To think it’s crazy that National Minimum wage is £27k

Did those pensioners live in a tiny flat when they were in their 20s? (I did).

Yes all my friends who are pensioners - apart from one who got divorced in later life - have very nice lifestyles: long haul holidays, lots of mini breaks, nice cars, gym membership etc. They also still live in their massive four/five bedroom houses.

They are much better off than my son and DIL who both work full time in professional jobs but for charities; they live in a tiny flat and we’re in the SE.

Something doesn’t add up here. £55k and an £1100 mortgage + £500 bank loan so £1600 gone.

Almost three children so childcare costs and maternity to factor in.

Bills must be at least £600/month so that’s £2200.

Food shop must be at least £400/month so £2600.

That leaves you with £500/month each for petrol, anything your children need, socialising. How on earth are you able to save?

But the pensioners will still deny it, because they have less money than their last couple of years before retirement (obviously) they think that means they’re poor, especially those who are doing very well.

On what planet is my generation (in my 30s now) going to be able to retire and holiday multiple times a year, pay for private school for their grandkids, this generation will likely still be paying their mortgages into their 60s and 70s and barely scraping by.

Having no mortgage/housing costs puts you in an entirely different boat to other people. It's simply not even comparable. It's like saying you live on 21k but you and your partner don't need to eat to survive!

There is a general trend now to ‘encourage’ band 2 health workers to become band 3. I reckon that is the plan, to eradicate band 2. I don’t know what’s happening on the kitchen/cleaner/ porter side.

What is extremely damned annoying is the way the unions in education and health fight every year to get a ‘fair’ (hah!) pay deal, it’s all over the media about these grasping nonworking shits in health wanting yet more money when they chose to work where they do, then… minimum wage goes up by that same amount a week later - quietly, with maybe a bit of a congratulatory note in media - and wipes that hard fought for uplift off.

It's not really 27k, becasue that's working just over 40 hours per week. You'll struggle to find a NMW job contracting you to 40 hours per week.

I'm contracted to 37.5 hours per week and earn less than 27k - even though I'm actually earning a little bit over the NMW per hour.

It's hard work living on this wage frankly, and although I've been on, or around the NMW all my life, this is definitely the time it's been hardest. Mostly that's due to housing costs and food costs. If I still lived alone I wouldn't cope - and I did used to manage living alone a few years ago.

My partner and I live on £21k a year, I still work full time and we have no mortgage. I saved the rest of my salary for retirement.
We have one car and a foreign holiday a year, eat out sometimes. I know housing costs are insane. But outside those some people do just spend a lot of money on day to day living that is not necessary.

We didnt really know what others had did we unless we watched dynasty and Dallas.

Expectation was much lower and people built up gradually house hold items

I don’t know whether it’s AI bollocks or the most entitled generation ever retiring, but it’s a statement of fact that the baby boomers are the richest generation ever and are far richer than anyone who came after. Gen X following are a split generation, the earliest born in the late 60s/ early 70s lived the same life as the boomers and those of us just a little older than millennials got the same life as they did. The key was whether you bought a house before or in the very first stages of that quadrupling in the first few years of the millennium - I was in my mid 20s then and from a shit background so had no chance. A lot depended on family support and inheritances, and now everything does. Minimum wage was driven up to enable London to have ‘key workers’, and now for the rest of the country it isn’t worth working hard at all.

https://fortune.com/2024/10/03/boomers-wealthiest-generation-millennials-biggest-losers/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/25/boomers-33-times-wealthy-gen-z-gettin-richer/

Ha fair enough. Early Saturday morning.

It is true. Where are you getting your data from?
I'm not talking about overall wealth. This is incomes after housing costs. Of course pensioners are more likely to have paid off their mortgages, therefore they need less money to maintain the same lifestyle. Poverty in this country is measured on a relative basis - I have my thoughts about this as a methodology, but as it stands, there are factually fewer pensioners living in poverty.

Completely agree. I work with colleagues who are in their 30s who are always living month to month on pay and credit cards yet order in takeaways to work for breakfast and lunch, nails done every 3 weeks, 2 cars, loans for holidays. Kids have iphones at age 11. They're fab people but are so genuinely used to seeing this as normal patterns and not luxuries.

Whilst that is of course true, that wasn't the point.

That money would have been spent on something else that also employed people if it wasn't spent on what many people would consider frivolities.

It's the highest tax-free allowance in Europe. It was £6,475 in 2010 which would be worth £10,384 now so it is still higher in real terms than it was.

Working age people with children experience higher rates of poverty

not those without children

its scary how the myth has taken hold

It's also horrible as well. Bet he can't wait to move.

That is simply not true. The proportion of working age people without children who are in poverty is the same as the proportion of pensioners in poverty.
Of course overall wealth will be higher amongst pensioners as many have paid off their mortgages. And if you include pension pots that give say an annual pension of £5k a year, they appear wealthy, when their annual income is £17k.

You can’t say that on here!

Working age people without children are more likely to be in poverty than a pensioner is. We're not talking about the richest people, we are talking about the poorest ones. Working people should not be poorer than people that don't work.

Everyone is at their poorest when you have dependent children. Children are expensive. It's always been the case ever since child labour was abolished.
The person you are replying to stated that percentage of working adults and pensioners in poverty is the same.

For most people, the day you retire is the richest you ever are, unless you get a big inheritance. Because usually even the poorest have saved something for retirement. My father had £12000 when he retired, and £800 when he died. He had never had such big savings before.

Most people live for about 15 years after retirement

As BigFrau says above...

all those posts ago, 🙄
Intrepidpanda was making a joke!!!
🙄😂

The idiots are the people who don't get the joke!

But NMW has more than doubled in the same time period so that matches up.

DP earns 29k in managerial role but in care sector full time.
I’m a carer to one of our children. We get UC & child benefit and I get approx 330 monthly for carers allowance. Our son’s DLA goes on things he needs, an abundance of bedding and towels, certain branded foods, we use that money to try new things that might help him or keep him safe. So specialist equipment.
With DPs wages and the UC we get less than what I would working full time on NMW but we are frugal.
All clothes and coats are second hand. We unfortunately have to replace lots of things such as beds and sofas due to DC. (He rocks or flings himself on things) the only things I buy from new is technology that would require a warranty.
My son damages our property (thankfully we don’t rent we have a mortgage) with his outbursts or behaviour so we’ve had him flood bathrooms repeatedly or put giant holes in the walls (we have one hole that looks like a cartoon character tried to run through it, like loony tunes) so when I do have some spare money and time I’m considering learning to plaster, but not for a long time yet.

We don’t have much but we’re happy and we have 3 meals a day and a family who adore one another.
I donate all our clothes that are still in good condition (when I buy from vinted it’s usually m&s or next as they wash terrific) and all the uniforms go to clothing banks.
DP donates food to food banks once a month and I have a DS who collects sanitary products and donates them. He’s very fucked off about period poverty.
I used to cook meals for the homeless with my sons school but I’m time poor currently, I do visit my old place of work and sit with the elderly residents that don’t have visitors at least once a month and take in some shower gels for the residents who don’t have families, often its staff on who’ll be toiletries for residents.
I appreciate that a lot of my income that leads my family to live without imminent fear of my kids being hungry or having no roof over their heads is made up of benefits and the stress of a disabled DC is enough without worrying about being able to keep a job when you’re not able to work, I am grateful. I do what I can to relieve the pressure for others. DP uses club card points and buys half price toys this time of year for toy appeals, I’m collecting Christmas jumpers and PJs for my DCs schools (I collect all year round) so if the school notices kids without Xmas jumpers or their parents are struggling, the school can email and offer them.
We do what we can to help others. We are very lucky.
We used to be able to afford holidays in the UK during the 6 weeks but our mortgage payments went up a couple of years ago so now we take them term time, it’s better for our DC anyway because it’s quieter.