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?

or ds2 case nearly there with deposit at 23.

Where is this? I'm guessing not the SE.

Sorry - you can’t really claim things were just as they are now, for students in previous generations^^

LaurieMarlow
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.

What's any of that got to do with my very simple question?

I will graduate university £50,000 in debt

But you will graduate, you got to go to university, which is a good thing no? And the debt can be paid off gradually, or not at all (unlike a pp I can see why you've accrued it in the first place).

You know what I'm talking about Flowerpot, so I'm not engaging with your feigned obtuseness.

TheDailyMailIsADisgustingRag
in my parents’ generation there were no university fees.. then you aren’t really comparing like for like.

Likewise, what's any of that got to do with my question which you are responding to? I never said I was comparing debt quantities and comparing like for like, did I?

Previous generations didn't all go to uni though, far fewer than today when everyone seems to have to go.
If your parents weren't prepared to fund you through uni, you got a job and contributed to the household or got married and had your own place.
It was only the mc that got to uni as the education system was far worse than today, unless you managed grammar school.

My parents are baby boomers and I am one of the last of generation X. Clearly some things are better for my generation - I would not want to have to put up with some of the overt sexism and harrasment in the workplace that my mother treated as part of everyday life.

However, I think it's rather simplistic to suggest that my parents' generation got what they have now through working harder, making do and mending, settling for less rewarding jobs etc.

I know many people of my age and younger who went to University not because they had a thirst for knowledge but because we were told that we would need a degree to get a reasonable job. Many graduates now have jobs that our parents' generation would have been able to get without a degree.

Even of younger people seem to spend more that our parents on items which are not strictly essential, there is far more pressure to have/do more. For example, when I was a child few of my friends had foreign holidays, all the latest fashions/gadgets, lots of after school activities etc. If I gave my children the same as I had (and was quite happy with) they would be singled out as the only child at school with no phone, mum with no car, only 1 'going out' outfit, hand me down clothes etc.

LaurieMarlow
You know what I'm talking about Flowerpot, so I'm not engaging with your feigned obtuseness.

No, I do not. I have asked a poster why they don't work to pay off their debt and you post a bizarre post about baby boomers and fee amounts. Pointing out the total irrelevance of your post butting in on a question not addressed to you is not feigning obtuseness, it is asking you about the total irrelevance of it. If you are not able to show how it's relevant, that's fine, just say so.

There is some really good debate on here

But come on "why don't you work to pay your 50k uni fees "

Assuming this is a 3 year degree ( and uni terms mean your actually there more like 2 and 3 quarter years ) would mean that poster would need to earn about 25k a year to fully pay all her fees and also afford to live during these years . I'm all for minimising debt ( well avoiding unless absolutely nessasery ) but do you not think that in this case that would be seriously un achievable??

Also the poster who apparently is married almost mortgage free with kids in private school. You managed to get a lot of money together in the 3 years you spent knuckling down

'*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.'

Yes exactly Trillis. I find it interesting that the posters who have responded to that have misinterpreted what I've said (in exactly the same way).

If you can afford £6 a week on coffee without budgeting for it then you can afford to buy a house. Maybe not the house of your dreams in your dream location, but a house.

Laurie

We're the NW and my ds have learned how to do up property, saving them thousands on tradesmen for doing not much more than putting up a shelf
We too learned how to do DIY and do up our property, to make a profit and move on or just to save money and have a nicer home.

Both my ds have said that professionals they know have no chance because they aren't prepared to do this, they pay for everything and wonder why they have no money. Great standard of living, but can't afford a home.
They couldn't afford a home in the South, but neither can many professionals round here afford one neither. It's the mindset of what they can afford each month that seems to be the downfall.

The issue with degrees is now many employers expect them so you have to have one. My company stipulated you have to have a degree to work there. None of the heads even went to university.

It’s a expensive & unnecessary way to prove your have the required skills.

I think you do make some fair points, but the fact is that houses and living costs have spiralled way higher than salaries. The kinds of 'unfulfilling' jobs that your grandparents would have taken without complaint wouldn't even begin to buy a home these days; they'd frequently not even cover the rent.

If your job isn't likely ever to buy you financial stability or a home of your own, I can't really blame someone for at least wanting to enjoy it.

Housing is, and always was a persons largest expenditure, either rent or mortgage. As the dream of home ownership was sold then prices have been competed higher and higher, necessitating greater debt and crucially two people working full time to service the debt.
Housing and finance has become Britains only growth sector, society polarised between people lucky to be born at the correct time and those not.
Inter generational infighting is futile, the main beneficiaries are the banks, quelle surprise.

clumsyduck

But come on "why don't you work to pay your 50k uni fees... but do you not think that in this case that would be seriously un achievable??

Read my post. I at no point asked her why she doesn't pay her 50k uni fees in total, I asked why she felt she would leave with a 50k debt and why she wouldn't work to reduce that. She could leave with 40k, 30k, 20k, and if she worked really hard 0.

I do not buy this automatic "leave uni with 50k debt" nonsense that the NUS, Labour and others keep bleating on about. This happens ONLY if you sit on your backside and don't work whilst studying or in term breaks.

I’ve just bought a 2nd freezer & playpen off eBay. All of my friends do this & no one has a brand new car. Not even the barristers or doctors amongst us.

We're the NW and my ds have learned how to do up property, saving them thousands on tradesmen for doing not much more than putting up a shelf. We too learned how to do DIY and do up our property, to make a profit and move on or just to save money and have a nicer home.

We've just done up a home too. It cost us almost half a million euro to buy and it needed basically everything done to it. We did lots of that our selves, but with the best will in the world neither me nor my DH has the skills to replumb a house. Or rewire it. And given that we both work extremely long hours and have a small son, I'm not sure where we have the time or energy to gain these skills.

So I don't buy this 'oh if you only knew how to graft you'd do it' mentality. Though I'm pleased for your children.

Flowerpot123 I AM working while I study but as you're not liable for student loan repayments until you start earning 21k and have finished your course I'm not in a position to start making a dent on my loan yet. Also, in order to earn that much in my job as well as study I would have to forgo sleep. I think you've just come on here spoiling for an argument

I don’t consider myself a millennial at 34, I do think we had it slightly easier as there wasn’t so much being expected to work for free/internships, we got jobs after graduation that were low paid (around £14,000 a year) but enough to live independently on, and we just managed to save enough to buy a house before it got vastly expensive (only 3 years ago but already our house has been valued at £60,000 more than we bought it for so we would have found it quite difficult now) and having worked since he was 21 my DH is in a very senior position and makes good money, rather than say having to have freelanced around or do various unpaid internships before he got settled in a career. I chose to stay in a relatively low paid but socially useful public sector job or we could have probably bought sooner 😂

I don’t really have a story about lucky grandparents and parents either as they grew up in large, very poor households, lived in social housing and both my grandmas were living entirely on state pension and in Council flats when they died, although with support from those of their children that could afford it (buying a new sofa etc) My parents worked very hard to buy a tiny flat when they got married because they desperately wanted to own and NOT be so poor, so that now yes they have a mortgage free (but pretty average sized semi detached) house, but they also had the sky high interest on the mortgage when we were young, and there were no meals out etc. They never went out as far as I remember.

We brought our kids up to believe that you looked at what you could afford rather than what you wanted.
Not got your own home you can't afford anything over the necessities and you prioritise a roof over your head, some warm clothes and food in your belly.
Anything else is a luxury and if you want to save for a home you cut out the luxuries.
Previous generations have had to do this, it's exactly the same now, all about priorities and being single minded in what you want to achieve.

'Even of younger people seem to spend more that our parents on items which are not strictly essential, there is far more pressure to have/do more. For example, when I was a child few of my friends had foreign holidays, all the latest fashions/gadgets, lots of after school activities etc. If I gave my children the same as I had (and was quite happy with) they would be singled out as the only child at school with no phone, mum with no car, only 1 'going out' outfit, hand me down clothes etc.'

So what?? If my children came home and said they were being singled out for not having a phone etc. I'd use it as an opportunity to teach them that others will judge you no matter what you do and if you try to avoid being singled out for your whole life then you'll waste your time trying to please others who really don't give a shit about you. Buying things in order to present an 'acceptable' image to the world is such an appalling waste of time.

Of all the dying regrets to have surely the saddest, most disappointing one would be 'I never did I wanted to do, I only made sure others couldn't single me out.'

LegallyBrunet

Flowerpot123 I AM working while I study
Then your earnings will contribute to paying off some of the debt. So you won't leave with £50k debt then, you will leave with less. How much work are you doing?

but as you're not liable for student loan repayments until you start earning 21k and have finished your course I'm not in a position to start making a dent on my loan yet.

Are you kidding? So you're saying your claim "I will leave uni £50k in debt" is based solely on the practicalities of not having to make any loan repayments until you earn 21k, and NOTHING to do with actually struggling to pay a £50k debt?

So every single student, even with £1m in the bank from a lottery win, could say "boo hoo, I leave with £50k debt" just because they haven't started making their repayments?

Sorry, I thought you were writing hoping to be taken seriously. If you think that was being a clever way to wriggle out of your false claim, I hope the legal profession chucks you out before it's too late.

Laurie

We didn't have millions, just a low wage, with one person working.
We also had 2 kids, spent holidays learning how to plumb, admittedly we bartered with a local electrician for rewiring. Our mortgage was 15.5% interest during this time too.
I'd have loved some warmth from central heating but couldn't afford it, so we chopped wood for a wood burner.
Gosh, you are very fortunate to have millions and able to afford tradesmen to do your jobs.