Stay-at-home mum in my 50s - how can I gain financial independence?

Hey heather, thanks for your podcast, I find it incredibly useful because it's UK specific and everything else I find seems to be geared towards the US.

Anyhow, my name's Dee, I'm in my 50s and have been a military stay-at-home mum all my adult life although I went to university. Being a military wife has exposed me to so many countries and cultures which I love but you do sometimes encounter traumatic things so it's nice to settle in the UK.

My family currently rents and all our adult children live at home including one that is dependent.

We'd like to get on the property ladder but have been struggling with when and whether to do it. In the past I've left all the money stuff to my husband but now that the children are older I'd also like to start earning an income and I've been considering investment property. I want to gain some financial independence and I'd love to be able to help the children out financially.

I am so ready to make up for the time I spent raising children. I don't know if it was stupid not to use my degree sooner but I guess better late than never.

Keep helping with your posts! Thanks.

The Money Spot™ - UK Personal Finance · #34 Stay at home mum in her 50s - how can I gain financial independence

Hi D,
 
Thank you for this question that covers a very wide range of things. I am also very sorry that you have experienced something traumatic. Your life choices are not stupid, many women find themselves in circumstances that mean they have to stay at home with the kids for whatever reason so your question may well resonate with lots of other mums.
 
Being in my mid to late 30s, you will forgive me for providing what might sound like a slightly optimistic review of your situation.
 
Your question as it is framed requires me to speak to:
1.Providing for your children particularly the dependent child with medical needs;
2.Buying property as a home;
3.Buying property as an investment;
4.Earning an income for yourself;
 
PROVIDING FOR YOUR CHILDREN
By letting your adult children to stay at home rent free you are doing plenty. That alone should allow them to save for their own property deposits and is a financial boost many people including myself did not have. If I could have lived at home rent, free, that would have had me on the property ladder a lot sooner.
 
The other thing you could do is direct them to read the type of personal finance books that will give them ideas for how they can be financially responsible so that you don’t need to worry about them. I recommend The Richest Man in Babylon and The Millionaire Next Door as good starting points.
 
Does your child with medical needs financial support from you as well as general support for all their living? I won’t touch too much upon this except to say that make sure that you are accessing all the state benefits you can for the child’s support including the carer’s allowance if it is applicable.
 
BUYING A HOME
 
Firstly, as far as the UK is concerned I always advise that, if you get nothing else right, at least buy your own home.
 
From your message, it’s not clear whether or not you and your husband discuss finances but I am guessing that this may not be the case. Firstly, I would try to get the two of you on the same page. Working as a team when it comes to building wealth can really supercharge your financial health.
 
The UK property market is completely different to the US property market in so many ways so I’d be a little careful before taking advice on property from US authors and podcasters (lots of property advice on the internet tends to be US-focused that’s why I bring this up). To begin with the population density of the UK is 281 per Km2 (727 people per mi2); population density in the United States is 36 per Km2 (94 people per mi2). What does this mean? It means that UK property in many areas doesn’t see price crashes (too many people, too little land) and there is a propensity for house prices to be sticky upwards.
 
In addition, because US mortgages are fixed for the full term of 25 years whereas UK fixed terms are only for 3, 5, 7 or 10 years, interest rates are much lower in the UK compared to the US (almost half). The result of this is that very often the interest you pay on your mortgage is much much lower than rent. As an example, I live on a street where the rents range from £1,200 to £1,500, however, the interest we pay on our mortgage is just £350 (it was a 25% deposit mortgage). The full monthly mortgage payment is almost £1,000 but everything above the interest of £350 is money that will come back to us if we sell our home.
 
So, provided you can get a good deposit together, you will save a lot of money by buying a home rather than renting. In the long run owning where you live will give you a lot of security including the psychological comfort it provides.
 
At 50-something, you are not too old to get a mortgage and may even be able to get a mortgage of 20+ years, however, if you owned property abroad and sold it when you left then it’s worth buying the home outright.
 
State pension
 
Another thing to consider with regard to your financial security is that even the full UK state pension only pays £175/week per person (about £759/month) this would be double for a couple. If you live in a home that’s been completely paid off, no mortgage, then you can survive on the state pension relatively comfortably.
 
However, as you have lived abroad for many years you need to contact HMRC to see how many qualifying years you have. Your UK State Pension will be based on your UK National Insurance record. You need 10 years of UK National Insurance contributions to be eligible for any amount of the new State Pension and for people my age 35 years of credit are needed to get the full entitlement, you may be in the generation that only needs 30 years of credit.
 
You may be able to use time spent abroad to make up the 10 qualifying years. This is most likely if you’ve lived or worked in:

• The European Economic Area;
• Gibraltar;
• Switzerland; and
• certain countries that have a social security agreement with the UK.

 
I would contact HMRC as soon as possible (link above) and ask what you need to do or pay to increase your entitlement to the UK state pension.
 
You may get National Insurance credits if you cannot work - for example because of illness or disability, or if you’re a carer or you’re unemployed.
 
You might also be able to pay voluntary National Insurance contributions if you’re not in one of these groups but want to increase your State Pension amount.
 
BUYING AN INVESTMENT PROPERTY
 
I recently read David Tarn’s “The Complete No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming a UK Property Investor: The 1-2-3 on Property Investing” and found it useful on the topic. The author is based in the North of England where property is much cheaper. He is into buying property and letting out the whole house to a single group like a family – so, standard single let properties.
 
In addition, I would recommend The Inside Property Investing podcast. There are over 300 episodes, if you binge listen to the episodes that appear interesting, you will move up the knowledge curve rapidly. The ‘Inside Property Investing’ podcasters are themselves heavily into High Multiple Occupancy properties (this is when you let a single property out to 3 or more unrelated people like students or professionals). However, the beauty of the podcast is that they regularly interview people on the show that follow a variety of different property investment strategies.
 
Don’t pay for any overly expensive property course before you’ve gained all the knowledge that is available for free or almost free – a friend of mine recently paid £24,000 for a property course, she went 50-50 with her daughter and even had to put some of the cost on a credit card! You’ve been warned.
 
For the basics on property investing I have a course up on Udemy for under £50. This will give you all the basic knowledge you need about the property buying process in the UK.
 
EARNING
 
There are many jobs out there. If you just want to boost your confidence and get some money rolling in there are plenty of jobs out there provided you are not too picky about the pay as long as you get your foot in the door. If you want to build a work life for yourself have a look on jobs boards at what’s going and start applying. If you want to build a career within a specific field related to your field of study consider taking a course to freshen up your skills.
 
I have no idea what your salary expectations are but median UK income for 2020 is 30,800 according to the ONS. After tax that would bring home just over £2,000/month; if due to covid etc you secured a job with a salary of £24,000/year, that’s still £1,600/month which definitely isn’t shabby especially if your husband earns too. A GQ article gives an interesting breakdown on age, occupation and the covid-19 pandemic’s impact on earnings.
 
 
I hope this helps. Far from thinking you are too old. I am feeling soooo excited for you. This is a fresh start and even over a 15 year period you can build an amazing life and financial cushion.
 
Good luck.