To think, as a 'millennial', that we do have it quite good?

[kokosnuss]

Hate the term, but the common narrative amongst 'millennials' is that the baby boomers stole all the houses and good pensions, leaving none for us.

AIBU to think that yes, many baby boomers are in an enviable position (paid off mortgage, pension, savings), but only because:
(and I'm thinking only of my own working class grandparents and their friends here, others may have different experiences)

• They started working and saving early, often as soon as they finished school at 15, and had little opportunity to go onto higher education; many would have gone into jobs the millennial generation might consider 'unfulfilling' (e.g. my Grandma was a sewing machinist). They also led lives my generation might consider 'unfulfilling', e.g. simple (meat and 2 veg) food, no foreign holidays, few trips to restaurants, events, etc. Their lives were very much lived in the home i.e. very cheaply and expectations of life were very different.

Of course, many baby boomers now enjoy an expensive lifestyle, with lots of foreign trips and new experiences, but only because they're enjoying the fruits of years of careful saving. They haven't always lived that way, but there seems to be an assumption on the part of millennials that they have. So whereas my generation might only finish education at 21 or later, and then want to spend time travelling, or building up experience towards a 'fulfilling' career path, they also want to live what they consider to be a 'fulfilling' lifestyle, e.g. gadgets, subscriptions, foreign trips, going to events, restaurants, bars, the latest fashions, etc. And then are surprised when they have no savings or pension!

I'm nearly 30, renting, and only just in the position my grandparents would have been in at 18/19 - steady job, actively saving for a house, making regular pension contributions. But I don't blame anybody else for that, because I've had lots of opportunities and experiences in return that I know my grandparents (and female grandparents in particular) didn't have.

AIBU?

Ignore me. Jeez! I'll go back to being the Silent Generation...

You're a BB.

OP I think there's a key few years where people are, understandably, resentful.

I started work at 19. If I were ten years younger I would not own property. Prices in comparison to salaries are appalling.

I don't think I blame a generation - successive governments decided they wanted property to work this way, but if I were a few years younger I'd be up shit creek and really upset about it all. Well, I think it is very sad generally. What you get for your money and all the problems of overpopulation are fucking tragic.

my mum knew the days of having a bank manager asking for a man to sign off her having a bank account but overall her financial position throughout her life is far, far better than mine ever has been or will be.

*2 Costa lattes....
£8 max a week
£32 a month
£384 per year

' If you can afford 2 costa lattes a month you can afford a house.'hmmconfused
nah...it would still take you approx 102 years to save a deposit of 40,000 which you can put towards a shoebox...great.*

I thought what the PP was meaning was that if you can happily spend money in Costa without thinking about it, there are probably other areas as well where you could trim expenditure and the cumulative savings might actually be enough to save quite a bit. So stopping Costa alone isn't going help much at all, but stopping Costa and 15 other things that you might also 'waste' money on without really thinking might make a difference.

I could be argued that the boomers are merely an abberation in history and their opportunities were born from post war investment.
Men came home from war trained to kill with high expectation of a share in what they had defended - mainly the wealth of the British elites. The crumbs tossed from the table had to be bigger.
Those days are long gone, the rich have no fear of revolt and once again we head back to feudalism.

But Trillis my MIL goes on about how hard it was when they first had children. If she hadn't had a baby at 23 it would have been much easier financially. And before anyone says 'its what everyone did then' no it wasn't contraception had been invented and was widely available.

It sounds like your parents were young parents if you grew up in the 70s and they are only 70s now. If I'd had a baby in my early 20s we'd have struggled massively also.

I could be argued that the boomers are merely an abberation in history and their opportunities were born from post war investment. Men came home from war trained to kill with high expectation of a share in what they had defended - mainly the wealth of the British elites. The crumbs tossed from the table had to be bigger.

I think this is pretty accurate. However, we have grown up with an expectation that each generation will do better than the last and the first generation to buck that trend will always find that a difficult pill to swallow.

But it WAS normal then. My friend had her first child at 26 and her notes said she was an "elderly primagravida"!

Well your friend had her first at 26 so it wasn't normal for her....! Lots of people had children late 20s/ early 30s including my parents. It might have been more common but it was still a choice like now.

I'm with tillytrotter1, the youth of today generally would not dream of making do and mending.

My first house deposit was saved for by doing 4 jobs - Mon-Fri day job, with a pub cleaning job before, bar job after and 2 evenings in a night club bar job. With tips, that meant I could save the equivalent of a whole salary. Unfortunately the interest rate meant I had to continue them after buying the house till I upgraded the day job!
of course, working in a pub was the equivalent of going out every night, but even on a day off I'd not eat out, and holidays were camping or not at all.
None of my furniture was new, nor were my white goods new - yet I know people will only buy new their house, I even know a chap will not use a bath without it being new - has to get the bathroom on moving house..
We didn't have TV to start with but no Sky or Netflix, and there was no mobiles, cars were secondhand not bought on contract.
Even our 3 piece suite was bought from a posh house's 3rd living room (where it was hardly used) for £250 22 years ago. (It is dying now so have relented and buying a replacement, couldn't find what I wanted secondhand though!)

I agree expectations are far higher. I know it won't apply to everyone, but I do get the impression that most people seem to expect a foreign holiday, to go out several nights a week, and all the new car/ new phone /netflix etc on contracts as standard - so is it any wonder they cannot save/find it difficult to save for a deposit, given the high cost of renting anyway? I don't seem to hear about the people making-do-and mending, buying secondhand not new, working 4 jobs to save, not having a family till they have a house big enough. Other than my niece and her fiance that is.

From my POV, based on a fairly large circle of friends and family that fall into the Millennial bracket, I see more and more "extremes" of employment/prosperity than in any other generation.

Millennials who have crap employment (zero hrs, low skill, or inappropriately skilled roles for their education level, unpaid work experience, fixed contract not permanent) Vs "decent" jobs (which are well paid but don't make a dent in student debt or building up a deposit and require ever longer commutes/unsustainable working pressures).

Those who have had parent financial support Vs those who didn't.

Those who graduated in 2006 vs 2008 facing very different employer markets.

Basically, I don't think the stereotypes of either end of the extremes are inaccurate BUT are waaaay more marked and impactful than in other generations.

(Those stereotypes being the young flatshare 'loaded' grad on 30k commuting 90mins each way to work on 4 buses buying a morning latte with no hope of buying a house.... Vs... the private renting minimum wage retail staff member who is on a precarious contract who literally couldn't afford to live with their young family if tax and child credits didn't top up poor wages)

I see both extremes a LOT at work / socially, but barely anyone in the middle!

Am I the only one who perceives this? What are other people's experiences/observations?

I am a late milennial. I started work at 18, worked my arse off at 3 jobs for years. Never had foriegn holidays, nice clothes, luxurious food, but kept myself out of debt. I can afford my bills and a little more sometimes. By the time I was 18 and working house prices were rising incredibly fast and there was no way I would have been able to get on that band wagon. Yet friends who are just 5 years older were able to get onto the property ladder with relative ease.

Even within a generation, there's vast changes in oppurtunities between the start and finish.

Millennial here. I'm twenty three, studying law, I will graduate university £50,000 in debt, will have to fight for the job I want in an extremely competitive jobs market and my OH and I will be lucky to afford a house in the area we want by the time I'm thirty (he's older) despite carefully saving and going without. So no, I don't think Millenials have it 'quite good'

Shimmer My mum says she was 'on the shelf' when she got married at 22. All her friends were married at 18 with kids very soon after. She had me at 23, which she says was quite late back then.

Arelia Exactly - making do, fixing things rather than replacing, not buying it in the first place unless you absolutely had to - expectations are very much higher now than they were when I was groing up.

Shimmer I was there. I think I'm in a better position to know what was normal than you.

Blue I was there too lol and know how old my friends' parents were growing up jeez . I suspect like everything it depends on who you know. There are circles where it is still normal to have a baby young.

the youth of today generally would not dream of making do and mending.

Among my circle, this is total bollocks. Lots of people I know have lived in unfurnished flats because they can't afford to fork out more.

And the other thing to remember is the price of new goods is much, much cheaper than it used to be. The IKEA flatpack revolution post dates the baby boomers setting up houses. Equally white goods have come down in price quite considerably, whereas getting things fixed is more difficult and more costly than it used to be.

Like a lot of things on this thread, the economies have changed and situations aren't directly comparable.

But the idea that millennials need everything to be perfect before they'll contemplate it is total bullshit. You should see some of the houses my friends have bought, for terrifying amounts of money. You wouldn't put a dog in them.

LegallyBrunet

I will graduate university £50,000 in debt

Why is that? Why don't you work whilst you are studying to pay it off as generations before did to pay off their university debts?

will have to fight for the job I want in an extremely competitive jobs market
Just as we did. There were thousands going for the same jobs when I graduated, it was always the expectations of thousands. Today I hear graduates complaining of being up against a couple of hundred. I was up against 7000 other applicants for 3 jobs once. That's an extremely competitive jobs market.

and my OH and I will be lucky to afford a house in the area we want
As we all were lucky to afford a house in the area we wanted.

by the time I'm thirty (he's older)
As we were. Didn't do it until I was gone 30. Had to move far away for years and make multiple moves chasing the work and commuting miles to earn the money.

despite carefully saving and going without.
As we did.

So no, I don't think Millenials have it 'quite good'
Why? Nothing you've listed is any harder than we had.

But the idea that millennials need everything to be perfect before they'll contemplate it is total bullshit. You should see some of the houses my friends have bought, for terrifying amounts of money. You wouldn't put a dog in them.

This isn't to do with the millennials it is to do with after the financial crisis when you needed a massive deposit it made it really really hard to buy a doer-upper because you had to plough all of your money into the deposit. So whatever you bought you were stuck with in that state for the next 10 years. So yes, unsurprisingly FTBs didn't want to buy houses that needed loads doing.

I'm generation x and learned to live with what was happening at each stage of my life.
Seeing lots of couples crippled with high mortgage rates, being repossessed and not affording the very little childcare available for both to work, we went off grid.
We kept our house and did mend and make do.
Having nothing enabled us to have what we have now, it's not a huge amount of money but we are comfortable.

My ds x2 are Millennials and instead of living life month by month they work on their annual wages.
They either own homes outright or ds2 case nearly there with deposit at 23.
They have both done the same as us and saved the pennies, not had credit, no regular monthly payments for "stuff", no huge entertainment costs, eating out, and yes costa coffees were also out

why don't you work whilst you are studying to pay it off as generations before did to pay off their university debts?

Erm, I think that would be the £9,000 a year tuition fees. Which the baby boomers were not liable for as you well know. I'm sure she did work to cover her living costs, but wtf did you expect her to do, not sleep?

Why is that? Why don't you work whilst you are studying to pay it off as generations before did to pay off their university debts?

Well, in my parents’ generation there were no university fees and also access to student grants, which didn’t have to be repaid. Rent was a LOT cheaper. Unless you are talking about a later generation than them, then you aren’t really comparing like for like.

I'm 30, I'm doing alright, decent job, 4 bed house, foreign holiays, nice car etc. etc.

I can understand both sides of the argument, best thing I heard was though, "no-one is promised a better life than the generation that came before them" which I believe to be true, so complaining about the lot that came before you isn't going to do anything.

I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with owning a house. I will probably never be able to afford it but so what? There are more important things in life.

You can’t really claim that things are just as they are for students now. £9k annual fees seem standard now, which wasn’t anywhere near the case, even when I was studying, about 10-15 years ago.