if you fit into 3 catorgaries

a) loaded
b) minted
c) rolling in it

house prices in cornwall are way too high, because of all the ****in emmets we get!

[devon_metro]

Emmets... Any chance Grockels?

Bloody people who decide to buy 2 homes and only live in it for 1 month!

[TheSlash]

My car does Portsmouth to Shepherds Well {Dover} return, on £30. It used to do 5 return trips from my house to Eastleigh, via the back roads {so lots of high revving, changing gears etc} for about £30 aswell.
Looking at that car of yours, i can see why it is eating £60.... cruising?

[Simming]

Originally Posted by TheSlash

My car does Portsmouth to Shepherds Well {Dover} return, on £30. It used to do 5 return trips from my house to Eastleigh, via the back roads {so lots of high revving, changing gears etc} for about £30 aswell.
Looking at that car of yours, i can see why it is eating £60.... cruising?

Him and his chav mates go cruzing around I bet :blackeye:

[TheSlash]

Where the **** did you get £495 for RAC membership?? 74.9p/l?

[AlexS]

Originally Posted by Royalscot

THE average cost of motoring has risen to £5,000 a year for the eight million owners of cars that are less than three years old, according to the RAC.

There was me thinking that you had to be 17 to drive :glasses7:

[Mojo]

Depreciation is irrelevant for most cars - for me I see them as a disposable asset - and not everyone buys a new car!
My sister pays about £160 for a "premium" package from the AA, and my mum & dad pay £150/annum for fully comp insurance, £0 on maintanence as Toyotas never break down (had the car 4 yr) + about £240 on tax.
Also missing from that list is Parking charges, Petrol around here retails for about 92.9p too.

[eezypeazy]

I have holidayed in the West Country regularly over the years. For the past 3 years, I've driven from Tyneside, picking up the inlaws in Sheffield, the five of us going in one car. The holiday costs me about £1,300 for the five of us, plus whatever we spend on lunches, beer and visits when we're there, and £80 or so in petrol.

So, singlehandedly, I have propped up the economy of the South West by getting on for five grand in the last three years. Now, toursim experts will tell you that, thanks to the circulation of money, every tourist pound spent in the local economy is worth about £2.50..... which makes my contribution worth £12,500 so far.

So, rather than whingeing and calling us grockles and emmets, you should be thanking your lucky stars that we're prepared to spend two days travelling over 400 miles just to buy your overpriced clotted cream......

eezypeazy (in grumpy old man mode...)

[compsci]

I've pretty much put learning to drive on the back burner for now. A Cambridge - Z1-6 annual gold card is going to be somewhere over £4k but will get me all the transport I would ever want on a daily basis.

(Un)fortunately (depending on how you look at it) I'm probably going to have a house and the millstone mortgage to go with it by the end of the year. My parents assure me that its much better than renting in the end, and at least I can decorate it as I see fit.

(Suddenly feels very old)

[theblackwatch]

Originally Posted by compsci

(Un)fortunately (depending on how you look at it) I'm probably going to have a house and the millstone mortgage to go with it by the end of the year. My parents assure me that its much better than renting in the end, and at least I can decorate it as I see fit.

I think they're right - and my parents told me exactly the same thing. Renting a place is dead money, at least with a house, you'll (hopefully) eventually pay it off after X years.

Originally Posted by Royalscot

Wow someone with a mortgage, I thought such things were really a fairly tale what with the prices. Am I alone in saying I don't know how anyone can afford a house and car these days if you are buying now?

Or just a house even! I've been on the property ladder for less than 10 years and people would laugh if they knew how much I paid for my house, which is now worth around 3x what I paid for it. The cheapest in my area is now around £100K, its almost impossible for first time buyers now. I feel rather sorry for the younger generation on here.

[Nick W]

Originally Posted by Royalscot

the average driver spends £14 a day to keep a car on the road

Bloody cheap when you think that I was at school it cost £7.50 a day for 32 miles there and 32 miles back. And that's for less than 35mph travel...

[eezypeazy]

Originally Posted by theblackwatch

I think they're right - and my parents told me exactly the same thing. Renting a place is dead money, at least with a house, you'll (hopefully) eventually pay it off after X years.



Or just a house even! I've been on the property ladder for less than 10 years and people would laugh if they knew how much I paid for my house, which is now worth around 3x what I paid for it. The cheapest in my area is now around £100K, its almost impossible for first time buyers now. I feel rather sorry for the younger generation on here.

According to a magazine I'm reading right now, average house prices across the country vary from £133,000 in the North East and Cumbria, to £289,000 in Greater London. I work in the mortgage business, and I know it's possible for first time buyers to get mortgages at rates of under 4%. Assuming that first-time buyers can only go for the "bottom end" of the housing market, they're probably looking for something in the region of £100,000. By my reckoning, including a repayment vehicle (ie., an insurance policy, ISA or similar investment that eventually repays the capital), a first time buyer will need about £700 a month to be able to buy. Now, it depends upon what proportion of your monthly salary you are prepared to commit to your mortgage, and again this varies across the country. Us canny northerners commit about one third of our salary, southerners slightly more than half. So, on that basis, and bearing in mind taxation, a potential first time buyer probably needs to earn between £25,000 and £35,000 annually to get onto the property ladder; which is probably why most first time buyers are couples, combining their income. And, of course, most First Time Buyers also need to find a deposit, of about 5% of the purchase price - so start saving that five grand now!

Of course, the real reason that property prices are presently relatively high, is that government planning policies over the years have severely limited the supply of new housing... it's simple supply and demand.

eezypeazy

[theblackwatch]

Interesting figures there Eezypeazy. Makes the initial poster's worry about his rail trips seem rather trivial!

[Techniquest]

Thanks lads, you've got me worrying endlessly now about house prices, car prices, cost of running a car...

As for that fuel quote off the RAC, that's laughable, even last year. It's 98.9 here for unleaded as of a couple of days ago, I would NOT be surprised if we hit 99.9 again and over 100 anytime soon. Unbelievably, it is now around £6.50 to drive to Hereford and back. Bus fares are £3 each way (no return fares), so it's currently cheaper by 50p to go by bus. Out here in the sticks (well, we're officially the last town you come across when going west from central England (places like Worcester, Leominster, Hereford come to mind) to central Wales (places like Builth Wells, Rhayder and Llandrindod Wells come to mind), the border with the two countries is around 3 miles from here), public transport, apart from the 461 Kington Mill Street - Hereford Railway Station Approach and vice versa which is hourly for most of the day, stinks. To get to anywhere you need to (work, leisure travel for a day trip to Aber for just two examples), you NEED a car. But it's so expensive to fund it, we're all getting to the point where we're effectively stranded.

My Mum's house, when bought with a mortage, was £44,000, which even then was a second-hand house. It's now the best part of 2 decades old, and is valued (somehow!) around £144,000. This is in a moderately rural area, 2-bedroom terraced with 2 houses either side house. Is it worth £144k? I personally wouldn't think so. Oh, and we've some of the most expensive council tax in this county outside of London and the South East. We're in the band that is one above the 'cheapest', and is around £1,008 a year. What do we get for it? Well as of the 10th of July for 10 nights we will get little sleep with roadworks on the nearby A44 on its bypass and roundabout for this town. It's around 50 yards at a push away, and the works go on from from 6pm to 8am. Yes, a 14 hour ton of noise that'll disturb us all night. What else do we get for our council tax? Council members' pub lunches and a brand new, pointless, expensive new office in the middle of one of the traffic pinchpoints in the city centre. Yeah, a real useful way to spend our money...

Anyway, I'm rambling on. Point is everything is so expensive these days you have to wonder how anyone can afford to do it all. Oh yes, might have something to do with some people working day and night to afford their house or car, let alone anything else.

I personally dread the day when I move out of my Mum's house, where I've had to reside until I can get a job, do training for a better job and get my own place. When do I expect that to be? Hmm, I'd hazard a guess at 2007 at the very earliest, at which point I'd probably end up in £80+ p/week for just rent with no money to go bashing. Man I'm looking to that! (EXTREME sarcasm should be noted there)

I'd better scrimp and save even more. Tesco Value food I think it'll have to be again...