Agreed; when I first started on the housing ladder it was still possible for a single person to buy a flat in Forest Hill even though I still had to let out the spare room to help out with bills. It sharply became impossible to do this and I couldn't buy that same flat now even though on a reasonable salary and interest rates are low as the mortgage payments alone would be over half my salary even now.

Having said that having been on that ladder for some time, housing costs are not that extortionate for us, yet we are still struggling considerably especially with crippling childcare costs which are as said before around 50% of our combined salaries and thats still for not full time. I think many governments have tried to address this - we get about 40% back in tax credits however we still have to find over £800 per month. Overall, the costs add up to considerable unaffordability for large sections of the population even those on fairly good incomes, so what is it like for people on lesser salaries? They have no real chance of getting back to work without considerable family support.
The costs themselves however just seem to go up and up relatively speaking. I never found the imposition of the Early Years Curriculum on childminders and nurseries that good an idea overall as I've always said that it effectively means that parents are paying for private education for very young children whereas all they really need is for someone nice and fun to look after their kids whilst they are at work! I'm not saying that its bad per se, just perhaps an unnecessary for a childcare environment for under 3's and someone should surely be looking at precisely why these costs take up such a large proportion of household income.

We are both looking at extending the hours we work to improve our skills and job retention in the longer term, but it will cost us financially to do so until all of our children start school so we really need to think about that carefully before making that decision. Unfortunately all of this and the current proposals to the welfare system does mean unavoidable additional hardship for families with multiples.