Buying a house is fast becoming a thing of the past for young people in the UK. There's the cost of a mortgage to worry about, not to mention the massive deposit to even get an estate agent to talk to you seriously.
Salaries are going nowhere while the price of property continues to rise and rise. In truth you have to be able to buy a house for £1 like this woman if you really want to get anywhere but, let's face it, that's not going to happen to us.
Getting onto the property ladder used to be something that happened when people were in their twenties, when they got married and decided to settle down, but the average age for a first-time buyer has now risen to 33. One Bristol women, however, is bucking that trend.
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Jennie Crockart, who is just 21 years old and already the proud owner of a two-bedroom home after snapping it up a year earlier, with no help whatsoever from her parents. She paid £120,000 ($170k) for the pile, getting the keys just a month after she entered her second decade. Lucky her.
"Growing up, my parents didn't have lots of spare money but they always told me that when I had my own job I could afford to buy whatever I liked," she told the Bristol Post.
She set to saving as soon as she got a job - and she had five part-time gigs while studying - and stuck to it. She opted against going to university, instead beginning a sales apprenticeship with a local furniture company and eventually graduating to a permanent position there.
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Jennie lived at home with her mum, scrimped and saved, put money away and is now seeing the rewards.
"Owning my own home has always been important to me," she said. "In my opinion, when you're renting, you are just paying someone else's mortgage. So as soon as I started earning I started putting £50 ($71) aside here and there - or more if I could manage it."
Once she finished her apprenticeship, she took to work like a duck to water.
She said: "At that point I started saving a lot more, around £500 ($708) per month. For a while I carried on working part time in a pub alongside my apprenticeship to supplement my income."
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Jennie made £500,000 ($708K) in new business for her employers in three years and was always frugal with the bonuses that they awarded her.
She explained: "I also saw my bonuses as just that - a bonus - so I put the money away. My savings quickly started to mount up."
The house needed a little work, but Jennie was happy to put it in. She said: "First of all, I see where I'm living as a start. It needed work; it's not in the most expensive part of town, but I made those sacrifices because I'd rather own than rent. I'd like to think I'll move on in a couple of years.
"At 20 [21], I'm in the fortunate position of having no debt - and I've become a homeowner at a time when many young people are struggling to get on the property ladder."
Featured Image Credit: SWNSTopics: Home, Money, Inspirational