to want to smack the next person who says 'in MY day...

[Serendippy]

I keep hearing the older generation telling me that 'In my day, we lived on £300 a year and had no cars and phones and would have to do any job going for a bit of cash' and it makes me want to scream! I am no spring chicken, but still feel that the generation below me are going to be proportionally worse off. My MIL who insists on this type of story is the woman who took 5 years off work with children and MIL and FIL owned a house at 26 because although wages were low, house prices were too. At 31 I have only bought a house with DH (2 years older) 2 years ago despite the fact that we have both been working full time since 21/22. We had to beg and plead to get a mortgage despite no serious debts and as for 'do any job going to get a bit of extra cash', where are all these lovely cash-in-hand jobs now? If you need money til payday, tough. Even your employer cannot give you an advance anymore because of how everything is accounted for. I know your life was hard, but please stop telling me how easy my life is in comparison because it bloody isn't. (And yes, I do have a mobile and laptop etc but would much, much rather have been able to afford a house and not thrown £1000s away in rent over the years waiting to be 'acceptable'. Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

YANBU

Pretty annoying.

My IL's did this until I pointed out to them that there was no way that we/I could have afforded to live in a 4 bed detached house with two children and be a SAHM whilst running two cars and owning a caravan, all when I was in my mid-twenties. Like they managed.

Sure, DH and I are now more affluent than they were at our ages (late thirties/early forties) but we also WORK a lot more hours between us, WAITED for the things we wanted (build up our careers before having children etc). FIL worked a standard 40 hr/week job MIL didn't work at all (except for the pt job she had whilst SIL was at uni and apparently resented a lot). My DH works at least 60 hours(way more some weeks) and my part-time job often demands 30 hrs a week or more. We have no childcare (DC at school) and no help with the cleaning. We work bloody hard.

I'm not saying our way is better than theirs, not at all, I just got a bit irked when MIL tried to point out how lucky we are when she has lived a pretty blissfull life in comparison. It is also pretty annoying when they try to make out they were poor - they had a really quite affluent home compared to the home I was brought up in (and that could not be classed as poor either).

Anyway, they don't do it any more

little dragon - they have had the last thirty years to give up - smokign was known to be bad int he late 70's so it has been their own choice to think it is fine for over three decades now

Cancer treatment has coem on in leaps and bounds though in those 40 years as has heart treatment, so todays generation has got things better if you take care of yourself.

the oppertunaties have been their for many more baby boomers, fw oppertunatites are goign to be around as industry has changed and to get forward uni has to be the finishing in education

But as i stated in my original post - each generation has had it different - no perfect generation and no harder generation it is swings and roundabouts

I am sick of hearing about how everyone over 40 'stole' the future from everyone under 40.

I too feel sorry for the younger generation.

All those who are legislating re tuition fees benefitted from free tuition and grants back in the good old days. They now are preaching to students of today about how priviledged they are to be able to go to university and so should pay accordingly. Never mind that lately degrees have been discredited and a lot of our institutions are providing degrees which are not worth the paper they are written on. No, you pay up to 20 grand for that privilege, young man.

Oh I always use the phrase 'in my day' to my dc's with my tales of rural poverty, Victorian values and lack of techno-gadgets. They think they are deprived so I feel the need to put 'em straight

'Tis great fun

I tell my kids about no central heating and ice on the inside of the windows and so on...they just roll their eyes at me!

even in my day houses were afoordable!

i got my mortgage at 23, having finally got a permanent job - it was for £19,800 (2 bed terrace in rough area, mind), in 1999. I was earning £9,120, so could have got a mortgage for £27,000 if i'd wanted.

I had a £2,200 deposit (saved in the years that i couldn't get a mortgage because my jobs were temporary)

ColComfort - that was in the days when we used to sit in our bedrooms doing our homework with gloves and a scarf on! no one would believe that now!

CCF - my dd doesn't get CH until we get ice on the insdes of the windows and now doesn't roll her eyes

Well, we still got ice on the bathroom window last winter, so nah!

A house for 20k ... oooh, wouldn't that be lovely! I didn't realize prices had risen quite that steeply - only ten years ago, how can that be?

we think we have it bad compared to our parents, but by christ, our children are going to have it worse, so you need to appreciate how easy you have it really

No central heating? You sissy townies. I describe not having mains sewage and my dad having to empty the toilet bucket down the bottom of the garden to my dc's

LRD- the house was £22,000. the mortgage was £19.8k.

although it was a really rough area - my sister bought a similar sized house in a nicer area and it cost £26,500.

After I'd had my house 4 years and I wanted to move (renting mine out), the estate agent said £60k.

Wow.

That's some increase, bet you felt pleased!

It's a mixed bag anyway isn't it.

My gran bought her house for £900 in the 70s. She then remortgaged it with a £2000 mortgage from the council a couple of years later. Imagine being able to get a mortgage from the council! The house sold last year for £350K. Imagine buying a house now and it increasing by a factor of 350 in 40 years!

But conversely, she never earned much more than £100 a week, credit wasn't easy to come buy, so the house had no roof and leaked, there was no heating in the house (so yes ice on the inside of the windows) and she souldn't afford to have the immersion on so cold baths all round.

Some things are better, some things are worse.

you had an inside toilet? inside toilet? lucky buggers sitting inside on the toilet

I'm just waiting for when I have kids buying their first houses.

'You mean you're paying three million for that?! When I was your age we didn't even have a swimming pool in the house and we thought we were lucky!'

yup.
I sold it for £68,000 to a housing association in 2004.

started my business with it.

(sorry, that was late cos I had acustomer!)

Nice one.

Ah well, maybe there'll be another dip soon for us twenty-somethings.

Btw, impressed with your MN-at-work skills!

it's rather more work interrupts MN. the joys :( of having one's own business.

mondays are always quiet.

and i keep forgetting to pick up the bank statements from home so i can complete my tax return.

My aunty bought a one bed flat in Barking for about £35K.

I remember visiting in 1994 and she said that her friend had bought a flat in the opposite block for £60K in the late 80s and was now in negative equity, myaunty was adamant that she would never ever get £60K again for that flat.

She sold it a couple of years ago for £150K

YANBU, my grandmother (who died 3 years ago at the age of 97; lived through a war of independence, a civil war and two world wars; brought up a family in the 30's and never owned her own home) told me that she thought we worked much harder than she ever had, that there was much more time for leisure in her life. I suspect she had some pretty heavily rose tinted glasses, but I was really struck that not everyone sees us as lazy