To think it’s selfish for parents to retire early when their kids are renting?

It's never about the dd's flat.

I expect wife is totally pissed off dh is retiring and she's not.

The only question to ask is, whether wife will continue working an extra 12-18 months beyond retirement to help pay for the darling grandchildren?

Exactly!

We are in this situation. DH has been told by doc that he really needs to retire early from stressful job that might affect his health if he continues. We have saved and are financially able to do so…but he keeps wondering if he should continue working in case dc need financial support. We have to think how would they feel if he continued and it did affect his health? Also, might it not be better for them to have to work/save for deposits, and they’ll appreciate it more? Also, isn’t there always going to be something even adult kids could use? He has colleagues still working when they should long ago have retired because things just keep coming up for their adult children.

@Rosscameasdoody Most people posting here will have had maternity pay as it’s nearly 40 years since introduction. We also had mortgage relief and DH and me had a combined income of £8500 in 1978. So before tax, NI and pension contribution I guess we lost around 1/3 of that. Easily afforded a 3 bed semi in the SE. It was relatively cheap to buy and we quickly upgraded to a detached house with 4 beds when DH had accounts after becoming self employed. It was significantly easier than now. That’s why we have been able to buy at a very advantageous time and are financially secure. Many DCs now cannot save as rents are high and cannot always live with parents.

I saw this and it struck a chord with me.
We help our kids no end. I think their generation have a totally different attitude to money than ours. For instance they think nothing of spending hundreds a month on nails ,eyebrows, socialising, coffee's, ASOS and Amazon deliveries all by a click on a computer screen or a tap of a card. I question why when I've worked for years shouldn't we have a worry free retirement a reward for being financially careful.

No idea what your opinion is @Rosscameasdoody as I wasn't replying to you but you can always have a look at the video I linked to the other poster.

You have your opinion I have mine, based on personal experience. MN seems to have lost sight of the fact that in later life everyone reaps what they have sown in their younger years, in the rush to blame boomers for all the worlds’ ills. We didn’t have equal opportunities, paid maternity leave or protected rights if pregnant or disabled, to name a few. Lots of benefits younger people enjoy now were fought for by our generation. As I said, everything is relative.

Not another one who makes everything about themselves and takes personal offence to factual information.

Here's one link just for you with some info'. There's plenty more available online:

It’s about time your ‘child’ grew up and stood on their own feet

Totally agree with BearF75

Yep. I’ve helped my ACs and GCs, but I wouldn’t have allowed their circumstances to dictate my retirement date. 🙄

Try reading the post you quoted.

We worked, we saved, we paid tax. Please leave us alone. Sick of the nonsense being thrown at boomers (a 20 yr age band).

Do you have a job. what is your contribution?

I get you @Xenia . We're likely similar ages. I started work in 1980 and my weekly pay was £30, the equivalent to roughly £124. I left home at 18 and lived in a tiny room in a shared house, which cost £6 a week. No kitchen, just an electric ring in the room and you shared bathroom and toilet with the rest of the household. To stretch my wages, I'd pick up fallen fruit and veg at the market and I'd do my laundry by hand in the bath. I'm not complaining, it was a good time in my life and I loved that little room, it was my castle.

Just want to point out that not everyone of our age had it easy. There seemed to be one recession after another in those days and I got made redundant more than once, just like that. Saying that, the 80s were a good time in many ways, in part because there were so many of us down on our luck and living in grotty little bedsits and we all knew how it felt.

Is he actually any worse off with the pension ? I know lots in local government pensions and they were better off not working ! Also would he get a lump sum and be able to help the kids out with that? Also what’s his plan very young to do nothing would drive me mad. Though I have sympathy I have worked in local government for a short while very boring

Why can't DD work and get the flat herself?

You're also still working and earn the same amount as your husband - why can't you gift the money?

YABU

TBH I think it’s quite selfish of you. He wants to retire due to his hard work you have both payed for your home by you age and able to retire should do it and enjoy life! You DD has to stand on her own feet and work and earn her place in life! Maybe you DH wants her to make her own path… and stand on her own feet.. just maybe.. you could the next few years and give her the money you made instead of retiring… instead of expecting him to be the financial grifter when it is your idea.. huh how the other half lives eh!

Generational comparisons are certainly difficult to do fairly. I have all my financial data going back to 1983 still here on my computer but I am just one person not anyone else. The firm where I went to work in 1985 for example pays THREE times the salary I got after allowing for inflation. In my generation only 15% got to go to university and of course we only got the equal pay act in 1970 so half the population - women - faced a lot of discrimination in the past, more than today. I graduated in 1982 when we then had the worst unemployment for fifty years, 3m out of work. I had huge difficulties getting my first job as did most people who graduated - it did not feel like some sunny uplands walk in the park We could not afford to buy even as far in as Ealing so have lived out here in zone 5 with all the commuting time/costs of the last 40 years as a result because of 1980s very high house prices (and I am not saying they are not high today of course too in this bit of outer London where the 3 bed terraced with which we started costs about £500k.

(No I don't feel bitter about my situation and life and am now quite happily single. My children's father is also still working full time despite heading for 70 soon. My father worked almost until he died - it is not a hardship if you like the work - my ancestors mined coal in NE England starting aged 10 and average age of death of women in my family in last 100 years is 66 - my mother made it to 75).

Most of all I think people should be able to make different choices from other people if they want to do that - that is freedom and thankfully we still live in a society where we don't have to be like others, whether that be giving or not giving children money. I think I was asked above about helping the children - each of the 5 has a house although also through their own efforts and the youngest 2 live at home with me and let out each house just for now and give the state about half of all that in our very high tax nation and the state then wasted loads of it.

Wtf .. I've told my dh to retire asap . Don't you want home to enjoy his retirement . Super selfish !
Dc can sort themselves out!

There's 916,000 job vacancies in the UK (hat includes zero hours and part-time jobs).

But over 1 million people on jobseekers benefits

'The younger generations have always had a much harder time financially than oder generations'
Not true at all Pam.
In fact, throughout history, at least since the industrial revolution, subsequent generations have had a better quality of life than the one before them, ie living standards have progressively improved.
Today's young people are the first generation since approx 1850s who have a lower living standard than their parents/ grandparents.

To say that no boomer ever had a tough time financially is obviously nonsense but this is an entirely different point. Overall, that generation had it much easier, certainly in a financial sense.

The chips have fallen out in favour of the older generation

Actually that's an inaccurate generalisation.
There's extreme variation within each generation
From Age UK and Independent Age
The age group in the most relative poverty is 60-64

The highest number of older people in rented accommodation ever (almost 2 million aged 50 and older).

More than one in three (37%) pensioners who rent homes privately are in poverty.

The other noticeable trend is that inequalities within older generations are some of the most extreme in society.

That said, yes, the housing system is a mess today and it's hard for younger people but it's also very hard for lots of older ones too. The need for all affected regardless of age is more social housing.

The younger generations have always had a much harder time financially than the older generations. That’s because the older generations have worked and paid off mortgages, debt, etc. I remember buying our first house in 1980, and before we’d even moved in the payments had increased because a new Conservative government had not long been elected and interest rates shot up from 11% to over 15%. Combined salary was £400 a month and the mortgage payment was over half of that. And I’m talking about a tiny, basic, two up two down new build. No central heating, and no extra frills - a far cry from what the younger generation expect from a new property these days. We had sleepless nights worrying about how we would make the payments. The numbers might be lower, but it’s all relevant.

Yes, DH and I had an age gap. We only had 2-and-a-half yrs of retired life together and nearly a yr of that was during lockdown.