to be a bit bitter about inheritance

[ShagOBite]

I had a horrible childhood, and lived in poverty. I won't get an inheritance.

Friends of mine had lovely childhoods, the best education money could buy, and as many boosts as possible to their careers. They are already much more privileged. They don't need any more money now, as their careers are ticking along nicely, and still get parental help when they can't afford a new conservatory or whatever.

Soon enough, their parents will die and leave them with even more money. That they don't need. And so the cycle continues.

I know it is bitter of me, I don't like feeling like this, but it is so unfair. I've had to work so hard to make a success of my life, it is so frustrating when others get handouts for nothing. Some of my friends have hardly ever worked, safe in the knowledge that they will be fine and dandy in a few years.

I get the argument that you work hard to provide for your kids. But if it stops them from working hard, and especially if it's 'old money' (ie. the working hard bit was done generations ago) it seems so unfair.

AIBU?

That's a different way of looking at it, shagmund.

It is always hard to know the impact of property prices as property owning is relatively recent.

I would like to think that market economics kick in at some point and bring the supply/demand/price into synch. You can't have out of reach property prices for everyone, as there would then be no movement and the market would go into stagnation.

The reasons for current property prices are complex, for example, they take into account the breakdown of the family and a mum/dad having two houses as they can't live together. I don't think we can blame inheritance for this, except for the lack of passing on family values.

My parents taught me that your health is your wealth. If you have that you are richer than many many others.

I don't have any very rich friends. What would I talk to them about? All my friends work. What is so great about not working?

I think your parents were right lisbeth

Property. That is a bit of a sore point for us. We want to buy, but the property prices where we live have been pushed up by the parents of wealthy students buying flats as an 'investment'. We will have to live in a hole in 't road, probably. Or a puddle. Sigh.

NOT misunderstanding - when my DS1 goes to Uni, he will HAVE to pay rent - because even though I will be back in work by then, I will be on such a low wage that I will still have to claim help with my rent from Housing Benefit. Which will be reduced as soon as he hits 19yo. Therefore he will HAVE to work, not just in holidays, but in termtime too.

It's NOT that I don't see that education is a good thing, or that I WANT him to have to work so hard that it will affect his grades - but I will have NO CHOICE but to ask him for rent.

Helping by not asking for rent IS helping - and only those on an income ABOVE a certain level can afford to do that for their dc.

I'm NOT jealous or annoyed with those who are accepting that their parents and grandparents money, and helping hands of a house deposit, or financial support through college, gave them advantages that are denied to those whose parents and grandparents just DON'T have the money to offer their dc the same advantages.

Those who are appreciative of the fact that they have had more opportunities in life DUE to the help they have been given (and a house deposit or financial support through Uni IS a big help - how would you have managed without it? Would you be where you are right now?) I have no problem with.

It is those that deliberately overlook these helping hands they have been given, and start spouting that anyone can acheive what they have if they only put their mind to it, or those that can't seem to see beyond their own sphere of experience, and say that "oh, a house deposit is hardly any help at all", or "Oh, it was only my parents not charging me rent, it wasn't like it was anything major", they are the ones that get my goat - because they just can't seem to realise that that is an advantage that many, many people will never have. They don't seem to realise that if their parent's HADN'T been able to do that, then they would have had to work all through term-time, while they were meant to be studying (or sleeping), and as a result, they either don't finish their degree, or they don't get as good a grade, which damages their future earning potential.

It's the ones who fail to see that they HAVE been given an advantage in life that piss me off.

And I'm not usually a jealous person, I take what life throws at me fairly well - and life has thrown me a truck load of lemons - but it DOES grate on me that some people are completely unable to realise that they HAVE been given massive life advantages over other people, who have no hope of ever catching them up.

It's like on the benefits threads on MN, when right wingers talk about just retraining - yeah, like that's possible when you are working all the hours in a day for NMW, if you still want to pay your rent and EAT! They just fail to see that having their parents help them financially while they study is an advantage the benefits claimants just don't have, and that it is FINANCES that prevent them from 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps'.

It's true: equality of opportunity was only real for a short time, and it needs to be guarded & enforced by law - which obviously isn't happening under this administration. The two keystones are education and health. Both of those are more readily available, and better, for the rich than the poor.

Even the FT is worried about a future lack of educated talent in the UK.

Hunty, maybe this is a generational thing. I left home at 18 never to return. Not even for the vacations. I'm an old lady now so my tuition was free and I worked in a couple of fabulous restaurants and easily paid my own way. Really easily. Never had any money for a deposit, just worked and saved. Which is how things seemed to be done in those days.

Of course some people, even then did have very wealthy parents who would buy them houses but that was vanishingly rare, and tbh it did seem to me then that this was mainly confined to people who you knew would never make it in career terms. Possibly precisely because they had been given so much that they never had the hunger or the drive to succeed.

So it's with genuine surprise that I find that people care that other people have been given more. I say go and show them how to do it yourself. I still think it can be done, even now.

Quattro, I just deleted a post about my background thinking it wasn't relevant! I went to a selective grammar and wore second-hand uniforms. I got a tuition grant but not maintenance, so worked through uni at a nightclub. I bought my homes on 100% mortgages - unlike you, I found that practically all my peers got a hefty helping hand from parents but it didn't matter all that much.

My advantages are much harder for a teenager to access in 2012. The jobs aren't available. Schooling is more restricted. The 100% mortgages don't exist. Most desirable careers require an indenture period. Yes, there'll always be the lucky few who manage to work two or three jobs while completing a successful indenture or turn a market stall into a retail empire - but that isn't normal, or we wouldn't hear about them as we do.

There was a time, when we were young, when opportunity was free. But it's just not the case any more.

18 would have been a luxury, Quattro. I was kicked out of my FC placement on my 16th birthday, with no SW to find me anywhere to live. I was on a park bench for 3 weeks. Since then, I have put myself through college, and Uni, got into debt to do so, been diagnosed with epilepsy that meant I could no longer USE my degree OR work in the profession I had trained fore (non-transferrable skill), and now cannot afford to retrain, as I do not have the ability to get into that level of debt AGAIN, as I wouldn't be able to provide my DC with the BASICS of food and heat.

I have DONE all the things you have - AND got into, and out of, debt to do so. None of it has changed the eventual outcome!

I have been in a job where I was earning £50k as a starting wage, I would be earning much, much more now, had life not thrown me another crate of lemons. I lost my home, my career, my future earning potential, and I ad no-one to even tide me over.

I am researching an OU degree, to see if I can retrain, but if I have to find more than £200 to do it - then it is out of reach. I have been saving up for 2 YEARS in order to get THAT amount of money together to try to retrain. THAT is the problem I have with people who try to tell me that I should make the best of what I have - I'm trying, I am really bloody trying - but sometimes I get frustrated with those who don't think they have had any advantages over me in life.

As I say, with some people, no matter HOW much they try to better their life, and that of their dc, they get so many lemons thrown at them that it is impossible, and they WILL have the occasional flashes of jealousy, when faced with someone who is unappreciative of the advantages they have had over other people.

Quattro, if you are an old lady now then the way things were when you were young are very very different to the way things are now. Like you said, you didn't have tuition fees and you were able to get a couple of jobs. It's just not like that anymore.

(I'll reiterate - I do not have a problem with inheritance per se, I merely have a problem with those who inherit or have a helping hand from their parents that DON'T acknowledge that it HAS given them advantages in life over other people. I get annoyed with those that say that EVERYONE can do it, because that is OBVIOUSLY untrue - or EVERYONE WOULD have done it!!)

But why can't they get jobs? The bars and restaurants I go into seem to be stuffed with young 'uns working there. The part-time jobs are there. I just don't buy it that they are not. Surely we as a society are going the way of the US where working through your degree is expected.

Hunty - your case is heart-rending and I am sorry. You've had more than your fair share of lemons. It's true to say no matter how much get up and go someone has, there just might be insuperable obstacles.

That doesn't hold true for everyone though.

HuntyCat - what was your degree that has zero transferable skills? Why do you need to do another degree to retrain?

The population is bigger now Quattro. People are working until they are older so they are not freeing up jobs for the younger generation. More people need the jobs that are there, because it used to be possible for a family to live on one wage. Now the cost of living is so high that one wage is not enough unless it's a very big wage, so two adults in a family will need to work instead of one.

It was to do with CAD, construction and the built environment. I am NEVER allowed on a building site again - as I have had a seizure after the age of 5yo. And I am still not seizure free. PLUS I will more than likely (according to my Neurologist) NEVER be able to work Full-time again - as the stress of FT work makes my seizures worse. The most I can cope with is 3 days a week, before I start to see an increase in my seizures. So I couldn't go back to my previous career in a different capacity - not an industry set up for PT work!

And house prices are so much higher in comparison to the average wage. It is no longer possible to work in an average paid job and hope to save up to buy a house. I don't think it was possible 60 years ago, but in between we have come to believe that these things are possible for everyone, but they aren't.

My dh works with CAD Hunty, so I can understand how you couldn't go back to that. It seems to have moved on a lot recently anyway, and I can't imaging being office based, ie sitting in front of a computer screen all day, would be any good for preventing seizures!

Home ownership is certainly not possible when you leave university with a huge debt around your neck.

Meanwhile the baby boomers are off on the umpteenth cruise ( friend of my parents are bored with Brazil) and I know they've earned it (teachers)etc etc and my parents lent us £3,000 to buy a car so I cannot complain but it's kind of at how different my life will be at their age.

The population is bigger and working longer, but the economy is bigger too.

My argument about student jobs still stands though.

Part of the issue is expectation. This whole idea of sending everyone to university because everyone can and should benefit from a university education is so much hokum. The average plumber earns three times the salary of an average paralegal. Takes 2 years after the age of 16 to qualify as a plumber, 8 years for a paralegal. There are more paralegals than you can shake a stick at, but a good plumber? Rarer than hen's teeth.

I have mixed feelings about inheritance, my 3 siblings and I should inherit from my mum as she did from hers but we won't. She has now met a feckless man who has no idea how to keep money in his pocket and as a result will blow every penny my mum has worked for.
This is very frustrating as I would like that money to give my children a boost but more importantly my brothers could get on the property ladder and provide for their children in a way their NMW jobs just don't allow.

I agree with you about sending everyone to university, that policy has done much more harm than good. But it doesn't change everything else.

I have no idea about the economy being bigger, but there is also a recession! Along with all the other things that have already been explained to you.

Really, why don't you try it? Spend tomorrow pretending you are starting university in September and try and work out how you would pay your course fees, rent, general living, and find a job.

It's not that easy, and to protest that it is is just plain ignorant.

No, I am not ignorant. I think about my DCs, who are not so far away from university really, and how it will work for them.

I think university fees = student loan, which you do not have to repay until you are earning
Living expenses = working. 15 hours a week at NMW plus a bit more on the loan and working full-time in the vacations would be enough

Getting on the first rung of proper employment is harder but is still doable. Do you not think we might be entering some sort of parental co-conspiracy whereby we all dolefully shake our heads and shell out (if we can) or feel guilty (if we can't). Can you see an element of hand-wringing here?

Surely if you are starting university in September 2012 you would apply for a Tuition Fee Loan and a Maintenance Loan, so assuming you get those you should be able to manage pretty much okay?

This blindness in the face of the facts continues to astound me. Not so much on here, perhaps, where we're all individuals with our varying knowledge & beliefs, but in the media and government.

There are 239,000 unfilled vacancies in England.
There are 2,265,000 unemployed adults, 16+ yrs.
1,886,000 want a job.
1,318,100 claim JSA.

1886 / 239 = 7.89

Out of every eight people wanting a job, seven cannot have one because there aren't enough jobs.

This isn't about "wanting it enough", trying harder, or any of that. It's a fact.

(Office of National Statistics, December 2011)

How many unemployed adults are either retired, or SAHM by choice, or unable to work? Is that included in the figures?