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.

Some seem to have a huge sense of entitlement.no one is due monies from parents
One lives within means,and accommodates whats affordable,not griping about inheritance
Adults with capacity,can and should have control and choice over their monies

boschy, attention.
But she can write how she wants.

Like most on mn,I write it as I think it,As compared to writing stage directions
No. Hey ho Everyone has Their own habits
There are the first biscuit Huns, the humphy faces and the good ole days crew

The 60-70yrs olds are all dropping like flies IME. Post war indulgence leading to appalling lifestyles, crap in the foods, yet to be regulated chemicals everywhere, lots of smokers etc.

For those who ask why it is essential to own a home tis simple. Mortgages (if you can get them) are cheaper than rent in many areas. Legislation protects property owners and their tidy incomes.

Scottish Ditto.

I love the way you post, even if I don't always agree with what you say

Its not essential to be homeowner,it's desireable but not attainable by all
That's the rub.one may really wish for home ownership etc but it's not a given
Certain areas,and localities have prohibitive prices,so one has to make decisions to suit own finances

But why the hostility to the older generation? Just because you perceive they have had "more" than this generation?

What do you propse they do to set it right in your mind, OP? Should they give all their (possibly pretty moderate) income and their worked-for and paid-for homes to the Government, to give to our generation? Really cannot see what it is you want them to do about it!!

What is the point in comparing and being envious? Do you have similar bad feeling to others who have more? Those lottery winners have it too cushy...those "celebrities" and footballers... I think sometimes in this society today, all the wrong people are "rewarded". I have no problem with people who have worked, earned a living wage and saved having a few holidays.

Scottish_mummy. I am telling you this for the second time now. I do not want my bloody PIL's money. it is all in your imagination. Which is clearly more fertile than your written comprehension.

Why comment? Because they are quite feckless, and would struggle in today's climate. Because its social commentary, its part of history, how things change from generation to generation and because im not dead to the world and notice these things.

You may have an obsession with inheritance. I do not. I have not mentioned inheritance other than in replying to you, DH and I have bought our property without any assistance and we dont want any fucking inheritance because I cannot think of anything worse than living my life in hope of one. Tbh it would come too late in our lives to make any difference.

I'm sorry for you if you think the only reason for commenting on peoples profligate spending habits is because you assume everyone is so obsessed with inheritance as you.

There are winners and losers in every generation. For every wealthy had-it-easy baby boomer there is an impoverished unlucky pensioner just as for every young person struggling to get on there is someone else wanting life handed to them on a plate.

DH and I are just after the baby boom, we own our house having been lucky enough to get on the property ladder which we would probably not today. Having said that, we had hand-me-down furniture, did our own renovations and did without a lot of things that our children would class as essentials. Again swings and roundabouts.

I know I have mentioned this before but an accountant told me recently his theory that a lot of the economic woes of the country are due to the larger numbers of elderly. Firstly because they cost more in pensions and healthcare but also because, in previous generations, their wealth would have been inherited by now and more of it would have been spent. Older people often live more frugally and save more so locking money out of circulation and slowing the economy. Whether that is a reasonable theory or not I don't know.

Being in my fifties I do feel embarrassed by the easy life I had compared to those in their twenties - I'm not retired yet though. Average lower middle class childhood, tinned food but no outside toilets. Excellent grammar school education. Able to play outside without parental fear of abduction. Parents not pressured to be "stimulating" me so could just play out with friends. Full grant to go to uni as parents earned under the generous threshold. Saturday and holiday jobs easily come by since age of 14 because lots of temp work available, no competing against half of Europe with CVs full of unprovable work experience for such jobs. Housing benefit available to students. Travelling in twenties, easy to get a casual job, save for a bit, go travelling, come home to benefits and then another casual job or do things like grape picking or kibbutz work abroad. Bought first flat with deposit from small inheritance from grandparents, rode the market up since then. Grandparents had daily visits from district nurses and council paid carers near the end as this was before means testing for care so easy on the family..

Yes we had less "stuff" but we were not bombarded from all sides by slick, targeted, heavily researched advertising so it was a lot easier to say no to "stuff". Magazines were staffed by journalists, not by people editing PR releases which aim to tell you you are a lesser person if you don't own x,y,z and look like a,b,c. Relationships were not put under pressure by strip/lapdancing clubs in every town and on tap porn coming into the home via the net......etc.etc. etc.

I have had opportunities and freedoms that are available to a far smaller section of British society today now than they were through most of my life. I consider myself incredibly lucky and do my best to give back where I can. I would like to see young people become far more politically active to see if they can fight to win back these opportunities and freedoms. If it comes at my detriment, so be it, I've had more than my fair share of them.

Bravo changeasgoodas you are indeed who I think of as a lucky baby boomer - except you are smart enough to realise the advantages you had and empathetic enough to relate to younger generations. I'd forgotten that students were no fees, got grants AND could claim benefits!

Haven't read past first page, but here goes:

If young people didn't spend tens of thousands of pounds on fairytale weddings and week-long stag and hen events, they'd be able to put a deposit down on a flat.

(Answers big, biased sweeping generalisation of an OP with equally nonsensical comment...)

We got no financial help from our parents as they didn't from their's.

I am finding DD (20) can act a bit spoilt and entitled as her friends are handed cars/flats/money on a plate it is a constant battle with her as we do not hand her anything she lives here still gets fed and watered obviously and the odd tenner here and there, but So n SO got a new car last week and thingy gets their rent paid by parents now these parents are not what i would say as loaded have ordinary jobs I just dont understand how they can afford it and why they do it

It is fairly well established that the generation.who are retiring now have benefitted well from tax payer investment and a good economy.
recent newspaper article.

I am hoping that inheritance supply will run out as older generations have to pay for care. That should slow down the price of property as that is what most people use if for.

I only hope that it runs out sooner rather than later.

Most people NEED inheritance to survive. I am fortunate enough to have bought a very small first house in London at the age of 40 (far small for 3 kids, one who has a disability but that's another thing), but just before we snapped up this falling down shed, our rent plus commute was more than our income. DH has a job/specialism that means it would be incredibly difficult for him to get a job outside of London, or a different career now he has being doing this one all his life.

Change- excellent post, says it all and admire how you appreciate the advantages this generation had. With you on the need for much more political activism by the young. They need to fight for a much stronger political voice to get a fairer deal

If they had to rely on the state more to fund their retirement you would be complaining so they can't win either way. It was a combination of events which resulted in the older generation benefiting so much & it will not happen again to that extent.

My dad bought his house for £20k and it is now worth over 250k. Whereas my first house was near that mark, I dont begrudge him that as he worked v hard for his retirement and paid all his taxes etc. So he deserves to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

I think you can probably blame Labour for the bitter sense of injustice you feel. Works for me.

Change - I get what you're saying, but am guessing you were from a fairly middle class background if your grandparents had an inheritance to give you. I'm a baby boomer, too, but my parents worked in factories and my grandmother was a single parent in the days before universal benefits, so brought up my mum and her siblings on the pittance she earned in the Co-op. They literally shared one double bed (mother and 3 kids) and lived in one room. For families like mine, university was never on the horizon, as it simply wasn't part of our culture, even though it might have been 'free'. I do agree that work was easy to come by during the sixties and seventies (at least it was in the south-east), even for people without qualifications, like me, and that's something I think is really hurting the younger generation. I don't think baby boomers are to blame for that, though, but the death of UK manufacturing industries coupled with global competition, etc. My DD is trying to find a part-time job to help her through college and it's nigh on impossible.

I know very few baby boomers who enjoyed the life you describe, except for friends from middle class backgrounds.

I do agree that the young need to be more politically active. At our last local election I was the youngest in the polling station by far, and probably the only person who wasn't voting UKIP.

I think this 'blame the baby boomers' stuff is the usual old divide-and-rule rhetoric used by politicians of all shades.

soverylucky
How right you are. A scandal indeed.

My parents couldn't afford to buy their first house until they were in their mid forties. They both started work full time at age 14. They had few holidays and saved hard for them. They never, ever ate out in restaurants. Dad used to have a couple of pints at the local on a Friday or Saturday night. They have saved as much as possible for their old age. Do I begrudge them their relatively comfortable retirement/old age. No. I think they worked very hard for it, and I am very happy that they do not need to worry about how they are going to afford to live.

I'll be back on Mumsnet in 30 - 35 years to see what everyone's saying about their situation when they're pensioners..... and whether they are deserving of a 'cushy' life on the backs of hardworking younger generations. 'Twas ever thus.

I also think we expect far too much at too young an age and don't see it as our responsibility to save for our own futures. One of the downsides of the welfare state is that we now expect that someone else will foot the bill, and we complain when all our needs are not met by the state.

YABU, lots of pensioners have a nice life now during retirement but that is how it should be (although its certainly not cushy for all pensioners) . I know its not going to be like that when I retire and I certainly wish it would be but I don't begrudge the pensioners of today a nice life.

That kind of attitude is similar to the way the country is making all the cuts at the moment. It should be a race to the top, not a scramble to the bottom. We don't want everyone brought down a level, we should be looking at ways to make things better for future pensioners, not make cuts to existing ones.