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.

Lots of people are doing exactly that. I've never been busier doing IHT planning/mitigation. At the moment, it seems like every other client is wanting a meeting about reducing/eliminating IHT!

Slow hand clap for Reeves! Previously, it would seem most "normal" people were happy to risk paying a bit of IHT, but now, with changes already announced and the prospect of further changes, it seems most "normal" people are running scared and taking steps to ensure that no IHT is paid. So ultimately, HMRC will end up getting less! Well done Rachel!

I understand what the OP is getting at. This thread has thoroughly depressed me because am pretty sure with the state of the housing market and costs to buy a house I will never own one. And I doubt my kids will either

I'm a hated and despised Baby Boomer and would never ever say such a thing because I think that young people are facing a desparate struggle to establish themselves in adult life. The price of property is obscence and houses have become commodities rather than homes where people live their lives. BTL and "property portfolios" have wrecked the housing market, Houses in the area I live in used to be bought by fist time buyers, now the only people who can afford them are landlords who then don't maintain them, turn them into unofficial HMOs and even if you could afford to buy one of the you wouldn't want to as the whole area looks like a slum. I got my house valued recently and the estate agent told me it would sell within days as there are London based landlords who "bulk buy" in this area (imagine bullk buying houses ffs!) to add to their portfolios. Decided not to sell as I cannot afford to go to a better area but it was interesting and depressing to hear this. A good friend of mine on the same street rents and basically they are paying the landlord's mortgage, in the past they would be spending this money on buying the house themselves but it is unaffordable. Another friend is selling her home and the only people who have been to view it have been landlords,

Not everything on MN has to be a bun fight surely? The thread is not about that at all. It’s social commentary that’s all.

My elderly parents (not boomers, older than that - the "silent generation" born late 1930s) have very little. They worked all their lives, always paid their way, small pensions, live in social housing, tiny savings. I'm much, much better off than they are. There are many people like this.

Please enlighten us as to which political parties they voted for. Please confirm they never voted as members of mutually owned building societies or insurers to demutualise in order to get a windfall lump sum payout. Please confirm they never bought shares in UK owned utility firms to make a quick buck. And that they never bought a council home at gross under value and subsequently sold it for a huge profit. Most older people did at least one of those things.

I know how my parents did it, they saved and invested all their married life, small amounts every month, ran one car, gave up smoking, didn't drink, never, ever bought anything on credit and rarely changed furniture, decorated the house, bought a new car, went on lots of holidays, bought loads of clothes or gadgets for the house. Only had one property bought in 1958 and only sold in 2023 when dad went into care. Mum died in 2010.

Me and my brother never went without though, they were very generous with us but we were both encouraged to save, save, save, which I still do today. I do wish though that they had spent more of the substantial inheritance we both got, on themselves but they were old school, wanted to leave us both something when they were gone.

@lifeonmars100

Another friend is selling her home and the only people who have been to view it have been landlords

Likewise, we're selling MIL's house and nearly all the viewers have been elderly landlords wanting to buy it as a buy to let.

My sister volunteers in a charity furniture shop and says nearly all the decent furniture (beds, sofas, etc) goes to elderly landlords who get an "early notice" phone call about decent stuff coming in so that they can have first dibs on it. Sometimes it never gets as far as the showroom, as they come to view it in the storage area at the back and it goes straight out to them on the next van! No hope at all for genuine people in need getting the decent stuff. The landlords could afford to buy new but won't. Just another example of how they stuff the younger generation.

If Dad was a Teacher the pension scheme will have given a decent lump sum, something like 3* annual pension.

Well invested it wouldn't take long to build up.

And the pension itself is defined benefit and fully index linked.

If Mum was employed by the Council then she may have a pension too.

My Dad was a teacher and my mum was a secretary. Growing up, our car was an old banger, we occasionally holidayed in the uk but never abroad and they paid their mortgage off in their early 60s. Their home is worth about 260K, they holiday for a week each year and there is a very modest amount of savings. I want to know where they went wrong 😂

My boomer parents are very comfortable indeed. Mortgage paid off years ago, monthly payments were tiny, final salary pensions, thousands in savings, many overseas holidays since retiring from their average paid jobs. Meanwhile we will be paying our mortgage until retirement, cannot afford essential maintenance work on our home, no holidays, in debt. It sucks and I worry daily for the future of our children.

Are you talking about my parents or the BB generation in general? I've no idea how both my parents have voted through their entire lives but my dad voted for Corbyn I do know that.
Presumably BBs vote for all manner of parties as they aren't a homogeneous group.
Again I don't know if my parents bought shares in UK utilities but some BBs (and other generations) will have.
My parents have never lived in or own a council house, but again some BBs will have.

I'm not sure what your point is other than suggesting the BB generation us a homogeneous money grabbing group which obviously is as true as saying younger generations spend all their money on avocado toast and coffee.

Again, this is applying blame where there shouldn't be any.

If you were in that era, you may well have voted for low tax (to make your life/ your family's easier), and voted for privatisation of your building society because you would get a payout (surely who wouldn't? Any decent financial adviser would tell you to do it if it happened today, I am sure).

If British Gas shares were available for the first time (and those sorts of share offerings were incredibly widely advertised, including on TV), and you thought you could improve your lot by buying some and making some extra money, why wouldn't you? The benefits of British Gas going private were shouted from the rooftops, including better service etc, you would have had to either have had very strong beliefs about any kind of privatisation or somehow foresee that 'private enterprise' was, on the whole, going to lead to enshittification of public services in order to refuse to take part. I didn't because I didn't have any spare money as a very young adult (Gen X).

No one had a crystal ball, and it seems as unfair to apportion blame as it is for those who blame the younger generation for frittering money on avocado toast.

Oh, and as an aside, I personally knew four people who lost their homes due to the 15% interest rate on mortgages. The picture isn't as simple as people like to make out who prop up this intergenerational war and I wish we would stop doing it.

Interesting thread this. Social mobility is aspirational. We all want our children to have a better life but it isn't always possible. I am from the Baby Boomer generation (just). My parents didn't have an easy life (think publican/clerk) but they lived a frugal life, bought a new build bungalow for £2000 in the 60s (sold it for approx 16,000) I went to college, with a grant which I didn't have to pay back, got married (10 guests, home made wedding dress and cake), got a mortgage with tax relief on the interest (remember MIRAS anyone). Became a teacher with a final salary pension into which I paid15% of my salary, then was able to retire early and began saving. We now have a house worth over 500,000 and savings in the hundreds of thousands. What I don't have though is good health and knowing what I know now I'd swap the money for health every time.
So, do I have a better life than my parents? Probably not.

Well, it's likely that you will be that wealthy, eventually.

Older people didn’t have as much to spend their money on so they saved more. They didn’t have sky, internet, streaming services, take away coffee and so on. If something broke they fixed it, no throw away fashion. Meals and takeaways were for special occasions, not just because it’s Wednesday!

I think this is a really good point and something we have to look at. A younger male relative, HATES school at 15, but is so productive - part time job, wants to do a trade (we’re in a family like many others who thought we’d ’made it’ by sending kids to mostly free uni). I don’t think he should even think of uni, he should be helped to a good apprenticeship and a good trade in an area of jobs (brickies/electrician etc) - he is languishing in school, bright as a button but not academic, he could by that route be earning well by his early 20s with no debt and be able to afford a small fixer upper which he might actually have the skills to fix up, then pay that down in time for a bigger house later on. There’s no point in him getting depressed and indebted at uni.

I was just having this conversation with a colleague! What looks like a good salary these days is nothing compared to the cost of living and over the last few years many people have had the equivalent of a pay cut as pay rises haven't risen in line with the CoL. Also, a lot of people of our parent's age had final salary pension schemes which are few and far between in the private sector these days, and property prices have risen so much that they are sitting on a lot of profit in bricks and motar. I earn way more than my dad ever did but when I look at how that salary kept a family of 4 there's no way I could do similar now.

When even small flats cost £200k or £1100 per month, the price of sky and takeaway coffees are trivial. Youngsters could give up all the "modern" things and still have no hope of ever saving enough to get a deposit together for their own home. That graph upthread illustrates the impossibility of most youngsters ever getting on the housing ladder.

This in spades. As you say, they started from nothing - you have had a very fortunate start in life, and might inherit too,if their house and savings aren't swallowed up by care fees. I presume tbeir childhoods were more humble and no large inheritance? If not, it seems they have worked for everything they have.

The fact that you consider your parents to be well off now, does not mean they always have been. It is perfectly normal and usual for people to acquire more assets as they go through life, and the early years of raising children, amassing possessions, buying a home are hard for most people. ln fact most retirees find they can best put away money for their retirement in the final years of their working lives: the children have generally left home, the mortgage is either paid off or severely shrunk by years of inflation, and their thoughts turn to how they can best take care of themselves in later life when they are no longer working.

They may well have saved this sum as part of their provision for retirement, to provide additional income or a safety cushion for care fees. If it is held within a pension wrapper, they may have had substantial tax refunds forming part of their funds.

It is unrealistic to compare the financial position of those in their 40s with those in their 60s, say, they are at very different life stages. In my forties, we struggled, in my sixties we don't, not least because our spending commitments, as planned, are so much smaller. When I saw my parents in their sixties, retired and having fun, I rejoiced for them, just as my DC do for us today. It never occurred to any of us to feel jealous, or begrudge this phase of fun after a working life. Tougher times will probably lie ahead!

My husband and I never thought there'd be any state pension by the time we retired, but there is, and politically there will always have to be a basic level of provision. As an earlier poster said, years of doing a little bit of saving together with the wonders of compound interest can make a big difference in the long term. That, together with inflation hugely reducing the real cost of your mortgage every month, all adds up.

Hmm my parents were not like this. Now in their 80s and did pay off their mortgage (later than op’s parents) but never had any money and no private pensions so state pension only and a very basic lifestyle ie no holidays abroad. No savings and definitely no contribution to house deposits for me and my siblings. We were all self sufficient since we left school. Had to be.

I think many ordinary older people have still had to be careful with money all their lives. My parents were not professional though.

DH's parents bought a big house in a (now) posh part of London, also took 2 holidays a year, including a ski trip, and put all their kids through private schools. This was on one fairly junior academic's salary. It doesn't bear thinking about how much you would need nowadays to maintain such a lifestyle....

I think the data available suggests that sky subscriptions skew to older generations, over 60s especially for eg sky news, so not sure if that is the reason young people can’t buy houses that are on average 8.5 times their salary!

The point she is making, is not that they should not have this, but that something dramatic has changed for the worse in society and the economy, whereby someone starting with nothing in extremely valuable but not particularly well paid jobs, would be in a struggle for survival and not be able to get ahead.

It is not ungrateful to discuss and analyse why this has happened and what it might lead to if the trajectory doesnt somehow change! We are heading back to (in some places) the bad old days before WW2 of overpacked housing and desperate tenants housing families in a couple of rooms! A couple of pp have mentioned that this is already happening in their areas.