To think that the older retired generation have it too cushy ...

[suebfg]

Nice holidays, large houses now worth £££, good pensions etc. (I know I am generalising her)e.

And the young/middle aged people can't rely on an inheritance as the elderly people may have to sell their homes to pay for care. Yet the elderly people did get an inheritance and are enjoying it on their holiday spending sprees.

The state pension is about £100 per week. I do not envy them.

Totally agree,pinkandred.

My Dad is 63. He was born 5 years after the war - there was still rationing then. In fact, I've just looked it up and meat and bacon ended at midnight on 4th July 1954.

My Mum and Dad have no savings, a mortgage they struggle to service and may well lose their home, which they've clung to for 25 years, through multiple redundancies.

Dad worked in any job he could get and worked abroad for much of our early childhood - 3 months out, 3 weeks home. They had to relocate on the same day if a job came in. Mum had to stop at a payphone half-way up the motorway to tell her boss that she wouldn't be reporting for work because she was moving to Cumbria.

Another time, Dad was offered a Married-Status job while Mum was out getting food shopping. At that time, there was one phonecall - you either take it or leave it. Dad had to decide whether the whole family relocated to Brunei for 2 years, without consulting Mum. We went.

Only ignorant people or those seeking a bunfight generalise so much.

If my parents had any money, I'd tell them to spend every penny.

Oh God, we hear people going on like this here in Ireland as well. I mean, Ireland was a very poor country until relatively recently so most of the older generation would have grown up with very little; parents often didn't even own their home; staying on at school do complete your education was a luxury; University a privilege for the very well off. That generation really struggled, raising families on very very little, and making huge sacrifices in many cases to put their children through universities. Those who ended up reasonably comfortable through prudent investments etc were usually very generous about helping their children get on the property ladder and now, following our economic meltdown, are often helping those children with their mortgages and bills or offering free child care so both parents can go out to work.
But still they get criticised by some mean minded begrudgers for daring to go on the odd holiday, eat out occasionally, play golf, have a house that's worth a lot more than they paid for it years and years ago. I can't stand that attitude. Unbelievably selfish!

Grandparents who earned £9 and £8 when they got their first morgage and paid 11% to 15% interest for many years on said morgage and lived on soup and toast for dinner. I am so proud of them. I never hear them complain and they help their family in every way they can.

Araesque, So true!

The discussion is about generational not individual disparity. For every parent/grandparent helping, they'll be many more unable/unwilling to help the next generation. My parents? Clueless- no help with getting on housing ladder etc or while i was at university. My mother martyishly speaks of how she had to work in the uni library a morning a week while a student, forgetting that i was working several evenings and every Sat in Mcdonalds/local pub while i was a student as they failed to make up my grant!!!
It is not the fault of the baby-boomers directly as individuals that they've had it so good. It IS the fault of successive governments who daren't take on such a large and influential portion of their voters by means -testing various benefits and re-evaluating the tax system.

You cannot possibly generalise about this. Yes some older people are well off because of good pensions (which means they probably had a good job) or inheritance or other. But a lot are not well off at all and can only afford the basics. Some of the people on MN seem to be very well off indeed. Incomes of £100,000 plus and yet seem to be broke. Poor souls!

My parents are pensioners. They have both worked since they were 15.
Mum retired through ill health 6 years ago.
My dad is 67 and still works and will do so until his health deteriorates.
I wouldn't describe their life as cushy tbh.

I suppose I am lucky. I have a teachers pension and so does dh. We own our house ( a fairly modest bungalow) outright. All our dc are homeowners (aged between 38 and 44) we have no real savings as we have helped our dc over the years but we are very happy and quite comfortable. I am 68 and dh is 77. We both worked hard and brought up our children, we give our wfa to Age Concern. None of our 5 dc begrudge us our security and all have decent professional careers. My parents never owned a house and I had a grammar school education.

I will never get why people are so keen to see other people suffer.

Its not like pensioners had a choice about the cost of housing or the pensions on offer - that was what was available at the time. Are you seriously saying that if those things were on offer today you wouldn't take them? or that if your house value had risen in the same way as theirs you would be upset and try and give it away?

Pensioners have been taxed on their earnings, taxed on their savings, taxed on their pensions and taxed again when they die, not forgetting the massive interest rates they have paid over the years - I think they are entitled to enjoy whatever they have earned despite the climate in which they earned it.

Stop moaning about what everyone else has and get on with enjoying yours or making sure that you can enjoy your own retirement.

Governments have to generalize based on demographic, financial data/predictions in order to set policy. Really what the hell are we let alone are kids going to have??? I am not expecting a state pension to still be in existence when i need it (despite many years of paying in) nor free medical/homecare and will probably still be paying off our massive mortgage and uni fees well into my 60s! I cannot conceive of how my kids will get on the housing ladder. At all.

It's hard for me to see how / when young people today have the chance to make the money they need for a comfortable life.

• They are all expected to stay in education for ages, and pay for it too (as opposed to previous generations, where it was possible to leave school at 16 and work, or if you did go to university you had a grant for the fees at very least. So every worker started at whatever age at a baseline of zero, instead of significant minus figures as they do now)

• Because of the 50% being expected to stay in education for ages and attempt to support themselves at the same time (although not really, significant debt is expected, so "attempt" is the operative word) there is a huge flexible army of young desperate workers with low expectations, reducing the chances of the other 50% to earn a living wage in the service economy

• meanwhile there is no manufacturing or industrial work to do instead

• They will have to pay heavily into pensions all their working lives, alongside their loan repayments

• at the same time, renting is fiendishly expensive as there is no council housing for young, childless people, and many will not be able to live with parents and be available for work, as work is concentrated in certain areas which are very expensive to live in (but really, did our parents expect to live with their parents at 22, 23, 24, 25, 26? You became an adult when you left school and got a job. Which is increasingly deferred - adulthood deferred, status and dignity deferred)

• meanwhile, wondering whether there is a way to put £800 a month rent money FOR A ROOM to better use, they find that they will need to save something like £50k as a deposit for a house. Taking a pack-up to work instead of buying a sandwich will save them about a grand a year, optimistically, so only 50 years to that deposit then.

• the nhs is going to disappear, or will require top ups from users. The pensions are going to disappear. Public transport is increasingly expensive. Petrol, utilities, all forms of energy cost more all the time. But in a life that starts with long, paid for education, goes into low paid work and high costs of living and ends with private pensions, when are the years where you save? where is the moment when you finally get to make some money?

At the top I said "for a comfortable life". I mean

A house big enough for children
Time and money enough to eat well
Time to spend with your family and on hobbies
Don't worry about healthcare (remember the NHS won't be covering this properly soon)

More of the older generation took all this for granted far more than the younger ones will.
Oh but we can despise them because they have funny hair

Coincidentally, just came across this article after writing that

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/22/young-and-isolated/?_r=1&

It's the "adulthood deferred" part that is saddest, in a way - people just want to get down to life and are always told that the good stuff is round the next corner - and they aren't good enough yet

I was born at the end of the baby boom years and am not yet retired. I think the availability of final salary pension schemes will prove to be the biggest benefit to my generation, but I do resent this whole "baby boomers sucked everything out" attitude. How were we supposed to predict the economic future 30yrs ahead and how were we supposed to sell/buy houses below their market value just in case our (unborn)children were ever struggling to get on the housing ladder.

Also the idea that we had charmed lives is bollocks. Anybody that says this never lived through the 70's. They were grim - especially oop north where I come from. The old industries were dying, unemployment and social unrest were rife. There were power cuts and endless strikes. Then later interest rates rose to 14% - try paying your mortgage at those rates. Women could not get a mortgage without an additional guarantee on the loan.

Most people didn't have cars and we only ever had 1 UK holiday a year. There was no technology to speak of. We didn't have central heating or a TV till I was 5 or 6 and my parents were middle class.

Expectations and opportunities were very different. Even in the 70's women were not expected to work if they had a family and the range of jobs was much more limited. University was for a select few. Gap years or exotic travel were unheard of. Jobs were not for life for the baby boomers - that is another misconception.

So yes, the baby boomers have reaped some benefits from the times they lived in but wow, how much greater are the opportunities for young people today - regardless of their gender/sexual orientation or class.

OP YABVU

Matey- with you that the potential opportunities are greater now but how can they afford them or to start a proper life?? A quick cheapie hol in ibiza is great and admittedly a "luxury" unavailable to all but the richest baby boomers at the same age. However, this is a quick timeout in one's life which doesn't make up for the huge financial/housing/working challenges faced by the young. Something has gone badly wrong with gov policy when the average age of a 1st time buyer is now 40!!!

Salbertina - my niece and nephew are in their 20's and my niece is getting married this year and both are struggling to get going in life, even though they have professional jobs - one works for the NHS, the other is a teacher. So I am familiar with the challenges of youth and sympathise. My point is more about the false idea the the baby boomers had it all easy in the past and the future and that today's problems are all our fault.

mateysmum, not to pick on you, as others have expressed this confusion too, but nobody is saying that any particular indvidual has or had an individual responsibility not to benefit from what was on offer during their life, in order to donate to future generations (as if that were possible by individuals choosing not to benefit).

What is important to note is that age groups, as a class, operate within different economic environments, and I think there is justifiable frustration in younger people that older people do not recognise this, and seem to think that they - the younger people as individuals - can solve all their problems through hard work, as individuals.

Various different govts have worked very hard not to deny certain age groups anything, on the basis that you will cause an electoral uproar by seeming to take things away (house price crash for instance) but you can apparently deny anything you like to those who have never had it (impossible to buy a house if you missed the boat due to age)

So as individuals, Mr X at the age of 60 living in a £500k house is not personally to blame for the fact that Mr Y at 30 cannot hope to buy one for £300k, which is the cheapest you can get nearish where Y works. But Mr X has benefited from policies that have disadvantaged Mr Y, deliberately, and it is very uncomfortable for him to acknowledge this, as opposed to patting himself on the back for all his hard work over the years, but there it is. It's a fact.

x-posted mateysmum

"the false idea the the baby boomers had it all easy in the past"

I don't think they are saying they had it easy in the past. I think they are saying that there are a lot of comfortable people now of a certain age who are enjoying a lifestyle the next generation never will. Because the time to work and save for it is now, and there is no work to be had, and before you even start to save you have to look at the insane debt

It's hard to see how young people now can psychologically buy into a causal link between work and reward. What evidence is there for this?

I don't feel picked on Curry - your argument is very rational but others have not been.

You are right-many of today's young people will find it hard but I can only look at my own family none of whom had super advatantages but all of whom should have a decent lifestyle when they are old.
Among my dc/sdc are a plumber, a couple of teachers, a a TA and an accountant .each couple has managed to buy [with mortgage] a house suitable for themselves and their dc.
It has taken time,hard work and not much help from us but it has been achieved and can be achieved.

"thegreylady".

I totally agree. My eldest is 21 and saving for deposit for house with not far to go now. It will be a crap bomb shell that he has to do up, but we all started at the bottom and he is happy to do so. Many of his friends the same age are still relying of bank of mum and dad, living at home and behaving like teens. Some still have an allowance or are rent free

maybe there needs to be readjustment of attitude/expectation about property,finances
Not all adults will be home owners.Prosperous childhood doesn't automatically=one will be prosperous adult homeowner
Yes our kids will need to incur debts,maybe delay homeownership or adjust expectations

I don't think they are saying they had it easy in the past. I think they are saying that there are a lot of comfortable people now of a certain age who are enjoying a lifestyle the next generation never will.

But equally, many older people experienced hardships earlier in their lives which most young people will never experience and would think intolerable. Young people today have luxuries which would have been unimaginable to older people when they were young, so maybe younger people have cushier lives now but will have to work longer.

Yes more than, my dd and her dh started with a really rundown Manchester terrace which they did up and sold. They now have a Victorian semi in Shropshire. My dss and his dw stared by buying a council flat which his dw had been renting. They now own a huge house in Surrey; and my other dss an!d dw were lucky that her parents were wealthy and had bought her a tiny pad in Whitechapel which they eventually sold and after years of renting were able to buy and do up a lovely cottage in Hertfordshire.