Any other millennials fancy a moan?

[MoscowMules]

I know everyone says, the generation before you had it harder, all the way back to the Crimean War probably.

But

Is anyone else who is a millennial just a bit fed up? Fancy a pity party?

I reflected this evening on things that have happened.

I was born in the very early 90's, so am pretty much smack bang in the middle of the millennials.

We've lived under pretty much unstable governments in adulthood. Mainly conservative.

We've had 2 global recessions

An illegal War

Brexit

A global pandemic

Housing Crisis

Cost of living crisis

Possible collapse of the NHS or if not collapse it continues to limp on with poor care

Russia invade Ukraine and global tension.

To mention but a few calamities, and now here we are, trying to raise Alpha Generation typically, in the midst of all this.

I just feel a bit like "wtf" how much more can we take?

Yes there were good things on a social level, we were the first to learn and grow from the internet and become digital. LGB rights moved forward with same sex marriage, education improved especially with the removal of Section 28 from the education act towards the end of some of our schooling.

But my god! What a generation to belong to and try and navigate in.

I totally accept if I'm having a pity party for one here tonight though 🤣

I agree to an extent. I was born in 91 and amongst my peers I see 2 groups-the ones doing well, with houses and a decent living standard are generally the ones who didn't go to uni (plumbers, linesmen, hairdressers, childminders, electricians etc). The ones in their 30s and still struggling, no house, waited too long to have kids and now having infertility issues are generally the ones who went to uni.

I fall into category 2. I blame Blair daily. 50% of children should go to uni he said. Well, turns out it put us at a massive disadvantage. We were told that even if we didn't know what to do with our lives, just pick a subject and do it at uni. By the time we were graduating, there were so many graduates that the graduate job market was saturated and we were then told we wouldn't get a job without a masters. And by that time, post grad funding was difficult to get and tuition fees had gone up to £9000 a year. So now many of us are saddled with £50,000+ of debt, lack of jobs related to our fields/education, an effective graduate tax on our stagnant wages and skyrocketing house prices.

DH and I moved to a super cheap area in order to afford a 3 bed ex council house to start a family in, then covid happened, the great migration happened and now house prices are too high for us here too.

My parents bought their decent sized 3 bed with the right to buy in the early 90s for £35,000 on one salary. They worked their way up to bigger houses (on 1. 5 medium salaries) and now own a lovely 4 bed worth £750,000. Whilst we can't even afford the ex council house we wanted (like above, don't think that's an extravagent desire).

DH and I had to laugh over Christmas when visiting parents, uncles and aunts who are all living alone in their lovely, spacious 3 bed semis with drives, garages and big gardens who moaned that they hadn't been invited to any of their kids houses over Christmas. That's generally because our generation in the family are living in squished 1 or 2 bed tiny new builds (privately rented) with no storage and our kids. Not exactly enough space to host anything, let alone Christmas. But the parents/aunts & uncles all say they are 'too old' to host (in their 60s).

Wasn’t this Tony Blair’s ‘baby’ - higher education for all - disaster really as it’s caused a Catch 22 situation. Companies are asking for degrees (any degree) when it’s not needed. I read the job vacancies of my old company and they’re now asking for a degree for the job I used to do and I only have 3 O levels! I can’t even imagine what degree they require but I suspect it doesn’t matter. If companies are buying in to this nonsense then kids will feel they have no other choice but to get a degree, any degree. Something definitely needs to change.

Have a moan by all means but then make your plans.
I'm Gen X with millennial dc, one of whom is already a millionaire. We did ok ourselves despite starting in extremely low paid jobs and we still had to rent for years before we could afford to buy and then faced huge interest rates followed by negative equity. Every generation has plus and minus factors. The opportunities are there if you take them but are rarely easy and without some sacrifice.
It doesn't matter who is in government if you don't actually change anything yourself. No party will ever make everything cheap and available to everyone. You have to sort that out yourselves and give up blaming others.
The rich will get richer no matter who wins the election because they invest more money than they spend.

That’s crazy. I’m in my sixties and every year host around 10-13 family members because my house is the bigger one. I agree with everything you say about degrees and Blair deserves your contempt.

Product of 1993 here. I get what you mean. We live in really unstable environment. And I am telling this as a child of people who were born in Poland in 60s where communism was on full speed! Very wobbly economy, everything can collapse tomorrow. Up to eyeballs in debt- hello mortgage and student loan. Climate crisis (and no, I don't travel to Bali 5x a year. I can't even afford holiday in Spain right now).

Oh and my parents bought their property for cash. Children of communism. They didn't have it easy, but definitely easier than us. They have really comfortable life now. No, I don't envy them. I'm happy for them and kind of relieved, they won't be "burden" (awful word I know), because they can afford new fridge, medication etc. due to decent pension pots. But it only reminds me that my pension pot is near to £0.00.

Whilst we can't even afford the ex council house we wanted (like above, don't think that's an extravagent desire)
Can you afford to buy a flat?

Born in 92 and all of DH's mum/friends who own houses in our z3 london suburb all went to university as well. Even in the 1990s, I don't think they could have afforded the starter flats/houses that they bought without their graduate jobs and in many cases parental help. When we started looking to buy, my DH said we should buy a tiny 2 bed cottage in hampstead garden suburb that a family friend (accountant) and his lawyer wife bought in their younger years. I later found out from MIL that he only managed to upgrade from his art deco 1930s flat to the cottage because his in laws sold some property to help them out. The 1930s flat that they bought as a starter home was probably a better measure of their financial circumstances. MIL bought her 1 bed flat in north london at age 27 just like I did in 2019 partly with her husband's savings from living at home (we also lived at home for three years to buy our 1930s flat in z3 north london) so in a way nothing has changed. it probably has changed nationally, this is probably a reflection that large swathes of London hasn't been affordable for over 30 years and the affordability crisis has spread to the rest of the country.

it took her 7 years to upgrade to a 3 bed house (and living with 3 kids in same 1 bed flat). DH's mum is still living in that house. i am also looking to upgrade now and to be fair the 3 bed flat i am looking at is in the same price bracket as her house as the 3 bed flat is in a good school catchment and in a desirable area while her house isn't. There is an older mumsnetter,Xenia and she used to tell me that when she was in her early 20s in the 1990s, she could either afford to buy a flat in Ealing or a house further out. She chose the house further out, MIL and I chose the flats in z3.

@MoscowMules What is a 3rd sector worker?

Yes, but with a disabled DS, we can't live in a flat. Also, where we are flats take years to sell on again, so I don't think it would be a sensible move of we wanted to move onto something bigger.

there is a housing crisis in basically every developed country. The only

I bought a 2 bed flat with DH at 27, my SIL who is my age can't afford to as the country she has settled in requires 40% deposit and the average home is easily 1 million USD. Even in a 'cheap area', its easily £500k (with 30% deposit). Is that Blair's fault too? And just like in the UK, it used to be 'affordable' for the older generation. Nothing to do with university degrees there, there is a problem with investors and also the state not releasing enough land etc.

There are many countries with far higher property prices than the UK relative to earnings.

As a younger born (90s) millennial I agree, our age group has it hard.

We’ve seen siblings and cousins 10-15 years older make a mint on housing, after becoming homeowners based on completely average/low salaries. And our parents when they were our age all had big houses too.

DH and I were lucky to get on the housing ladder when we did. None of our friends can manage it - all well-educated hardworking people.

At work I see the generatIon below (is it Z? 20 year olds) interns so strident and confident that they will only accept graduate jobs with a high salary. Such high self worth. I mean, good for them really. But it’s so different from my generation, told we have to go to uni, then graduating into the recession or just after, and getting starter jobs with very low salaries, working our way up slowly.

It’s no surprise so many friends my age don’t want to have children. The conditions are not good.

I wasn’t talking about housing I was talking about unnecessary university degrees.

I guess the differences between our situations are that 1) I'm talking about the South West and Wales (where DH and I are from) and 2) Generally the graduate jobs in my peer groups that I'm referring to are on the lower paid of the spectrum-teachers, graphic designer, Allied Health professionals.

Both DH and I have been prices out of of home counties (I am from Cornwall for example) but definitely couldn't afford to live in the SE either. We used to live in the home counties as the job market for our jobs was better there, but couldn't have afforded to buy or even rent a family home on our incomes there.

I think the millennial existence has been changing goalposts every time you reach them.

So go to uni, you need a loan but it's small ('83 husband paid £5k total). Oh hey '89-ers, we are doing top up fees, it's £15k total. That's not so bad though, amirite? BAM! Sorry 90s kids. Full loan is now £9k/year.

Study computers. That's where the money is? Oh shiiiiiiit, the dot-com bubble burst just as you were finishing your course? Sucks to be you. Should have done a real subject.

Buy a house. Every time you get a deposit together house prices increase so much that you have to save again. Ad nauseum.

Bam! 2008, 2009 Recession! House prices have tanked, but we've lost our jobs and mortgages are a cunt to get hold of. Can't capitalise on it unless you're privileged enough to have family money to buy outright. Use the deposit you'd saved to support yourself.

I feel you OP! We do have our own home (mortgaged) but have a child in nursery so pay huge fees for that, have depleted savings during maternity leave that I've just finished, and have pretty much nothing in my pension due to unfortunately staying at an employer for too long that not only underpaid me but only offered statutory pension contributions (3% from their end) and statutory maternity pay. I know maternity pay and leave is better now than it was in say the 90s but it's still shit. We also don't have rich parents and aren't likely to get any inheritance ever unlike a lot of our friends who have very small mortgages thanks to parents who could afford to give them 100s of thousands of £ as deposits. Sigh.

I'm at a point where I want to just chase the money job wise in order to feel like we can actually save not just to have an emergency fund but to have a retirement that doesn't consist of us living on the breadline which is something I worry about.

And then the house they bought with family help when prices were so low are now worth a fortune

(I was too young to buy in 2008 anyway but I sometimes like to watch reruns of property programmes and am astonished what you could buy in say London between 2008-2012 for the money)

I will say I know a lot of the 1960-1965 boomer cohort have been fucked over a lot, particularly with strikes of the 1970s, plus pensions disappearing as companies went bust. They got fleeced with endowment mortgages that fizzled to nothing, and a fair few got caught in the northern rock b.s. and became mortgage prisoners.

"It’s no surprise so many friends my age don’t want to have children. The conditions are not good"

That's a touch dramatic. Recessions happen every few years basically to stop things rising uncontrollably. There are winners even in recessions and then there will be boom times in between. Granted wait until you are in a good position to have dc such as you owning your own house but no one would ever have dc if they based such huge personal decisions on the state of the economy. Perhaps your friends like their lifestyle too much atm?

I have a lower standard of living than my parents did, despite having higher qualifications and a better job.

I think this summarises it in a sentence.

I know so many people in my parents generation (boomers and the gen below) who left school at 16/18, walked straight into lifetime jobs with great progression and final salary pensions.

A person my age with multiple degrees, a decade of specialist experience in one field, is just now probably about earning what a qualification-less boomer would have earned at the same age (equivalent for inflation etc).

And of course anyone leaving school today at 16 or 18 and going straight into the workplace has far, far fewer prospects. It’s all temporary or zero hours contracts, no real progression. So many jobs have a degree as a barrier for entry (for no reason!). It’s grim.

It is utter fucking privilege. I was lucky enough to purchase a 3 bed house in 2009 for £140k because of a £40k deposit lent to me by MIL (we aren't complete toffee nose twats, it was an investment on her part and we paid her back £60k 10 years later when we remortgaged).

I'm in the south east, about 45 miles from london. The house is now worth costs £330k.

That is an INSANE price rise. I might have benefited but I know that it was nothing special about me. It was literally a case of right place right time and landing with my arse in the butter.

The year before we had been looking at 1 bedroom maisonettes for £150k and nearly bought one but pulled out and decided to keep saving instead. If we had bought one of those we'd be utterly fucked now and unable to move to a place big enough for our family.

Uni fees are another good example. Parents generation - free. Cousins/sibs 10-15 years older - free or very low fees. Me and DH - 9k debt each. The poor sods a year or more younger than me - £27k debt. Just bonkers.

Another one is nursery fees. In our parents generation it was far more common to be able to afford a one-working-parent family. For most millennials this is impossible, so paying 1-2k nursery fees each month just to get through the preschool years.

I am of the same vintage but life has been good, own my own house, well paid job good health, voted for Brexit.
I live in fear of a Labour government

Two millenial nephews both born in nineties. Both earn far more than I have ever dreamed of earning (one of their bonuses last year was double my annual salary). Both bought homes in their mid twenties. Their peer group are all in much the same position. So it's not all bad for millenials.

I see 2 groups-the ones doing well, with houses and a decent living standard are generally the ones who didn't go to uni (plumbers, linesmen, hairdressers, childminders, electricians etc).

That’s very true. I think millennials were really sod a pup with higher education. Blair really fucked it up for you.