Sunnypad wrote:Ebenezer - was this before you could get contributions based JSA?
Whoops! Only just saw that question.
No. Several reasons why that wouldn't work.
First, those savings ran out in 2002, but I had last made enough money to pay contributions some years earlier.
Second, since I had my business and its income for the previous year was just over the level of JSA (though far short of either rent or housing benefit), I wasn't eligible. Hence the 270% "effective" tax rate: the benefits I lost were 270% of my total income.
Third, and probably most important, they deemed that anyone trying to run a business was not available for work. My assurance that I could start a proper paying job the day after being offered it wasn't good enough: I couldn't be doing anything productive. Pursuing this line a little further, I found the same would apply if I admitted to voluntary work for any kind of charity.
Having said that, it eventually paid off. ADSL arrived in 2004, which was my transitional year: still in poverty by SJW standards, but felt rich. I could then spend real time online, and the well-paid work started to appear, so since 2005 I've been much better-off. Though I should add: I've met others in similar straits since then.
Sunnypad wrote:Didds, I was thinking the coffee shop crowd weren't interested in alcohol and that's why they're in a coffee shop.
There's a time for coffee and a time for booze. They are, to a first order approximation, morning and evening respectively.
Lootman wrote:That's exactly the thing. Historically it has made far more sense to borrow to get onto the property ladder than actually try and save. I remember buying my first London home in 1980 and, like you, thought I couldn't afford it
Agreed. Back then much more so than now - when we do at least have a somewhat-functioning rental market.
My first immediate boss was just a couple of years older than me, and had bought his run-down one-bed flat in 1981. He was pretty clear he couldn't have afforded it a couple of years later. Neither could I, and with prices rising at 20%/year I could see no prospect. Nothing to do with the mortgage repayments (which would certainly have been cheaper than rent in those days), but I couldn't get the mortgage in the first place. Once I fled London I could have been eligible for a mortgage, but was instead held back by the instability of short-term jobs and the need to move around where I could get work.