my baby boomer parents are selfish and ungrateful

[yoofoftoday]

Had lunch with parents yesterday and left so fuming.

Mother complains about not being able to get a new car on finance and that her retirement income is only 28k after she retired early. Her current car is only 4 years old and she often uses her free bus pass (only free to her take payers have to pay for it along with the rising bus fares) as she doesn't was the BMW to get scratched in town. I barely can afford the bus and can't even afford a car.

Dad who gets his state pension but still works was complaining that he has to pay Ni and then wait till the end of the year to claim it back. Also complqains that now he gets his state pension has to up the amount in his private pension to avoid 40% tax. He only keeps doing this job as its easy and he works from home not doing much.

Uncle who sold a building plot to developers for a fortune ages ago and hasn't worked since said "oh your poor dad still working". When my dad is in perfect health and works from home paid a lot for easy work, basically on call 9-5.

Then my parents say they are putting their winter fuel allowance towards a 3d DVD player while I go home to my cold house where I only put the heating on if it goes below 16.

Nc but regular.

Just what I was about to say ssd, their financial fortune should be yours one day, if they don't spend it all!

even of they spend plenty, do they have a house to sell?

So because you can't answer the points you decide I've turned into the Daily Mail. That's a rather poor effort Andrew

OP why don't you just tell your parents to their faces that they are being selfish & ungrateful instead of whining about them on here.

Maybe you could move back home & use their heating & then when your DM is using her free bus pass you would have free use of the BMW?

I'm post-boomer private sector and STILL think the OP has a shock coming. Newsflash, older people were once young and had no idea the houses they struggled to buy would become even harder to get for younger people, had no idea the cradle to grave welfare system they voted for in good faith would be not only abused but on offer to all-comers. Why are you picking on people who've paid in for 40 years? Talk about skewed logic.

Sorry but the state pension has been known to be unaffordable for over 40 years. But no one has had the balls to fix it. It wasn't a system with good faith.

No LittleBearPad your dig at public sector workers was pure Daily Mail. My question of 19:42:49 remains unanswered.

As does the broader question why I should not have what I signed up for. You don't like it because you will be helping to pay for it, but I had to help pay my predecessors' pensions. The very lady who signed on my department's behalf retired six months later and lived twenty-odd years during which I paid taxes - and I don't begrudge it to her. Unlike you.

Yes I did. At 19.52

Yoof, I think you might be thinking of final salary pensions (occupational, now exclusively public sector). The basic, state pension is part of cradle to grave and I promise you no-one was worrying about it in 1974.

No flip the state pension alone is unaffordable and has been known about for a long time. Isn't the amount raised in Ni only just covering the state pension. And things are due to get much worse.

LittleBearPad I had not realised that 19.52 was intended for me.

Your sarcasm about "public servants" is still pure DM.

It's like buying an annuity, isn't it? If you live longer than the tables which the insurance companies use suggest they have to go on paying out, even if that is to the disadvantage of the members (if it's a mutual) or the shareholders (if it is not). And if you die early, they are quids in. My first manager worked to 61 at the request of the Department to finish off a particular job and died six months later; the poor bastard came nowhere even getting his contributions back. Widower, so no widow's pension for you and me to pay either.

And my broader question is still unanswered.

You can literally say that about all parts of the welfare state. It is all unaffordable. I happen to think people who've paid into it for 40 years have a teensy bit more of a right to their share than some, though. Especially when they ALONE are being scapegoated while every other beneficiary is indulged and made a fuss of. Like being OLD isn't already tough enough.

You wait.

but I had to help pay my predecessors' pensions

The situation is somewhat different now as life expectancy for the current crop of old age pensioners is far longer than it was for pensioners a generation ago.

I bet DH & I have already paid more tax in our years of working (both mid 30s) than my parents ever paid in theirs (dad ran a series of unsuccessful business, mother PT teacher who took 12 years off to be a SAHM and worked sporadically in her 20s pre marriage & kids).

I am less angry about this from a personal perspective, as we've done okay, but it's been through hard graft - I spent 5 years at university, graduated with the equivalent of a 35K student loan (which I'm still paying off), have spent the last 10 years working our way to a position where we could finally think about having kids, save a percentage of income towards retirement (which my parents never did, banking on the value of their house & universal government superannuation to take care of it) ... but it doesn't stop me feeling annoyed & short-changed on behalf of my generation who have been shut out of housing affordability, are paying for all the things that our parents got for free (e.g. tertiary education, retirement) and the baby boomers insist on hanging on to every bloody entitlement to the bitter end! Because "I paid my taxes" - well so do we, but we don't get anything!

And the baby boomer generation has had a whole lifetime to amass assets, and many of them have, very successfully - yet they still collect the universal super, which is about 300 a week from 65. Meanwhile benefits for properly poor people who actually need them to y'know, live & to feed their kids are cut and cut. It maddens me.

I'm not in the UK btw - the situation is very similar in NZ and I would imagine in many other countries.

YANBU. I can empathise. My baby boomer parents had their wedding paid for, a hefty deposit given to them by their parents, were able to buy a big house on 1 salary that 2 professionals couldn't afford today, could afford 2 children, paid off their mortgage in the 80s, inherited a 6 figure sum from their parents, and bought 2 more houses which have doubled in value, took early retirement...

and on my wedding day didn't give me so much as a card because they're "OAPs". Utterly entitled and selfish.

Of course you have already paid more tax, Gennz. You are younger and money is bigger. Ask your parents what their first wage was, and work out what those amounts would buy you now.

And for the final time on any thread, only 5% of people at that time had the chance of third-level education. So, cheaper for the country.

My Mum and Dad paid 75% income tax in the Sixties.

Andrew your broader question? That you should get what you signed up for. You are, aren't you.

I share your distaste, his clients are exploiting frail and needy humans, then again his clients are in business, the raison d'etre of business is to generate profit.
Surely it is the job of government to legislate in such a way that the vulnerable are protected from exploitation ?

True, and to a certain extent they have/will. The client DH was working with has no interest in exploiting or providing care for the financially vulnerable, they are looking to provide upmarket care with all the bells and whistles for Boomers who have no intention of compromising their standard of living and are willing to sell everything they've accumulated to pay for it.
Their care homes are still govt subsidised, but they charge whopping sums over and above to provide massage therapists, hairdressers, organic meals etc in private rooms.

The main point is that there are going to be a lot of people in our generation who will be very disappointed come the reading of the will. On the upside, the research predicts that due to so many forced sales of family homes the cost of real estate should plummet. (Not so good for those of us with a house and mortgage though).

More tax adjusted for wage inflation etc.

I don't know about that 5% stat, but my mother trained as a school teacher and my dad spent years mucking about at university before finally, eventually, graduating with a degree. Both had free tertiary education and both were paid bursaries to support them while they studied. They are typical of middle class people of their generation (maybe not in their financial cluelessness, but in terms of the state benefist they received). Meanwhile I had to borrow to pay my fees and borrow more to pay my rent, and work 30+ hours a week while doing two degrees - I received no financial assistance from them (because they didn't have any money).

As a result I have done well and I have no gripes with my standard off life but I am still paying off a whopping student loan, saving for retirement and paying off a mortage which is far in excess of anything they ever carried, for a smaller & more modest house than they had.

I actually get on quite well with my parents contrary to how my posts might read but I do think that middle class boomers at least have a grabby, entitled mentality. The policies that they have implemented are extremely self-interested, they have shafted younger generations and none of them seem to care.

Surfsup1, that's right. I thank God that my parents saved enough that I never felt guilty about their care. It meant I got very little help when I could have used it - it also meant that I didn't have to worry about them in my forties/fifties. Swings and roundabouts.

Equally, I inherited bugger all.

I still think they got it right. They were lovely. Gave me a start in life and never wanted anything back from me or from the state.

True Grovel thats a mental shift that our generation needs to make.

Yes I agree grovel. I don't expect there to be anything left for my siblings & I once my parents have used what equity they have in their house to fund their retirement/aged care. Equally I won't be supporting them financially as I have my own education, mortgage etc to pay off & kids to look after, and I'd like to do better than my parents did and make sure that my own children don't graduate from university with a mountain of debt.

I don't feel bitter at all about my own circumstances, but I do think the system is unfair, and skewed to benefit boomers who have already had plenty of advantages already.

Maybe in NZ, Gennz. It was 5% here when I went and I'm not even old enough to be a boomer. I also have less materially now than my pre-boom parents had at a similar age, even though they were "blue collar" and I am a professional. This is what happens when more and more people are looking for the same breaks. It's a trend that is set to continue.

£100k defined benefits pension pot would roughly equate to £5.5k pa (disregarding cash lump sum withdrawals) for simplicity's sake. So hardly the life of Riley!

The average pension pot size at retirement age is apparently £40k!. An ageing population means a greater burden on the working tax paying population. There is only going to be an increase of OAPS living in poverty in the future.