Can’t believe how much money my parents have amassed

[Tallular819]

My parents started out with nothing, not a penny from their families. My mum was a dinner lady, Dad was a secondary school teacher.

They paid off their mortgage in their 40s. As children we had a holiday abroad every year and multiple uk holidays throughout the year.

They had a lease car which would be replaced every 3 years with a new one.

They paid for mine and my sisters weddings and house deposits.

They’ve travelled all over the world in their retirement and I’ve just found out they have £200k in savings.

WTF?! DH and I have comparable careers, we run 1 old banger of a car, we have 1 uk holiday per year, we’ve stopped at 1 child, we’re on target to pay off our mortgage when we reach retirement, we have a grand total of £4k in savings. We don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t buy expensive clothes.

Its just hit me how vastly different our financial situations are. I didn’t appreciate just how different the cost of living is today compared to 40 years ago.

And gen x shouldn't be hiding from any blame of financial mismanagement. So many of my friends spent the 00s remortgaging every couple of years to fund their lifestyle.
I knew a family who remortgaged to go to Disney and as soon as the money came through she went to Primark to buy their holiday clothes. I hope she isn't one of the people despairing about paying her mortgage now. Another family on the same street remortgaged to buy a Mitsubishi Shogun 10 years old and a caravan. They ended up living in it. Then said renting is great fun because you can live in a brand new home without the debt.

How long ago was this @oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends ??!

@saltandvinegarpringles Dad retired early and they bought a new house so not like they had money to spare really. They have helped me out when I've really needed it, but I've always known that's not a permanent safety net if you see what I mean?

Who do you think should pay for your care? Isn’t it reasonable to assume that you should?

Relative cost of housing will have been a major factor.

However I do think that many people a few decades ago were rather more frugally minded than is usual now, especially when they were younger. Spending on endless takeaway coffees wouldn’t have been a Thing, let alone a lot of takeaway meals, or eating out generally. TBH there were far fewer restaurants anyway.

From an earlier generation, I’ve seen a notebook in which a GF wrote down - in impeccable copperplate - everything he spent, literally down to the last farthing!

Those GPs were certainly not remotely well off, but still managed to buy a 3 bed house in South London some years before WW2, when prices seem ridiculous by today’s standards. As Raymond Briggs (The Snowman) wrote in his book Ethel and Ernest about his parents, in the pre-war 1930s they bought a 3 bed house in Wimbledon for £850 - on ONE milkman’s wage!

The Baby Boomers had the best of times. My parents are in a similar position to yours. Whereas my grandparents all died with no money to their name having had to scrimp and save their whole lives and ended up in council housing after their house was condemned.

Why are people jumping on to this thread from last summer? Surely better to start a new one rather than revive a 600+ post one which people won't read.

A lot will depend on if they live in Bradford or Brighton tbf.

No

Care to enlarge on your helpful answer?

Same. We are both serious uni graduates, all to show for: a mouldy London maisonette

let's make it to a 1000

Normal for me. But I am an only child and my mum doesn't have any other family. Since my dad died and she's moved house, she's had money come out of her ears due to investments etc. She says why hold on to it and do nothing when she can help me.

My parents bought their first house from the council for £8600 in 1979/80, they sold it in 1985 for £45k and bought their property in 1986 for 54k... That house is now worth £750k. My Mum died 23 years ago and the insurance paid off their tiny 16k mortgage. My Dad has well over a million quid in his pension and is only retiring this year and he is 73... He doesn't need to work but he cannot function without it... Neither my Mum or Dad had any qualifications, he left school at 14 and my Mum at 15. Don't worry I won't be inheriting a thing because I am only his step child and he doesn't want me to 'have it easy'. There was a time in history when this was possible and that time has passed.. house prices and wages have diverged hugely and this sort of astonishing accrual of money by people in low/normal paid job is just not possible anymore. Conversely, my Nanna and Grandad, a part of the war generation never owned a thing and rented from the council all their lives, had extremely small workplace pensions and after my Grandad's death, my Nanna claimed Pension Credit. She has worked here arse off all her life, working full time all the time whereas my Mum mainly worked part time.. Boomers did very well and we will never see the likes of that again

We are boomers, and we went overseas to earn the deposits we put down on the properties we bought in the late 80s and early 90s, because it wasn't possible to save enough in the UK. It worked for us, so we have a nice-ish house and one child to inherit. The UK is very seriously getting it wrong by subsidising the indigent instead of encouraging people to save and accumulate.

I would have expected them to have more tbh.

Friends of my parents, both retired teachers, don't touch their state pension.

No. I’m almost 50. I earn a lot more than my parents ever did and my life is very different to what theirs was.

No

Thanks for your contribution

You're welcome