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.

What is the official retirement age in England?

www.independent.co.uk/news/student-grants-and-free-tuition-to-end-next-year-1251578.html

This article that I linked earlier confirms that only 1 in 20 went to university in the late 1960s but that had increased to 1 in 3 by 1997 when the article was written

Hence the need to change the way it was funded.

But maintenance grants were always means tested and the parents were supposed to top them up, which not all did. The biggest change was the introduction of tuition fees

Surfs up Pension age is in a state of change in the uk

www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/about-pensions/the-state-pension/know-your-state-pension-age

What is the State Pension age?

The State Pension age is the earliest age you can claim your State Pension. Your State Pension age depends on when you were born.

Changes to the State Pension age

The State Pension ages have been undergoing radical changes since April 2010. The changes will see the State pension age rise to 65 for women between 2010 and 2018, and then to 66, 67 and 68 for both men and women. There are plans to change State Pension ages further.

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!

Agree 100%, I'm also doing OK but many my age aren't . what I notice is that friends that aren't doing that well assume their time will come like their parents. But it won't.

My PILs live in a lovely 4 bed house with a huge garden in a plum commuter town near the south coast. FIL retired as a bank manager 15 years ago and at 71 and 65 they have many years of scandinavian holidays and trips to the opera to enjoy.

I have to acknowledge that any sense of begrudging this is pure jealousy on my part. Yes, they bought when you could still get a nice house on one income BUT my MIL is the most frugal woman imaginable and is totally bamboozled by the way the young live.

She never leaves the house without a flask and sandwiches packed. We on the other hand, set off on any trip late and stressed and buy food and coffees en route. She only ever worked 4 mornings in a school, so had all the time in the world to get the picnic ready. I work 4 days a week and we are frazzled.

There's a huge gulf of understanding between the generations, but to answer OPs original question, if my PILs moaned on about their financial situtation to us who have less, I'd be feeling put out too.

You guys realise that all this talk of Uni funding reveals how class-based this thread is, right? Talk about 1st world problem.

Is also one of those MN threads that makes me feel more foreign than ever. My mother was a divorcee with young children in 1961, my parents worked all hours to pay for their 1960s Uni education, they scraped together money to buy a home finally eight yrs after marriage & leaving Uni. Both my parents worked FT jobs & hard. In a system that had far fewer employee rights & protections than the UK offers. Their financial situation was so much more insecure than mine; my dad never expected to own his home outright (mortgage-free). He still needed financial help from his dad at age 50. He is 72 & still working now (out of vocation not financial need, at least).

DH's mum is an English baby-boomer & I don't see the picture here of her, either. She didn't go to Uni so that's irrelevant. She fled an abusive marriage after 9 yrs of DV (feeling ashamed for it). Welded to preconceptions of what a wife&mother should be she didn't have the confidence to pursue own career so had no financial independence. MIL was mostly much poorer than my parents who were poorer than me or DH. I expect DC to be mostly wealthier than us, too. And to have more confidence about their opportunities.

OK I am going back to read the rest of this thread from my last post but to be clear, one of my parents died within a year of retiring, there is no expectation on anyones part that I will inherit any money from them, in fact I have already had to bail them out financially on several occasions (despite not really being in the position to do so)

I love/loved them both dearly and don't begrudge them anything, I can however still comment on generational attitudes and behaviours and they have raised me to be the kind of person who can.

FWIW I have pointed out to some people that they have retired on more than the average salary and have no children/childcare expenses or mortgage to pay.
I can share that they were generally not impressed with having that clarified.

where you left it I CBA to respond to your every dissection of my post the facts are the facts, of course drugs were cheaper then however the NHS was a large cost to the state (a laudable idea of course but a large financial cost) and just as those drugs were the only ones available so were pink rimmed glasses (not that my Father ever had pink from memory) so both were entirely appropriate just as the attempts of the NHS to mitigate costs were.

Of course they had a difficult time in a lot of respects, lot's of them would have lost family members in the war, something which has not been mentioned.
However it doesn't remove the fact that I think I am correct in saying that they are unique in recent history for leaving a 'worse' lot for the generation to follow than they had.

The reasons behind the shortening life expectancy are complicated and obviously there are several some of it is affluence but not all.

now I shall see what everyone else says.....

Although where you are right on the reasons behind high house prices

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.

you should indeed get the pension you signed up for. that was an explicit contract between you and your employer.

What you shouldn't get is a bus pass, winter fuel, etc etc or complain about your lack of holidays (not saying that you in particular complained). Also, that retirement age needs to rise, and one group of people is going to get shafted the hardest and they aren't going to like it.

Babies born just the right interval after Daddy got home from the War were known as NORWICH babies, weren't they?

I know Norwich has traditionally been considered hard to get to but taking 9 months to get out of it is a bit long even for the 40's

the other problem is that lots of people here signed up for one thing and have had it removed (state pension age for one) is there anyone left who has not had a grab on their pension? Surely not

I live next door to an area now (suburb) where everyone engages in what I call 'competitive pooring' (basically everyone comes out with their tale of woe, or sends their kids to school in rags or talks loudly in the playground about their carrot peel soup for dinner.)

It is also an extremely privileged area (especially financially) huge numbers of stay at home or very part time parents (frequently both) lovely glossy houses which have massively increased in price in the last 5 years because it is the new place to live with kids etc. Any discussion about anything is shouted down by how POOR they are. It drives me crazy. I come here for someone to have a sane discussion with (and to look for Christmas bargains)

Of course life was hard for some people some of the time it was hard for some people all of the time, of course these are first world problems (most of mumsnet is) people can still discuss the issues.

I can't relate to a lot of what is being said. My parents left school at 14 and 15 and went straight into full time work. My DF worked full time all his life and my DM worked evenings until I was 7 and then went back to full time work. They are divorced now and live in modest flats with a state pension, no large final salary pension. My standard of living is significantly higher than theirs was at my age. My DH and I both went to university when there were no fees to pay and we both got a small grant. We are on track for a 40k plus a year pension.

You must be on many multiples of the average sallery to get a 40k pension?

Yes about six times the average salary.

GenerationXXX if your father left school at 14, this must have been in the 40s? Are you perhaps part of the baby boomer generation?

I am 45 and my parents 63 and 69. My father left school at 14, his family or school didn't give a shite.
Where I grew up the local school was pretty awful and most pupils left at Christmas or Easter, still many were 15 and very few sat exams. That was 29 years ago.

Gen x if you were on many multiples the average a couple of decades ago, you'd of got an impresive place to live.

I was on 6 figures in London and lived in a dive of a place.

I am very, very, very lucky to have a beautiful home.

I don't get this. My parents were only a couple of years before the baby booom (born 1943) so were young adults in the 1960s and left school in the 1950s at 14 without any qualifications. It seems unless you went to grammar school you were factory fodder in those days. They both worked hard in semi skilled jobs with fairly low pay for all their lives. They certainly weren't well off. I am 41 and have a far better eduction, opportunity and standard of living than they ever had. Sounds similar to your experience Generation.

Ah forgot you were in your 40s x

All these spoilt baby boomers? The majority I know had it much tougher growing up than many of us now in our 30's - 50's. Slums, overcrowding, poverty, leaving school at 14 -16 to get menial work, national service. Then their jobs all being made redundant and horrendous unemployment.

And yes, me and my siblings all left school either 15 or 16 - no university. And this was late 70's to mid 80's often working two jobs.

Seems to be a lot of jealousy and entitlement going on. Some might have ended up with nice pensions and paid off houses but I would imagine most had a much tougher and poorer lifestyle with less opportunities than those on here moaning.

The baby boomers didn't do national service; the youngest national servicemen were born in 1938.

But yes; the general standard of living in the Fifites was a great deal lower than twenty or thirty years later.

1939

Yoof I have read through pretty much the whole thread over the last couple of days but what's your story. You mentioned you were on 100k a year or more but now have to be careful putting the heating on. Were you made redundant or had some other bad luck? I hope things improve for you.

Same genxxx and bambambini. I have had a much higher standard of living throughout my life and many many more luxuries and experiences at a much younger age than my parents. The same is true of many of my friends. Many of my friends parents, and one of mine, experienced true poverty growing up in the 50s.

My retirement is unlikely to be as comfortable as theirs because before having kids I frittered away my cash on holidays, furniture, entertainment, eating out instead of doing sensible things like starting saving for a pension. My father (mother lost the civil service job she loved when she married and hated being an SAHM) started a pension his first day of work and as I said before, my parents couldn't believe my extravagance when I insisted my first flat was fully furnished as soon as I bought it and roll their eyes at me when I moan (yes not only babyboomers moan!) about wanting some or other for the house.

Like a lot of their generation they very firmly believed in living frugally, within their means and always saving for a rainy day. I don't think alot of people live like that now, if they have a choice.

Also Yoof, pensions aren't all about multiples of salaries. My pot is pitiful. I have earned alot more than my sister but hers is enormous in comparison because she's paid into one since she started work at 18 and treated it as a priority.

Had a well paid job, doing stupid hours, was making me unwell got signed off, got sacked. Going from a high paid job to jsa gives you a new perspective.