to ask if you're pissed off with the Baby Boomers?

[DamFineBeaver]

Because people who are currently young-ish adults (MN's main demographic?), and younger, will be paying for the lavish lifestyle they've enjoyed?
The money borrowed for their nice big pensions will be paid back by us and our children.

Does this mean they shouldn't spend so much time in Tenerife?

That's exactly it, its pure jealously.

For all those complaining about house prices - there has never been a better time to buy a house -www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/11402902/There-may-never-be-a-better-time-to-buy-a-home.html . we had to put up with double digit intrest for yobks.

I think banks/building societies lent more because the powers that be believed that if we all borrowed more and spent more, our economy would improve.

This was also the time when people believed that ever more complicated and obscure investments and financing structures could generate more money, even if there was no underlying reason for more wealth to be created, so the managers of Enron and Barings turned a blind eye to what their employees were doing and checking whether somebody could actually afford a mortgage became old fashioned.

I think most people new that there was something a bit odd going on, and it's easy to see with the benefit of hindsight that things were getting ridiculous, but if a bank offers you money and you need somewhere to live, most people will take the deal.

Similarly today, people are buying houses in the full knowledge that interest rates can only go up and most houses are over-priced taking into account the rest of the economy, but what can you do?

I think the 30 year thing has come from margaret claiming her husband worked for 30 years and got 2/3 of his final salary which doesn't add up as I demonstrated earlier .
It wasn't actually 30 years. Both the civil service and local government schemes accrued at 1/80th per year worked back then. The civil service one was capped at 50%- so a full career was 40 years. Given the retirement age was 60 that would assume a starting age of 20 to do a full life career

Dragg you are perhaps not very good at your job. Me and plenty of others keep telling you that 30 years and 2/3rds fs very much exists.

It proves really that voting does change things. The over 65s tend to vote in large numbers, that's why politicians don't like to upset them.

Only if you live in a marginal constituency unfortunately. the Tories have been in power since 1931 where I live and we've had the same MP since 1997. Plus ca change etc...

We were born at the end of the baby boomer era, then started our family later in life. My pension is teeny tiny, DH has a better one admittedly.

Looked after elderly parent until she went into a home which used up much of her money (fair enough, that is what is was for).

My retirement age has gone up and up. We will have a mortgage until we retire and will probably need to substantially downsize at that point. Again, fair enough.

We will be helping children as much as we can with higher education.

Hopefully, we will be comfortable but we certainly won't be rolling in it. There won't be much left in financial terms to hand down to our children. Pretty much how it was for us when we started out.

For us, anyway, despite certainly appreciating all the other things which have been available to us, financially we will end up pretty neutral compared to how we set out. We received no inheritances and we will end up passing on very little when we die. What we have earned we have worked hard for and, judging from our bank statements, we have ploughed it back in to the economy as we go!

Perhaps it is very different for those 15 years older. I don't think we can generalise about all baby boomers.

Not a pensions expert but I think Bedraggled is correct. If your husband worked in local government, Margaret, then I'm very, very surprised to hear he was on a 2/3 pension. From the information you've given, I'd have expected you to be on about £12,500 a year.

Oh well if the Torygraph says there's never been a better time to buy property then it must be true. It's fair to say interest rates are low - we all know that - but that's not the whole picture is it ? Indeed, that same article actually states 'Even though mortgage rates are at record lows, young people stepping on to the housing ladder today face much higher house prices than their parents and so may have to borrow more' ...... and there's the rub.

Many, many able bodied adults working full time still can't get on the property ladder, regardless of how low interest rates currently are. They either cannot save at all, e.g. because rent, bills and commuting costs eat up all their income, or, what little they do manage to save never matches the minimum deposit required because property prices keep going up and up. And before anyone says it, no, it's not always possible to move to 'cheaper' areas because not all jobs are available in and/or commutable to from all areas of the country. You get to a point where it'd be impossible (cost wise and time wise and childcare wise) to travel to work from an 'affordable' location, and where there is little or no work locally (surprise, surprise - there's generally very good reasons why property is cheap and availability of work is one of the main factors).

'Pure jealousy' ??? ..... no, it's not as simple as that. It's more like pure frustration and pure anger because people feel completely betrayed. In the majority of cases they have worked hard, they have studied hard, they've been responsible and honest - yet many (and it seems, increasing numbers) still cannot afford to put a roof over their heads - which is an absolute disgrace. What more are people to do ? .... there are only so many hours in the day, indeed there are only so many 'second' or 'better' jobs to be had. How very dare people feel a tiny bit disgruntled at the fact that despite working many more hours than their parents did in many cases, despite being far better qualified than they were (after being sold the idea that higher education was key to a 'better' life) their lives are, in reality, far less comfortable and far less secure. And this is before they retire.

Given that reality - which applies to so many - it'd be kind of charitable, polite, sympathetic and kind, if those of the Baby Boomer generation who 'lucked out' for want of a better expression (I know it doesn't apply to each and every last BB), could at least have the good grace to be quietly grateful for their good fortune instead of making ridiculous claims about 'not being terribly well off really' (whilst owning and maintaining a reasonably new car, taking even one holiday a year or every couple of years, owning their own home etc) and how younger people could have the same if only they'd work 'harder'.

Margaret, thanks for the personal attack. I have told you repeatedly, I am an accountant for the government. I manage £4bn of taxpayers money so we are all at risk if I am really no good at my job. I have two degrees and an accounting qualification, and a defined benefit pension myself, so I know how this stuff works. I am also able to read, and the lgps information for pensions pre 2008 is there on the internet for all to see, clearly stating an accrual rate of 1/80th. So perhaps you never got a job because you can't add up, I hope you didn't teach your kids maths if you don't see that 30/80 is closer to 1/3 than 2/3.
OR, as I have said before, since the facts don't lie, and I am not questioning the amount of the pension you receive, either you are mistaken or outright lying about some details:
A) perhaps your husband didn't actually work for local government like you said maybe he was a politician and you are trying to mislead us/it is a euphemism, so he wasn't actually in the lgps
B) he worked for longer than 30 years to accrue it.
C) he earned more than £50k *
D) he made some whopping extra contributions to buy more pension.
E) He got medical early retirement and his pension was artificially increased to compensate.
F) someone in the lgps made a mistake calculating and you either never noticed or pointed it out- maybe you will get a demand for repayment when they realise.

• of course, giving you the benefit of the doubt, there is another option- maybe it was c- he earned much more but you never knew about it . Maybe he had another family and another house somewhere and that was where the rest of his money went and those evenings he was working late that you facilitated as sahm. Maybe he had a gambling or drinking problem you didn't know about. So you only know how much he confessed to earn and never actually twigged that his eventual pension was out of proportion to your understanding of his salary and length of service.

You are the ONLY person on this thread claiming 30 years 2/3 fs pensions existed in local government. Yes 2/3 pensions existed but were in different sectors and generally required more than 30 years. The facts of the lgps are there online for all to see, perhaps you should go and read them for yourself. And then you can come back and confess which variable you omitted or mistook.

And if you do find that your husband had a secret life, I apologise for outing it!

And if it is F) all a mistake, I would advise you to stop bragging about it on the internet, before someone at the lgps looks into it and you get a bill for repayment

Given that 'baby boomers' are aged 50-75 and mortgages can last about 25 years, low interest rates will have benefitted many 'boomers' and high interest rates could affect many people buying houses now.

I'm a Pete late boomer (genJones really). Interest rates in the 80 s when I bought my first house were sky high.mi think they went up to 15% at one time. So we haven't always had low interest rates thank you very much!

It seems to me that house prices have got to come down. But it will hurt.

I cannot see much point in picking on margaret - housewife etc. It is just one person.

The bottom line is life is hard for msot generations. It can make some people feel happier if they think it is all the fault of someone else eg older people, posh people or foreigners but usually it isn't and we are better off just getting on with things in the time in which we live.

I agree house prices are high.
We paid 12% interest plus repayment (no interest mortgages in that era just like now) (with tiny minimal MIRAS tax relief on a little bit of them ortgage - so small it did not help as the Government let it wither on the vine). We both had to work full time, no maternity leaves, needed two professional wages to buy even in grotty bit of outer London. Nothing like tax credits, no minimum wages, no long maternity leaves if any, no help with nursery fees - a totally different world, so different I don't think comparisons help.

So 12% of £40k (£4800) compared with 2.5% about what my daughter has been offered on a remortgage this month ( or let us say 5% assuming someone is borrowing 95% today - 5% x 300,000 (our first house today - yes people then and now have to buy small grotty places in places they don't want to live - tough isn't it and always has been)....£15,000.
You needed two full time salaries then and you do now.

So mrs 30 years ago needed £4800 (tax rates were higher too by the way) and today £15k. 3x the cost even given lower rates but my salary then £7500, equivalent salary today £40k and in both cases you needed two full time salaries of those levels to buy. (Those on lower salaries could not then easily buy and nor now - no change there and even worse in my grandfather's day when very few bought ever).

'I know (because it is reported here!) that some bboomers do say work harder, buy less coffee. But no bboomer I know says that ....'

.... well, except 'Margaret' Woolly though to be fair she wasn't specific about the coffee!

In the real world, I'm afraid that there are a number of BBs in both mine and my DP's family who have said stuff along those lines. Some BBs we know personally are of course sympathetic to way life has changed, and some haven't themselves benefitted in the stereotypical fashion most associated with being a BB. However, I've actually been genuinely shocked by some of the stuff said by the less sensitive BBs we know - I personally feel that those BBs in particular have chosen to adopt a 'victim blaming' mentality in order to remove any obligation they might otherwise feel to help their less fortunate children (i.e. the old 'you could have all this if you worked harder' attitude) because if you can convince yourself that someone's situation is all their own fault you don't need to feel guilty about ignoring them and your lifestyle continues unaffected .... I can think of at least two members of our extended family who've faced genuine hardship in recent years through no fault of their own but whose very well off parents have done absolutely nothing to help them - even when relatively small sums would have made a big difference. To me - it's entirely natural to want to help someone you're close to if they're suffering through very bad luck and if you can afford to do so ..... it's been quite a wake up call to see how other people operate though, am thinking of one couple in particular who have a very good FS pension, who inherited a lot from his parents, who did very well out of selling off most of their huge garden to land grabbers - but who've managed to ignore the plight of one of their children when reducing their foreign travel that year by even a small degree would have sorted the issue.

I do appreciate there's no actual obligation upon parents to help adult children financially - and I do know that many parents are actually wonderfully generous - but this couple were very much of the opinion that their adult child 'should' have done this and 'should' have done that and 'should' have worked harder 'like they did' .... all of which was utterly wide of the mark (and they lived on one mid range 9 to 5 salary for an unremarkable job - nothing especially 'hard' about it all). That mean spiritedness has made me revise my opinion of them completely. So ..... I'm afraid that attitude does very much exist.

But Flo, no one really believes that will happen... except those of us who have lived through it before!

The fascination with home owning, house prices and end of life bank balances is fuelling a very nasty division in the UK.

Others have posted very eloquently on the differences in experience and expectations, but no one with an entrenched view is prepared to believe that there may be something in the opposite viewpoint.

The reality is that, as with every other intergenerational disagreement, everyone's overall experience is much of a muchness, but the highs and lows were different and happened at different times in life.

My parents make comments like that all the time. They are sitting on around a million pounds of assets, having both started with nothing, and both been junior level civil servants. If they were born now they would be screwed, but a few canny house moves (paid for as relocations by the civil service) has put them in a mansion with nothing to spend their final salary pensions on. But when friends or relatives are struggling, they comment on mobile phones and coffee as the reason for their downfall. They are completely out of touch with reality, and it does grate, and I am often embarrassed by things they say in public.

Well dragg i wouldn't brag too much about managing public finances .... www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_debt

So you aren't going to confess to which variable you had misrepresented/mistaken then, Margaret?

I've already given enough sensitive details on here. You should spend more time trying to reign in the public finances than be concerned about mine.

Margaret What was the accrual rate to achieve 2/3 pension after 30 years? I used to work in financial services and our non-contributory FS pension was on a 1/60 accrual rate. That would produce a 2/3 final salary after 40 years! When I started I was aiming to retire at 55 after 30 years service (took redundancy well before then and the pension scheme is no longer FS now anyway) and I'm fairly certain I'd worked out that I'd be retiring on roughly half salary after 30 years.