To think the babyboomers have had it a lot easier than the next generation?

[DarlingDuck]

In terms of house prices, uni fees, pensions and retirement.

I'm 30 and don't know any people my age who own their own homes unless they were substantially subsidised by their parents. All my friends have uni fees to pay off and a lot of them struggled/are struggling to find work even with a degree.

Am a bit jealous of my parents generation... Had a major pang when I heard the over 65's own 85% of the UK's property, AIBU?

I couldn't now buy the flat I bought for 30k in 1982. Then I was allowed a 2.5 times mortgage (and lied and said I was on 1,200 per annum more than I was to get it). I was lukcy because I had a 7k deposit. Nevertheless, at the time my take home pay was 447 and I remember when my mortgage payment was 385 and on top of that I had to find maintenance charges and bills. I only managed for the first two years because I had a lodger. It would have been so much easier if I had bought with a partner back then but I knew I had to do it when I did because prices were at the bottom of the cycle. But it was a very very tough couple of years and there were many times when I couldn't go out because I just couldn't afford it and I certainly didn't buy many clothes and didn't have a holiday or a car either for three years. After three years though, the flat had more than doubled in value. The same flats are now on the market for about 385,000 so no, it wouldn't be possible now but I'm sure I would do the same again but in a cheaper area or a bit further out. An awful lot of my friends at the time weren't prepared to make the sacrifice I did at the time but it was that that gave me a kick start and is the principal reason why we are comfy now. But I took a huge risk when I did it albeit a calculated one. If I could look bakc with hindsight I wouldn't have sold the flat and bought a little house. I would have bought two flats; rented the one I owned outright and lived in the one with a mortgage. Now if I had done that I would have been really smart and now we would be really really rich because it could have been the beginning of property development. I did think about it at the time - 1987 - but I just didn't have the guts to do it.

Haven't read the whole thread. But to OP - No, YANBU. I think the same and been thinking about it since a looong time ago (over 10 years) when I could see how difficult it was 12 years ago for young people to be on the property ladder and fund their uni courses. Even grammar schools, as an opportunity for social mobility, is now taken away.

It's effectively inter generational theft of wealth.

I got my first flat at 18 and only needed 6k deposit that I saved up from my waitressing money. Then I got a mortgage on my own with a 12k salary.

Then in 2006 my husband and I bought a flat in an expensive area down South and we were both minimum wage workers. Our mortgage is over 100k but it was easy to do 5 years ago with self cert mortgages and our income is only 21k between us. If you bought after 2006 though it is hard.

there are two ways of looking at it property wise yes i guess in certain ways it was better but i remember all the strikes and having no coal for the fire petrol strikes were semi permanent so walking everywhere with 10 bags of shopping ( walking is better but not with 3 kids in tow and 10 bags of heavy shopping) education where i lived was so appalling it would give waterloo road a run for its money we didnt have all the conveniences you have today most people didnt have a phone tv was black and white , someone was saying earlier you were lucky free specs for kids (have you seen what they looked like) at least today my daughter didnt get ridiculed for wearing glasses as i did in those grotty NHS ones... there are lots of things millions of times better today including holidays abroad rather than a week in the isle of wight or selsey bay in a cold caravan in the rain

YABU

As others have said it's swings and roundabouts. Here's my generational generalisations ...

Baby boomers Good things - house prices, sense of optimism, idealisation of youth and their generation in particular. Bad things - shame of single mothers and giving up your child, sexism at work, Valium and bored housewives.

Generation X as in 40 somethings Good things - house prices, free university and grants. Bad things - mass youth unemployment, Maggie Thatcher, threat of nuclear armaggedon.

Younger folk as in OP and 30 somethings Good things - wider access to uni, the luxury of too much choice and quarter life crises. Bad things - house prices, lack of pensions and commitment from employers.

Current teens and early 20's Good things - technilogical jazz. Bad things - threat of youth unemployment, house prices, lack of access to HE, lack of opportunities.

In terms of house prices - keep saving and stick tight - prices will fall when interest rates rise. It happened in early 1970's and to me in early 1990's.

No one has it easy. You're judging people towards the end of their lives when you see all they have ever amassed, not what got them there.

Your right about current teens/ early 20's.

9k univeristy fee's with little chance of employment is not a happy place. When I went to uni it was still just about that feeling off "you can get a degree in anything, a degree is a degree"

Nowdays there is little point unless its a degree with excellent chances of employment. So studying things for passion is widely narrowed.

Very good post highnoon

I was born in the middle of the 60's so I guess that puts me at the tail end of the baby-boomers ( anyone got a definition - it's post-war babies isn't it ?)
I do feel that, in terms of both economic and life opportunities, both my parents and my generation may have had it easier than my DC's will.
Both they and we were funded to go to University - my Mum being the first generation of women in the family to go. Both my Mum and I were later further funded to get our PGCE's to qualify as teachers.
Both my parents have good pensions from work in the public sector - especially my father who retired with a bit of a golden handshake.
My DH and I are going to be significantly less well provided for by our pensions, such as they are.
Both they and we have had good opportunities to travel, with my DH and myself having opportunities to travel extensively and to live abroad for a time.
Both they and we have made money from property, with my parents doing particularly well buying on the outskirts of London in the 60's and staying there ever since. We bought our house in 2000, just in time perhaps to benefit from the last bit of boom (for now)
Concerned my DC's may struggle more than we have, especially with affording to go to Uni, and getting their feet on the property ladder.
You like to think your DC's will have as good a life and lifestyle as your parents were able to give you - but the economy cannot perhaps be relied on to go onwards and upwards forever.
Maybe we'll just have to give them different things, like emotional intelligence and a listening ear ( which were sometimes slightly lacking ) as well as some of the things our parents were able to give us like a breadth of life experiences and the opportunity to talk about them together.
My niece is off to Uni this autumn - she seems to be looking forward to it as much as I did, and to be taking the fees and loans in her stride - with plans to work ( both in a bank where she's had a job recently, and looking to pick up some bar work in term time too )
I guess young people can be quite resilient, and where there's a will there's a way - Just hope they get something of the freedom, opportunity, and broadening of horizons that we were lucky enough to experience. As well as sufficient economic security to be able to enjoy and explore life fully.

YANBU. I agree with you completely, but please don't tell my Dad

House prices may have been cheaper but they did have to cope with 15% interest.

YANBU.

Mum's generation - she went to a "good school", free state school, worked hard, was the first in her family to university. Got a grant which enabled her to live in France during uni, buy herself a car, live it up. She and my Dad married, Dad's parents gave them a house deposit. Mum worked as a teacher, became an adviser, got early retirement, big fat juicy pension, now owns a place and a boat and goes sailing regularly along with numerous foreign holidays.

I could live with all of this, if I didn't have to put up with her sneering at the council estate where I lived because we couldn't come close to affording anywhere bigger, anywhere else. She's not only a baby boomer but a "spending the kids inheritance" generation. She was helped to buy the first marital home by her in-laws - when I was in the same boat at age 25, she acted like I was scum for expecting any financial help from her. She didn't even stay married to Dad, but turned any potential profit from all the houses she owned into a boat - and boats just depreciate, they don't increase in value. She was raised to believe she was the centre of the universe and to put herself first every time. Myself and my family are living with the consequences. I will NOT be like my Mum as my children grow up. I might not have much money but I will help them as much as I possibly can.

It's not true. The 1950s parents could hardly eat. Rationing was still in force. There was no central heating. Life was very tough. Come the 70s we had inflation at 18%, 20% and 22% in 3 consecutive years, 3 days week, no power at certain times. When I went to university only 15% of people could go so the issue of a student loan was irrelevant.

I wrote an article comparing now and 25 years ago - my daughter in a similar position to what mine was then. The house I bought is worth pretty much the same ratio of her salary, our interest rate had been 12% and basic lowest rate of tax was 33%. There was no help with childcare. only after 2 years' employed did you get 90% pay for 6 weeks. I never qualified even for that. I took 2 weeks holiday to have a baby and go back to full time work. There were no tax credits.

The basic student grant was not that much money at all. I bought potatoes and cycled. It was not a massively generous thing at all. Students had none of the things many have now like iphones and even things like buying deoderant and conditioner were not things most people would or could afford.

I made 110 job applications at university in the early 80s before getting something. It was very very hard.

I am constantly annoyed by moaning pensioners!! In particular their monopoly of the NHS. They book all the bloody appointments at the surgery and moan about having to wait 3 weeks to have their arthritic wrist looked at by the specialist clinic. Hello? My friend (working full time and paying tax) had to wait 6 weeks to get a breast scan, 75% of all A&E admissions are over 70. Yes, you paid in "all your life", but then how does that work if you stopped working 30 years ago?

My MIL and my own mum (both in their 80's) came from very modest backgrounds (i.e. large family, nothing inherited) and both married men from similarly modest backgrounds (all non Uni educated), who then went on to have unspectacular careers. Both are widowed, have a house and part of the hubby's pension. They both enjoy holidays and indulgences that I have never been able to afford - in my mum's case spending a fortune on crap off QVC and two holidays a year in Vegas .

Previous braniac messages explain the economics of why they so rich, we so poor.

I have worked full time for 18 years pre kids, 8 years part time since they were born and, I expect, when they are in secondary school, I will be back to full time work for 15 years.

I wonder if suffrage for OAPs should be rescinded? An increasingly old population is all we hear about from the papers and the tabloid papers certainly cater to the interests of an increasingly ageing population, when they're not trying to cater to a salicious teenage population. Odd.

How about voting being contingent on tax paying?

every generation, blames the one before...

I find it pretty hilarious when boomers come onto these threads and say "oooh, it wasn't easy, we had to take jobs in shops/low ranking civil service/etc." The problem for young people now is that they don't get any job at all! So frankly, walking out of school into a job in a shop or the civil service seems like huge privilege to people now. My mum left school and was offered two jobs, with just one A-level pass. To get the same jobs now, you'd need at least a BSc, and you'd be competing against hundreds of applicants. It's laughable to suggest that people now have 'higher expectations'- no one expects a job for life any more, which is one of the most basic needs people have (to earn money to support themselves- no one really wants to depend on the state, ffs, even if they have a TV while doing so).

krystianah - I did intend to maintain a dignified silence as some posters tore my generation (I was born 1946) to shreds, but your post has tipped me over the edge.

FACT - Most pensioners are still paying tax. The state pension is TAXABLE. We pay tax when it is added to our miniscule private , ie fully self contributed, pensions (which just cover the council TAX). We also pay VAT at 20% like everyone else, Car TAX and tax on the laughable interest on our savings. DH (72) occasionally works as a musician - his earnings are taxed.

FACT - We do own our house mortgage free now, but had to find a deposit = to 2 years of my salary. We had to postpone having children for 2/3 years, both worked 2 jobs and lived on one wage to save this sum and then paid mortgage for 25 years at 11.9% fixed.

FACT - Although I only took 8 years out of work when the DDs were born/small I do not get a full state pension - I just missed the cut off date for family protection credit. DH worked for 50 years from 15 to 66.

FACT - We saved enough to fund deposits for both DDs to buy flats and get a foot on the housing ladder before they were 20. Also helped them financially through Uni, although they both worked as well.

FACT - Although I was school dux, I left school and started an apprenticeship at 15 as did DH. My mother had to stop working due to ill health and my father's wages did not cover rent, rates, utilities and food, so I had to earn. Both DH and I attended 'night school' for three years to become qualified. So a 45 hour 5.5 day week + 9hours in the evening, two weeks holiday.

I had better stop now although I am tempted to mention rationing, no NHS until 1948, 8 shillings child benefit for 2nd child, not for first, no maternity leave or pay, no pension or bonuses for female staff.........................

No pension or bonuses for female staff ... not everything's changed then.
( So many women, like me, have virtually no pension or bonuses )

I am actually quite grateful to the baby-boomers, even if they are a bit self-centred. I am half a generation behind them and have benefitted massively from the passage through life that they forged. They introduced sexual equality, racial equality, equal pay for equal work, fairness in recruitment, etc. That generation worried about politics and made things happen. The current generation are pretty apathetic in comparison.

I agree with xenia about childcare. We only had three months maternity leave, no contribution towards childcare costs, no company or Government nurseries, no right to ask for flexible working, no tax credits. It is a lot easier now.

YANBU.

Those who say they had it harder in the past because they didn't have all these material items that young people apparently all fritter their money on and take for granted, miss 3 things:

1. The price of these items is so cheap these days eg I've actually been paid to get a new mobile phone via cashback websites; it is not my 'expensive' new gadgets preventing me from buying a house, but the fact that houses now cost c 10 times average salary rather than 3.5 times.

2. Ask anyone if they'd rather have a drawer full of gadgets or the security of owning the roof over their heads and I think 99% of people would choose the latter. As per !), young people are not in a position to make that choice. A few gadgets may make life slightly more bearable whilst living in crap rented accommodation, but it certainly is not the case that if you scrimped and saved you would magically be able to afford to buy somewhere costing 10X salary. saving can only get yu so far.

3. As much research has shown, happiness is not dependent on what items one owns but how one compares to one's neighbours - the 'keeping up with the Jones'' element. In a world where hardly anyone owned gadgets etc no-one was made miserable by not having them. Whereas the increasong inequalities in today's socity do breed misery - it's hard to be content living in a grotty rented house knowing that your next door neighbour bought their house for a fraction of what you pay just because they were a little bit older, despite being on a far inferior wage. Or the 2 brothers who bought, 1 in Darlington and 1 in London, that an earlier poster mentioned - there is no logic why one should be loaded as a result and the other not.

As for the annoying poster who cited her family member who scrimped and saved and worked their fingers to the bone to buy a house, they seem to have entirely missed the point that anyone in a similar situation trying to do the equivalent now could sell both kidneys on top of that AND STILL BE NO NEARER TO BUYING A HOME. The fact is that just working hard and saving is not enough for anyone living down south on anything like the minimum wage. Whereas this lady did at least see the reward for her hard work. For today's young, sadly, it is hard to see where they are going to be able to benefit from the rewards of their labours. Their BTL landlord, on the other hand, is sitting pretty.

I agree breadandbutterfly.

If you can't afford a house/big enough flat for your family you end up getting judged by friends/neighbours/acquaintances, people who say "It's tantamount to child abuse to make your daughter and son share the same room!" (Don't get me started). And so many people are smug. I think being smug is the very small reward they get for having mummy and daddy buying their house for them/paying the mortgage for them. I knew a woman with three kids, whose husband's parents and her own parents both, and the husband too, were jointly all paying the mortgage on their large ex-council home. All this afforded her the great privilege of looking down on me and my husband for living in our "tiny" flat.

Attitudes need to move on. People need to give up snobbery and just accept "I'm living in this house cos mummy and daddy bought it for me, therefore I'm not better than the couple whose parents didn't buy them property". A bit of humility goes a long way.

I have to agree with the posters who say YABU. I was born in the 60s. My parents owned a house - they rented initially. We had no carpets for years, clothes were hand me downs, we had a donated black and white TV, no family holidays, I had a Saturday job from aged 12. I didn't go to University, although it was free, I would have had to live at home as you still had accomodation and living costs. There wasn't one nearby so I started work and studied night classes in my mid 20s for 5 years to complete my degree.

I think this generation/next generation would not accept some of the things that the 'post war' 'baby boomers' and to some extent the 'Gen X' had to accept.

My parents started married life in a caravan. 2 yrs later went into 'rooms' (a bedroom and living room in someone elses house) where my eldest brother was born. 2 more yrs and they got their first 2 up 2 down house and had 2 more DC. Finally moved into the house they now own when oldest was 8 (and had 2 more DC later down the line).

That house is falling apart at the seams, and is too big for them, but they cannot afford to put it right or to move, so are stuck.

Argh, didn't mean to post then.

Meant to say, my MIL is almost 20 yrs younger than my parents, but is in the same predicament. She had an awful life growing up, things not really getting any better until my DH was in his teens. She is now living in the wonderful (and huge) house she was able to buy in the early 70s, but she can't afford to heat it, can't afford to sell it.

I'm 'gen X'. I should have bought a house in my 20s, but I wanted a flash car more....In the next year I need to buy, and I keep seeing homes that I could have bought back then are now out of my price range.

I think that house prices are the big issue. There is no solution though. If they were to drop substantially across the board maybe, but that'll never happen.

HighNoon had a good post. It is difficult to compare people who appear to have it all with people who haven't got there yet-who knows where they will end up?

It is very much swings and roundabouts. I do worry about my DCs being able to get on the housing ladder etc and I wouldn't want to be young now. I think that perhaps we have now got to the stage where the younger generation will stop being better off than their parents-something that has happened, up to now, in my family.

I am older and in a way it was easier-we didn't expect a lot. We bought a house but I don't think my DCs would have put up with our way of life. We couldn't afford much in the way of furniture and relied on parent's cast offs and had to live with lurid wall paper for quite a while. Getting to where we are now was a slow process. It was quite normal to start married life with a bed and 2 chairs!

Life was different-you will probably have to wait another 30yrs to answer the question fairly.

Skimming throught this thread again is a little message that many of you have received no help from parents who are living in large houses, with good incomes. If that is true then I think you are right to be a little sad. We're baby boomers and our children will have it so much easier than we did. They are 16 and 13 now. My only concern is whether they will be as "hungry" as DH and I were in our 20s to push themselves to succeed.