To those who own a house,car AND horse without great paid job

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Rachel_91

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Please inform me how you manage to afford it all?!

I dont quite yet own a house but me and the fella looking to move out and next year my dad is going to stop paying for my car :'( and in August i buying the horse of my dreams but all i seem to be doing in panicing about how i will afford it all because at the moment i dont earn great wages!

R x
 
Well I suppose unless you win the lottery or find a rich man i'm not sure how you can do it without earning good money. Its not just buying things initially its the cost of keeping / maintaining them thereafter.

Some people have all those things but maybe not expensive ones ie have the horse but run around in a banger car or live in a cheaper area of smaller house, its just what your priorities are I guess.

Also you sound young and as you get older and more established in your career things get easier.
 
Well, I must admit, I don't do too badly...

I'm on £16000 a year, I also have a part-time job in a night club that gives me about an extra £50 a week. I pay £750 to my joint account to cover mortgage, council tax, water rates, bills, shopping, petrol etc. for the house. £60 for harry's livery each month, £150-200 credit cards (will be so glad on they're cleared!!) along with a couple of other things (horse insurance, mobile bill etc). I don't have much left over afterwards (£100-£200), but it's enough, as long as I don't keep buying random horsey things hehe... Plus the fact I get paid each week from part-time job definitely helps.

Luckily, my OH is very good to me and tends to pay for treats and stuff coz he knows I use most of my spare money on Harry :) So it's definitely do able.

Oh, and this would be a lot easier if I wasn't still paying off uni stuff (hence credit cards) and I will eventually claw my way back out of my overdraft, some day... :D

I even manage to put a little bit into savings if I have a good month. Next thing I want to save up for it a little horsebox or a trailer... That's a while off though me thinks!!

p.s. I'm 22 so pretty young and I manage it :) Though I don't go out loads or drink lots. Then again, I work at a night club so that is almost like going out, defo a good giggle :D
 
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Don't want to p*ss on your fireworks and hope you get all you dream of but I was in a similar position when I was younger. Wanted to buy a house, have a horse, whilst running a home and car and for me I just couldn't risk jeopardising it all so decided I couldn't have it all. We bought the house and obviously paid the bills satisfactorily and only when we were sure as sure could be we could afford a horse we got one.

Not saying it can't be done, many do do it but if you are unsure how you are going to manage perhaps its better to do things slowly rather than overwhelm yourself and your finances.

As I say, I really hope you get all you dream of.
 
Yea well what i have worked out is i get 810pm (wages being reveiwed soon i believe) then from that i would go half on the car with my fella (when it comes to it), Pay for luxuries and food and petrol (when we move out, as boyfriend wages cover mortagage and bills) then the horsey and general other bits and bobs like mobile phone bill!


But then might b goin back to uni soon so that may be a problem but i also have a girl interested in loaning my horse and i always think that if i struggle i can always put her out on full loan for a year if i really had too?!

when i but it like that dont sound too bad! But dont help my boyfriend hates horses and see's them as a waste of money etc but it been my lifelong dream to own a horse and now my dream horse (i know some think they dont exist but my one really does) has come along to me!

R x
 
For years this was my life: I live in a very cheap "deprived area" in a wreck of a house we could only just get a mortgage on. At one point the wiring was so unsafe we had to turn the power off every time we left the house and also overnight. I drive an ancient car. I don't have holidays. I rarely buy clothes and even then they will be charity shop. We rarely eat out, we rarely even go out. I haven't had my hair cut since I was 18. I haven't ever had my hair coloured professionally nor had a manicure or my nails done. Nearly all my horses' tack is second hand. We don't have fancy TV / stereo / computers. We have the cheapest tariff mobile phones. We don't buy ready made meals but grow our own and cook from scratch. I keep my horses at home so I don't have livery fees although I did have to feed forage. My horses are unshod. If I want to drink I make beer or wine (beer was 9p per pint home made, wine even less as not from a kit. I don't smoke. If I can walk or bicycle I will, using the car as little as possible. Homemade sweets and / or a selection of homemade jams is an acceptable christmas present when you are rotten poor - anyone who doesn't appreciate it doesn't get one next year. If there's no money left in the kitty at the end of the month we eat baked potatoes, bought from the farm gate. We don't eat any meat we haven't caught or grown ourselves.

Life has changed now and tbh at my age if I had to struggle like that I wouldn't have so many (if any) horses but I did it for year after year after year when I was younger.
 
Rachel_91 said:
Yea well what i have worked out is i get 810pm (wages being reveiwed soon i believe) then from that i would go half on the car with my fella (when it comes to it), Pay for luxuries and food and petrol (when we move out, as boyfriend wages cover mortagage and bills) then the horsey and general other bits and bobs like mobile phone bill!


But then might b goin back to uni soon so that may be a problem but i also have a girl interested in loaning my horse and i always think that if i struggle i can always put her out on full loan for a year if i really had too?!

when i but it like that dont sound too bad! But dont help my boyfriend hates horses and see's them as a waste of money etc but it been my lifelong dream to own a horse and now my dream horse (i know some think they dont exist but my one really does) has come along to me!

R x
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You need to get those figures firmly sorted out with your boyfriend BEFORE you decide to buy the horse or move in together. You need to do a proper budget with all your expenses on it and work out whether you can afford it, because what you gaily term as "luxuries" are very unlikely to be affordable and he may well find that he can't cope with you spending money on the horse, which will cause terrible tension and wont make living together very pleasant if, as he sees it, YOUR horse is forcing HIM to live on the breadline.

Sorry, seen it happen too many times. Unless your boyfriend has an equally expensive hobby AND you each have enough left over after everything is paid to easily afford it your having a horse will cause too much resentment.
 
Its do-able but sacrifices have to be made as jemima_too pointed out.

I plan to buy when i graduate uni. I will have ajob which will pay for a horse/ car but not a house.

When i get the job i want i will be able to afford it all....

right now though - i dont go on holiday - i shop at matalan etc - sacrifice now and it pays off long term too :)
 
I'm so luckily that my boyfriend has taken a massive shining to Harry and couldn't think of ebing without him now. I must admit, he does make things easier. I won't let him pay for anything horse related but he looks after him when I go away and treats me when I can't treat myself. It does make a massive difference
 
I do have a well paid job but I also have a morgage so large its not true so I'm used to having to live on a budget.

I would say to think very carefully about how much having a horse is going to cost you. I keep a record of everything I spend and once you count absolutely everything I struggle to get my costs under £250 a month. If you are paying livery, insurance, shoes, feed, bedding etc even the essential mount up and then on top of that you'll need to be able to afford vet, dentist, back, saddle checks as and when necessary. Don't underestimate the little bits and the one offs as its amazing how many one offs there end up being.

If you do decide to go ahead with everything then work out a tight budget and stick to it. I don't buy new clothes, I rarely go out, I don't tend to have holidays and there isn't much spare at the end of the month.
 
Rachel_91 said:
Please inform me how you manage to afford it all?!

I dont quite yet own a house but me and the fella looking to move out and next year my dad is going to stop paying for my car :'( and in August i buying the horse of my dreams but all i seem to be doing in panicing about how i will afford it all because at the moment i dont earn great wages!

R x
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Sorry to keep going on but my own daughter will be going through a similar thing shortly. The smart move would have been to every month put aside from your wages the amount your dad currently pays for your car. Now, I'd be really impressed if you said "Oh but we've saved up for a deposit on the house by putting aside the equivalent of the bills we're going to have to pay but don't currently" but I strongly suspect that you won't have done that.

Assuming you haven't saved already you need to get that budget done asap and put aside all the money you will be spending when you move out so that you have a bit of a rainy day fund. If you get used to poverty now it won't seem quite so bad when it's for real and you have got a house together and a horse as something to show for it.
 
On £800 pcm I don't think you can do all of that, unless your OH has a good job and is happy to pay most of the bills.

Seriously, when I was on that kind of money many moons ago I couldn't afford to move out, whilst running a car, never mind buy a horse. And this was before the house prices went stupid, and I live in a relatively inexpensive area of the country.

You need to do a realistic budget. There is a tool for doing this if you visit www.moneysavingexpert.com work out what you will have to pay for all your bills, add in your car expenses and see what is left, I bet there won't be enough to keep a horse unless he is a good doer with no shoes and you have free use of a stable and field.

Make sure you establish with you OH who pays what and in what proportion before you move out too. You do not want to get yourself in debt.

Bear in mind the following:
Mortgage/Rent
Council Tax
Buildings and contents insurance
Water
Electric
Gas
TV licence
Phone
Broadband
Mobile
Car tax
Car insurance
petrol
Car servicing and MoT
Food Shopping (including things like wash powder, toiletries, etc)
Clothes (you do need some)
Christmas and Birthday Presents
Holidays
Hobbies and going out (exclude the horse for now)
Repayment of any existing debt
Saving (allow something one day you will need to replace your car/washing machine/tv etc)

Then if after all that there is any money left over add up the horse expenses:
Livery
Insurance
Feed and Forage
Farrier
Dentist/Back/physio
Replacement of equipment
Vets bills not covered by insurance
Bedding


It is really important that you are realistic about all this, if you aren't you will end up in debt and you won't be able to repay it. There are lots of people out there in trouble just because they spennd a little bit more than they earn every month and eventually it catches up.

Just have a look at that website, there are some good clues on what everything costs if you look at the threads on debt management plans as people have to do budgets like this.

Also remember that when you do move out you will need to have enough saved to buy things for the house, like a bed, a sofa, a washing machine etc.
 
It's not easy basically but do-able.

I'm 24 and have all 3, I don't come from a well off family and neither me nor my OH have fantastically paid jobs.

We live in a lovely area in a newly built spacious 2 bed flat which is shared ownership. Basically we own half of the flat for which we pay a mortgage on and we rent the other half which belongs to the housing trust. However we are free to buy the other half of the flat as and when we can afford to. It's too good to be true in a way as we pay under £500 a month each for our mortgage, rent, all bills and council tax, internet etc so really it's an absolute steal, we are very lucky as to even rent a tiny flat around us is easily £800 rent alone.

I have a native pony so he's very low maintenence, in total he costs me around £250 a month for everything, although the yard we are on is lovely and 5mins from home so I'm happy to pay a bit extra.

My car is an 8 years old 1.2 so cheap to run, tax, insure etc. I just make sure I look after it.

I don't own any credit cards or loans and I always make sure I put something away into savings - very useful seeing as my pony needed the vet last month! These are big financial commitments your talking about taking on, think long and hard about whether you are in a position to do all 3 at once before going ahead, and that your OH is truely happy to do so too. There are hidden costs in everything, maybe the horse could wait a little while longer.
 
Archie07 said:
It's not easy basically but do-able.

I'm 24 and have all 3, I don't come from a well off family and neither me nor my OH have fantastically paid jobs.

We live in a lovely area in a newly built spacious 2 bed flat which is shared ownership. Basically we own half of the flat for which we pay a mortgage on and we rent the other half which belongs to the housing trust. However we are free to buy the other half of the flat as and when we can afford to. It's too good to be true in a way as we pay under £500 a month each for our mortgage, rent, all bills and council tax, internet etc so really it's an absolute steal, we are very lucky as to even rent a tiny flat around us is easily £800 rent alone.

I have a native pony so he's very low maintenence, in total he costs me around £250 a month for everything, although the yard we are on is lovely and 5mins from home so I'm happy to pay a bit extra.

My car is an 8 years old 1.2 so cheap to run, tax, insure etc. I just make sure I look after it.

I don't own any credit cards or loans and I always make sure I put something away into savings - very useful seeing as my pony needed the vet last month! These are big financial commitments your talking about taking on, think long and hard about whether you are in a position to do all 3 at once before going ahead, and that your OH is truely happy to do so too. There are hidden costs in everything, maybe the horse could wait a little while longer.
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So your rent/mortgage is just short of £500 a month each, and your horse £250 a month, that is £750 a month. On OP's wages she would have £60 a month to run her car and pay her share of all the bills and insurances. Not possible.
 
I don't own a house, but I rent a flat, its through housing association so is cheaper and I've got it forever.

I'm borrowing my grandads car at the moment, but am looking for a cheap car so I can give it back.

I do however have 2 ponies they are cheap to keep though.

1 holiday a year. I'm on maternity leave at the moment which is making us struggle a bit. But just always seem to get by, even with sky hd, 2 contract mobiles and internet at home. We manage and have the things we want... Still saving for an audi a4 though.
 
To be honest you need to think very carefully. I was earning just shy of £800 a month when I finished uni. I had a shared student house that we kept after graduating. Rent was £230 a month. Bills came to about £100 a month including council tax. My car insurance was £50 a month, phone bill £30, credit cards (from student living) £30. About £60 a week for food and travel so £240 a month.

So far that is £680 a month!! I shared Monty for £60 a month and was left with..............Jack ****e!! :D
 
we have a very delicate balance, hubby pays morgage, all household bills & car tax & i pay for all food, everything our children need (3,2 & 10 weeks), fuel & the 2 ponies.

its damned hard but i manage on less than £500 a month (i am lucky i get tyres from my father at cost price).
 
Boyfriend doesn't like horses! & that's BEFORE you get one! Forget it! believe me unless they worship the ground you walk on & are willing to be your slave for ever & always put you first it won't work out! I'm not young now but when we first set up home together he knew my ambition was to have a horse & eventually my own place with land etc. there were things he wanted as well so we wrote a list taking turns to add to it, of the things we wanted. We stuck list inside a cupboard & decided how we were going to achieve these things. We bought a house but no new furniture, carpets etc! Everything second hand or family cast offs. No holidays for the first 10 yrs. No new or fashionable clothes, no discos / nights out, we brewed our own beer, (neither of us smoked), drove an old banger & both worked full time as well as having at least one part time job. We only ate one main meal a day after work & for 2 years our menu was exactly the same every week unless someone invited us out or we had friends in. I could write a book - 1001 ways to cook mince! 10 yrs later we had a small place with land & I got my horse! We saved & worked for everything & often did without things but had our list to spur us on. Yes it was very hard but worth it. We're still together & enjoying the fruits of our labour. Sadly many young people today seem to want everything & want it now, a reflection on society I think. You can do it if you are prepared to go without & can prioritise & budget carefully. Bear in mind costs will rise & your income might not!
 
Rachel,

I live just up the road from you - the cheapest you will be able to keep a horse around here is £250 a month, that's assuming grass livery, no facilities, shoeless, insurance less than £30 a month - oh and on cheap yards, you don't mind hacking along the A127 to off road riding, do you?:eek: That's more than a quarter of your salary.....


I really don't mean to rain on your parade:o but if BF isn't supportive now before the reality of being a horse widower bites, IME he ain't going to improve when it happens!

TBH, a horse is a very expensive luxury and since your life (by the sounds of it) already has a lot of changes going on - maybe a horse is something to look at a year from now? There's always part loans or shares in the mean time.

LOL,I don't expect you'll listen to us old fogies who've made the mistakes - I wouldn't have at your age either :D

Out of interest, ok nosyness:owhere were you planning on keeping yours?
 
Im on a fairly low paid job (mid-level administrator) and have a house, car and two horses.

My house is a shared ownership house. I had looked at flats, all I could get on the mortgage i'd been offered was a one bed TINY studio flat. Gave up that idea as i have several dogs. Then someone I worked with mentioned looking into shared ownership. Googled it, checked the criteria with the local council (you have to meet certain criteria eg. working in the area, having family in the area, having a income less than X amount etc etc) and applied. Within a month I had been offered a 2 bed end terrace house on a lovely new development on the outskirts of town and just 10 mins walk from where i kept my horses!! It is an ideal first step onto the housing ladder for those with a lower income. It is not cheap exactly, you have to pay your mortgage still (mines about £300 a month for half the value of the house) then you also have to pay rent on "half" the house, which for mine works out about £130 a month. But if i'd wanted one of those tiny flats, i'd have been looking at a mortgage of around £750 a month. Then obviously bills and stuff are ontop of that. Most of my furniture was given to me by friends and family so nothing matches lol And the only new stuff is my dogs beds!! lol But im happy and its home.

My horses live at grass (were at livery for about 6 months while fences in my fields were repaired as it was awful fencing before!!) and I only pay £60 a month for that so thats cheap! My insurance for both of them is about £300 a year, they are not shod so that saves on too many scary farrier bills but I obviously I have unavoidable expense like worming, food etc. But my two are very low maintenance compared to many others.

My car is my only huge expense - they cost a fortune with petrol prices at the moment!! But its pretty reliable :)

I will admit I dont have much left over at the end of the month, im lucky if I can afford to go out once a month so my social life mostly consists of my friends coming over here and bringing booze :D But i dont mind that. As long as my animals are paid for im happy with that. I have only recently found a job after being made redundant and being unemployed for the last 8 months. That was the worst time in my life, it was a huge struggle day to day and I got me very depressed when the months without a job dragged on. I wouldnt have got through that without help from my family with the horses livery, and just before I found a job I had estate agents around to value my house to sell as I didnt think i could afford it any longer.
 
hi, just thought id share our way of managing!
I have a fairly well paid job and my other half has a minimum wage job, I was paying a fortune for rent and horse livery etc so we trailed our local area and found an old cottage that had been empty for 50 years + which had land and outbuildings. We offered the owner to do it up if we could have very cheap rent and a long lease. We have been here for 18 months now, the house had no kitchen or bathrooms and only cold water when we moved in. We worked on the place every spare minute and its now livable! but we have literally done everything including plumbing/building/putting in double glazing/fencing/building.I now have everything I ever wanted, horses at home, lovely space for the dogs to run and I pay in total for rent less than I was paying just for livery before. I would say if you have a dream it might be achievable but with a bit of lateral thinking abd preparing to rough it a bit!!
and lastly I dont really go out or buy new clothes but have a glass of wine and relax in the house we rebuilt!
 
Widget, I think that would only work if you both shared the dream, which you obviously do. In Op's case though it doesn't seem to be the same at all, her BF isn't interested in horses.
Op, I think you should listen very carefully to the people here who are telling you to think twice. You're very, very tight on funds, and then, you might go to Uni! Loaning may or may not be the answer to that, but what are you going to do if you are at Uni and your loaner returns your horse? Apart from all of this, if you expect your boyfriend to pay the bulk of your living expenses so that you can fund horse ownership you're setting up your relationship for trouble from the start. Take it from us who have been there, done it.
 
Dump the unhorsey OH and buy some land and a carvan!!!!!!
hey seriously dont get into debt except a affordable morgage... loans and card borrowing will make you poor.....
 
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yes i totally agree you both have to be crackers (sorry share the dream!) to do what we did but just a suggestion to look for a cheaper house if your prepared to do work on it?. Maybe go to uni and look for someone who just wants a horse riding (weekends etc to fit in with uni) and then hopefully get a better job after uni to purchase a horse. Horses are expensive at the best of times and it would be horrible to be put in a position of not being able to do it 'properly' mine live out all summer and arent shod but then in the winter they need rugs and haylage and extra feed plus even with insurance things need doing teeth,back or things break and need replacing I would never even try to budget for a horse as what you pay out normally exceeds this!!
 
I think you both need to share all bills not just you pay for some and he pays for others. As others have said there are lots of bills etc which are not on there. what happens if house needs repairs? burst pipes etc. I have a quite well paid job but debts and have just brought lorry too. I also do any on call that is going so do at least a week a month. yes we do have our own house and holiday and both have cars but we are not extravagent we dont go out much,horse is on grass livery and unshod and does not get lots of rugs etc she has one of each and thats it. we budget and put money away. i am 30.
 
Blimey, sat here reading this feeling guilty about everything my OH pays for and does for me especially as he'd never been near a horse/dog/cat before meeting me......am off to put the hoover round!! Would say one thing, you definately need to get the horse ownership and cost thing sorted with your fella first. I was very definate that I came as a package deal and that the time I spent with the horses wasn't going to change (though in effect it has as I love spending time with the OH! ).
 
The horse and now horses (2) are the main source of arguments between me and OH, and he was supportive at first. That was when I worked in London in a well paid job, he moaned about time but not the money. Then I moved to follow him to a new job in SW, salaries were much less, and I had a lot of time unemployed / on minimum wage. Since then he hasn't stopped moaning about money. Now I'm earning a third less than I was in London and am slowly getting out of debt but he still complains about the money and time I spend.

You have to get the horse issue out of the way with your OH or it will destroy your relationship. Money issues are difficult enough to handle if both of you aren't pulling in the same situation.

I'm perfectly happy being broke, not buying new clothes (unless they're cheap / supermarket / charity shops), not getting haircuts, growing own food etc, he's not - he has very different spending habits to me and even now after 14 years together it's a massive strain.

Don't put yourself under this strain.
 
Katt said:
So your rent/mortgage is just short of £500 a month each, and your horse £250 a month, that is £750 a month. On OP's wages she would have £60 a month to run her car and pay her share of all the bills and insurances. Not possible.
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Obviously it's not possible for the OP, I was surely talking about my situation as that is what she originally asked, for others experience/ situations. Thought that was pretty obvious.
 
Sorry, I'm your age and until last month (was made redundant) was earning around £1700 pcm, and I didn't feel in a position to move out - my OH earns similar (I was on £21.5k, hes on £23k) and we didn't feel it was possible - probably is, but we have three horses between us (two mine, one his), he likes his fast cars etc etc.

Mine would in no way begrudge my horses - how could he, his eats more than mine put together! :P Still it wouldn't be fun.
 
i am 23, have a mortgage with OH, an 06 Mini and 2 horses on full livery.

when we got the mortgage i had 3 x horses on diy and was earning around £1000/month after tax.

thankfully wages are higher now but horses on full livery brings my cashflow back down again!

it is possible but you need to get a spreadsheet with every single little cost on it- i run a spreadsheet and update it a few times a week.
 
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