to think that there is worrying about money and then there is worrying about money?

[bogeyface]

My parents (baby boomers, yes yes I know!) have been dealing with a situation over the last year that may mean early retirement by about 2 years (they are in their 60s but hadnt planned to retire until 65). I realise that this has altered their financial situation but I am finding it harder and harder to keep my mouth closed when mum talks about their money "worries".

To me, money worries means having to cut right back, worrying about paying bills/rent, food, clothes, shoes etc. It does not mean worrying about not being able to have 2 foreign holidays a year.

If I had genuine money worries I wouldnt be spending £2.5k on a weeks holiday (booked after this all came to light btw) which they are currently on.

I dont resent them their money, its theirs and they have worked for it, but I wish that they would appreciate that having to cut back slightly on a lifestyle that they like is totally different to living under the threat of redundancy and losing your home (as we are). It seems very insensitive to me that she doesnt see the difference. They are mortgage free, so no housing costs either. Mum has been moaning alot about possible changes to public service pensions (which wont actually affect her now, I just think she likes moaning) despite her having a really REALLY good final salary pension that puts her way ahead of alot of people her age, never mind the rest of us!

Mum especially seems to think that if you are struggling then you just need to work harder. She agrees in company that things are terrible with no jobs etc but I know that she thinks that actually most people just dont try hard enough.

WIBU to ask her to put a sock in it? I might not put it quite like that though

Can I just say, these pensioners have no hope of any further income.

They are looking at the next 20-30 years and they know that what they have has to last them
Yes it's galling listening to them book holidays, but presumably this is what they have worked all their life for.

My father, self employed, put away money for a private pension for 30 years, its' worthless now. So he worries. I know he has 30k in the bank, but how long is that going to last?
They have a house to upkeep, car maintenance, utilities, insurance payments just like the rest of us

I'm not saying they understand how people are struggling nowadays, I'm sure they don't have the first clue. I think it's very common for them not to understand tax credits etc. I don't understand them. Those things are verty different, it's an entirely new concept

I'm not a pensioner btw!!

What I find very interesting is that among less wealthy communities, the older generation seem to do everything in their power to help their DC and GDC. They give the last penny in their purses, and commit to helping looker after their GDC so parents can work.

But the more comfortable older people seemless inclined they to help. Either with time or money. A collective blindness and self protectionism seems to have settled in.

YADNBU!! My inlaws are eaxctly like this and I cannot stand it!!. Mil goes on about how she deserves all the benefits she is currently trying to claim/scam-she hasnt worked since she was 40!! fil owned his own business and has done well. They were given a large council house which they purchased for pennies and sold for a huge profit so they have been able to make money through property.

They currently own a house here-mortgage free-and a house abroad. They both have private pensions. They have 2 cars but since they qualify for a free bus pass they have started using the bus-after previously boasting they hadnt used public transport for 30 years!!

They go on and on about bring poor pensioners and how they really NEED the carers allowance they are trying to scam but the reality is that they have 2 houses,2 cars,thousands in the bank,pensions,isas etc.

The only thing that keeps me from telling them to shut their cake holes when they go on about being "poor" is that when they die half of everything will go to dh-and therefore me

Before any one slates me let me say that mil regularly makes snide comments about people who dont work-I am a sahm-and about how she mananged to go to work with 3 kids. Yet she has never offered to help out with childcare which she did for bil-they babysit once a year on our anniversary for a couple of hours.

They make me sick.

I'm in a haterz mood today, zukes

You hate mine, I'll hate yours

The thing that gets me is that baby-boomers who behave like this MUST be wilfully ignoring "forgetting" a lot of stuff. (I am a tail-end boomer and refuse to be lumped in with these people). Because if you are in your 60s now, then you were in your 20s in the 1970s, 30s in the 1980s, and 40s in the 1990s.

Yes, jobs were easy to come by in the 1970s, but frequent industrial unrest made everything unstable. If e.g. your employer supplied somewhere hit by a strike, you were either laid off or put on half-time. Either way you had to manage on a lot less money at very short notice. Forget planning a holiday, you might need that money for food and rent next week.

In the early 1980s there was massive unemployment. My dad was out of work for 18 months, it would have been longer but he took a job overseas as there was nothing here. He started looking for a job locally (but he was one of 5,000 men made redundant in one fell swoop in our town), then commutable, then anywhere in Scotland, then anywhere in the UK, then Europe, than anywhere. It really was that bad then. How can anyone who lived and worked through the early 1980s forget that? It's just not possible.

In the 1990s my employer was making redundancies more or less annually. I survived three rounds, but even with still having my job, it felt bloody precarious. I was very aware that I was no more than three month's salary from losing my home and everything else.

So I always wonder, how did they escape this? They MUST have personal knowledge of hard times and people being at the mercy of forces they cannot control. Even if they personally were OK, they must remember friends and family struggling. How can they not?

ooo, lots of material to work with there, zukie !

Yes I can see how annoying it is. But folk won't change. People with four children at private school, three foreign holidays and mortgage on Georgian country house will think they are hard up. That's life. Saying that, I don't think some folk have a clue how hard it is for families these days. With the price of houses and two wages needed just for survival.

Good post whereyouleftit. With my PIL, I think it is because they came through all those decades totally unscathed, probably more by luck than judgement. But they think that if they could do it then so could everyone... they lack empathy to say the least.

"My own mother thinks that too."

is he mentally ill, zukie ?

no, scrub that, that is an insult to those with genuine mental health issues

Loving this thread too but it is making me a bit

My parents are exactly like this, it is extremely annoying...no clue how different things are these days.

We are struggling (have been saving for deposit at the expense of everything else - DHs health mostly - he is self employed so working all hours he can) to buy a small house whereby our mortgage repayments will be huge, having paid extortionate rents for years and years, meanwhile they sit back with their foreign holidays all booked up, PLENTY of savings in the bank, mortgage free existence...holidays are but a distant memory to me!

Don't get me started on MIL who thinks I shouldn't be working and should be a SAHM.....

HELLO!!!!! FFS!!!!

I have tried to broach suject with Mum but it gets brushed off - they really don't have a clue and don't even want to try and understand....same with MIL...who helpfully tells DH to "stop working so hard"!!!

All I can say is that I would always go without for my own DC, even in adulthood. To sit back and watch her have a rough ride when I KNEW I could ease the burden would just not sit right with me.

Phewwee - feels good to get that out!

OP you're very right they just don't get it. My df, a tailend boomer, is constantly having a go at my db who has been unemployed for 18 months. Despite applying for jobs every day pretty much my df thinks he's lazy and says things like "how much longer is he going to sit around doing nothing", "why don't you just take any job" (he would!), "why don't you go to that internship everyday" (can only do 16 hours before losing jsa), "why don't you just do a couple of shift at x random event" (it's two days work which he'd have to sign off to do losing jsa and housing benefit maki himself homeless.)

He'd rather believe he's lazy. My db is trying so hard and when he split up with his girlfriend this week as she cheated on him my dad didn't even ask him if he's okay and he's thrown away all his childhood stuff(theyre moving) because he's cross at him for bring unemployed...

Oh and he bullied my mum like this in the 80s when she couldn't get a job. He'd rather think ppl are lazy than be kind.

You are not being unreasonable.

I think this is a difficult one as obviously its not a great attitude your parents have and there is little consideration about yours and their different situation.

HOWEVER, as people have mentioned there are differing degrees of being hard up or struggling! You could have 2 working people who have a large mortgage and a couple of kids in private school but if one gets made redundant they could be really struggling but of course not entitled to any help.

This doesn't make their situation not a worry compared to someone on minimum wage who loses their job as potentially they could all lose their houses.

Within our group of friends there is one person who often makes comments about its ok for us as we can afford this and that etc and how they deserve to have more money etc, its a cheek as they have spent all their inheritence and fiddled the benefits system but still think they are hard up. It makes me so cross as everyone has different money troubles and worries.

I understand where you are coming from but you are being a bit unreasonable.

zukie im sorry to hear this. This is no way on the same level as you but my own mother blamed me for an affair i had. I have been in a sexless affectionless marriage for 16 years but after 7 years of it i had an affair. My mums reaction???
She said that the reason my husband wasnt showing me any affection was because of my affair. But the affair happened AFTER 7 years of no affection or sex. She just didnt listen and wanted to rewrite history so i could be blamed for it simply because i dont have a willy. This is no way on the same level as what youve been through zukie. Your parents have let you down very badly and are emotionally abusive IMO.

zukie i think you are incredibly brave and your son will grow up to value and respect women because that has been instilled in him by you. Hope you dont mind but the last line of your last post made me pmsl.

Your nephew on the other hand is going to have major problems as he gets older.

zukie i cant understand why women seem to hate other women so much. The mysogyny does seem to come from more mature women towards younger women though going by my own experience and by what ive read on here.