Interest rates in the 70s

Yes, Cath9 - my daughter doesn't believe me when I said our mortgage went up to 15%. We were terrified.

Oh I remember this so well - we seemed to get a letter every month from the building society telling us it was going up again - how did we manage? It was indeed terrifying

We moved from Staff to Leics, and due to impending birth of numero due, and bast****s letting us down at the last minute with the new house- we had to stretch above our budget to move before she arrived. We had an endowment mortgage due to health reasons, and the rate jumped to an unbelievable 19.5%.

We laugh now, but it was truly scary.

I remember it well and I was very glad that I had a fixed rate mortgage.

We bought our first house when they were at their highest, we literally had nothing to spare, if something broke, it stayed broke, we couldn’t afford heating, and we ate a lot of beans.
As they came down it was such a huge relief.

Just to add - we were newly weds so no kids - we both worked full time and DH worked every weekend overtime and I had a second job in a restaurant 2 nights a week and we were so very skint. I remember asking for more shifts at the restaurant, but of course everyone wanted them - and it wasn't so busy as no one could afford to eat out!!

Ah yes I remember it well. Desperate days. We had a £7000 mortgage which was a colossal amount to us then. 15% interest rate. Nailbiting times. The ACs don't believe us.

It was terrifying, yes. The whole idea that so-called 'boomers' had life handed to them on a plate is ridiculous - houses may have been comparatively cheaper than now in price, but the repayments on them were insane. Rates were going up so fast and so high that we fixed at 16%! A bad move with hindsight, but how were we to know that they wouldn't go even higher?
For us it happened in the 80s/early 90s though.

We moved from the north to the south west in 1983 and our new house cost twice what we got for the old one. Interest rates at 15% soon after kept us hard up for years, and our warnings to our children to allow for interest rate rises have been met with kind smiles. Low interest rates mean they have just about paid off their mortgages so which generation has been luckier, would you say?

Same for us Doodledog 14.75% in the early 80's.

We had to move to London with work, take out a much bigger mortgage for a smaller house at 15% and it was very, very difficult.

We had many friends who simply posted their keys to the building societies. Both of us working full time and DH had second job in the evening and we still struggled.

Doodledog
We were having the ‘boomers don’t know they were born’ conversation only this week with some of our younger colleagues.
Yes of course they too have their problems, but to think we had everything handed to us on a plate is crazy.
When I think now what an enormous amount £7000 seemed, I could pop it on a credit card now.

I also remember the rate climbing to 15%, it was very scary, I think it was in the 1980s. I also remember galloping inflation in the early 70s and I think Harold Wilson was the Prime Minister, every so often everybody was given a pay rise of 50p a week.

When we bought our first house in the 70s, the interest rates were 15% - basically all the money I earned paid the mortgage - fortunately by the time I gave up work to have our first baby, rates had reduced a little and maternity pay back then was pretty good. Everyone got child benefit back then too. At some point during those times we were overdrawn three weeks out of four!

I was a single parent, when the rate was 15%. This was early 80's, how I managed I will never know!

I remember in 1981 and 1982 when it was 16%! We didn't eat out, we took a picnic and we never went out in an evening!

It was terrifying and my ADC really don't get it. It was impossible to budget. The announcement of a rate increase was followed almost immediately with a letter from the bank upping the repayments. We had 3 young DC and nothing spare. We lived rural so needed a car. We lived in dread of a punctured tyre or the clutch going. DH spent many a weekend trying to keep our old banger on the road. We also cut down on food. We went veggie for half the week through necessity not choice. I did 'outwork' from a local factory. I often sat working until 2 am. I was paid a pittance.

We never ate out, had no holidays and sold the car to raise a few hundred pounds. My daughter's baby clothes and pram were all 2nd hand. There was no way we could have afforded disposable nappies. Yet we survived...... Phew!

I got a job as a childminder with a kid same age as our first to make ends meet.

Cath9

I expect I won't be popular when saying that all this moan ing about the interest rates going up when in the 70s does anyone remember when it was as high as 9% and even went up to 13%?

I remember not long after Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979. We had just got married and the mortgage rate shot up from 9% to 15%. It added massively to our monthly payments right at the start and we thought we wouldn’t survive.

Ladyleftfieldlover

When we bought our first house in the 70s, the interest rates were 15% - basically all the money I earned paid the mortgage - fortunately by the time I gave up work to have our first baby, rates had reduced a little and maternity pay back then was pretty good. Everyone got child benefit back then too. At some point during those times we were overdrawn three weeks out of four!

Our first house was bought in 1979 just after rates increased to 15%. To put things in perspective, it’s the norm to be driving round in a car which cost more now than our first home back then.

Dottygran59

Oh I remember this so well - we seemed to get a letter every month from the building society telling us it was going up again - how did we manage? It was indeed terrifying

You’re quite right about the letters. We’ve done a huge declutter of our house and I came across a file of old mortgage papers. There really were letters from the building society each month to tell us that the rate had gone up yet again.

When the rates went up to 15% I remember just laughing ironically because I realised that we would be far from alone if we couldn’t afford payments any more and I figured they couldn’t make everyone homeless.

We did muddle through but it was a difficult time for us, as it was for so many others.

Woow! I really was expecting a lot of misunderstanding so thanks all!
I can remember when my husband was able to get a mortgage paying 5% once he worked for the bank which was then a good mortgage.
I will really be surprised if a mass of people complain on this matter
Cath9