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?

I know there's a lot of bleating about the scourge of capitalism and consumerism etc, and I don't agree with much of it. But what concerns me is the effect that capitalism seems to have on people's minds - the way they'll just accept being 'trapped' because they are so wedded to having a certain 'aspirational' lifestyle that must be achieved in a certain way. The only people that benefits are the business owners - they get scared minions who are too afraid to rock the boat and who will work 12 hour days putting money in their pockets. Where is people's imagination??? There is a whole world out there - you don't have to have to work yourself to the bone to get that four bed house in the 'nice' area - try thinking a bit differently about things!

Wow Flowerpot was there any need for that personal attack just because I explained how the Student Loans system works? It's still a valid claim I took out a loan, I am in debt, I will have to repay that debt but the repayment of that debt comes with conditions ie when I earn over 21k a percentage of the loan repayment will come straight out of my income.
Also, I'm on track to finish my first year with a solid 2:1. I can't be doing too badly

Sorry Laurie

That sounded arsy, it wasn't meant to.
I was just giving an example of living within means which is similar to what you have done, just with different figures and scenario.
Neither me or dh have been big earners or employees since kids, so obviously our figures are much different to yours
But still a simialr mindset, I believe.

It simply isn't possible to buy a house on one low wage these days where I live, so I consider you guys to be hugely fortunate. I'd love to not have to work 50+ hours a week.

Yes, I'm fortunate to be able to buy a house. Lots of people my generation are not. I'll spend many long years paying off that mortgage, which I suspect in affordability will greatly outstrip what you had to pay in interest rates.

Sorry Gillie posted that before i saw your update.

Yanbu. I lived like a queen at 25 compared to how my parents started out.

F-me so I'm a millennial? I'm nearly 40! I thought millennials were those man baby 24 year olds who couldn't possibly work in dull office jobs and spend loads on coffee and headphones? 😜
Fwiw i think the SE housing problem is a massive factor for young people today (rent caps desperately needed) but young people also seem slow to get on with being a boring grown up. I also think having a degree seems so common place now, actual work experience at the age of 25 is unusual.

Most students I know work and study but their wages pay for their living costs (accom, food, bills, bus fares ) and they don't have anything left over to pay off their tuition loans.

The link is to a talk on a 75 year study of happiness. While young people aspire to money and fame, the research shows that relationships are the key to happiness and older people know that.

www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness

That's how it is for me BarbarianMum my student loan just about covers my (pretty much extortionate) rent for halls but doesn't leave an awful lot left for anything else so I need to work. I don't know how anybody could expect us to start making loan repayments whilst we need our wages to live. I am very glad I've gone to uni though

Inspired by conversation around our dinner table (with apologies to Cat Stevens)

Father and Son 2017

You think we had it easy? Well let me tell you son
When I was a student, it wasn’t all fun.
A few pints in the union was our weekly treat;
We had no central heating, let alone an en suite.
Rang your Gran from the call box, queued up in the rain,
No iphones or laptops, no weekends in Spain.
I first went abroad when I was twenty one;
Had no gap years in Thailand, no long weeks in the sun.
Ran a clapped out old mini, fixed it up each weekend,
Jacked it up on the pavement, drove your Mum round the bend.
Bought a wreck on a mortgage, crazy high interest rate.
Had no cash left for furniture, ate our tea off a crate.
Scrimped and saved, did without, hand me downs, times were hard.
Now kids nip round IKEA, put it all on a card.
But we wanted more and I don’t mean just stuff;
Social justice, equality, never mind times were tough.
And we marched for the miners and we loved CND
And we threw down the Poll Tax and set Mandela free.
Yeah we did our bit, me and your mother.
You lot are too selfish to look after each other.

Dad, I came out of Uni with 40k debt,
So forgive me if I seem a little upset
That the jobs with the prospects go to those in the know.
Public schoolboys with contacts are running the show.
And a place of my own costs 10 times what I make.
Saving pennies is pointless; just give me a break.
A few Starbucks and Nandos don’t amount to that much
And I need a new Macbook and you’re just out of touch.
‘Cos our whole generation’s been sold down the pan.
So don’t blame us for having some fun while we can;
We’ll be working ‘til eighty if they have their way
On zero hours contracts and minimum pay.
We’ve got Brexit and food banks and pay day loans,
Global warming, pollution, terrorism and drones
And wars for religion and wars for resources
And fake news and fracking and dodgy Police forces.
You lot messed up our world and you sold us a pup.

But we’re Tweeting, we’re voting and now we’re waking up.

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? confused

But your previous comment said “why don’t you work to pay your debts like previous generations did”? And “why do you have so much debt”? In the context of the thread and the rest of your posts, it’s looked as if you were attempting to compare the debts of students today with those of previous generations, which I think is extremely unfair. And I say that as someone who doesn’t have half, or even a third as much student to pay in fees, as students do now.

But, tbh, having seen you on another thread recently where you were mouthing off like an aggressive keyboard warrior, I’m sure you’ll have an angry response for me. You’ll forgive me if I don’t respond again I hope.

I have noticed amongst my friends that a lot have bought 4 bed executive homes as their first houses. Part of this is because they aren't buying until 30 or so, so have more clarity over what they want and need for the future. DH and I bought when I was 20 and I genuinely thought a small 3 bed semi would be fine for the foreseeable. Just 4 years later and we had 2 DC and wanted more space. However I recognise that we wanted and didn't need extra room, it's such a nice luxury to have space. I think for this reason the "property ladder" as our parents understand it isn't the same any more. House prices are ridiculous compared to wages and yes interest rates are historically low but if you're saving £8k per year while wages stagnate and house prices are rising by £25k a year that's pretty irrelevant as you're not going to benefit from the low rates!

I also think we are more aware of the continuing help and support (financial and emotional) that our DC will need which makes the future more scary.

Many baby boomers have fantastic pensions and the ability to help out DC; I want this, but will also need to house myself and fund myself without a great pension. I find MN quite demoralising at times, especially the threads about how much people save. It makes me really worried. I suppose keeping up with the Joneses is part of the human condition, which is why it can be really hard for millennials. A mobile phone really isn't a luxury these days, it really is essential. Ditto cars - there is so little public transport outside of major cities.

I would far be happier as a millennial (born in 83 so don't quite know what I'm categorised as) than young when either my parents or grand parents were born. My dad came from a really deprived childhood. He was the son of can canal people who had had their house and livileyhood taken away and moved into a slum (yes proper old school slum). My mums parents were from poor Scottish and Yorkshire farming backgrounds and its shocking to hear the stories of what they went through just to pay the rent of the landlords or just to stay warm in winter. My grandma worked in Service for some of the big houses and then the houses of middle class family's from her mid teens. Working 7 days a week for crap pay for however many hours the made her work. As much as millennials complain about working condition and pay (rightfully so, but then need to become more unionised) is nothing anywhere near as bad as that. .

I will point out that housing is quite a South Eastern problem too, my younger relatives in the North East are buying still buying houses in their mid 20’s and most my friends living there (mid 30’s now) bought houses young as well, you can still get a nice 2/3 bed for just less than £100,000 in a lot of places. We had to pay £225,000 for our 3 bed terrace here in Essex but then DH has a London wage (but also a London commute cost of £5000 a year).

I can remember having no furniture when we started off and having to save for everything eating of an orange crate with an old cloth my mum gave us.
I'm loving the Cat Stevens, haven't heard this before, but it's so true.

I also think the next generation will look at this generation and think how good they have it.
It's good to remember when you are suggesting it's easier for this generation, they are your dc and will face their own problems.

On another note, it isn't always possible to work as a student. My ds1 managed it fine, he even had a full time job, my dd with completely different subject but still close to home won't be as fortunate, her course will also be 2 years longer, there are just 13 years between them and so many differences in what they'll face. My ds1 got in just before the huge increase in fees, so not a huge loan to pay back.
This is just one example of how things can change within a shortish time frame.

It is just a different generation and challenges. I think the biggest factor will be housing and that for both sets of our parents, they could afford to live easily on one salary and buy houses that are bigger than any of their children have on that one salary.

Both of our parents afforded a foreign holiday and a detached house on one salary too. There is just no way that any of their children can afford the same as the basic costs of living have increased beyond the average adult salary.

There came a point where house prices were based upon a couple's joint income rather than a single working adult's income and everything else followed.

I'd be very happy if I didn't have to pay my student loan tax of over £150 a month too!

If housing is mostly a SE problem then this is counterbalanced by issues with education, trainjng, job opportunities and poor infrastructure in other areas.

You can buy a house for £55k in Rotherham or Goldthorpe but may struggle with getting a job, or getting to it.

Swings and roundabouts. Swings and roundabouts.

Why can't your dd work in the holidays gilly?

I hate the Costa / latte comments that crop up on threads like this. Yes, sometimes “Costa” is shorthand for excessive frivolous spending, but in and of itself it’s small potatoes. As I said upthread I’m an old millennial - 1986, have my own home etc and good quality of life. When I was saving for my first home I shared with 7 others in a dive, worked all hours at multiple jobs etc. I also treated myself to a McDonalds once a week - £5 or so? It made not a bit of difference to the time it took me to save up £18,000 as a 10% deposit on an ex-council flat in SE London. This was in 2013.

I imagine every generation has it's problems. My parents are baby boomers, they live a comfortable life, mortgage paid off etc but my dad still works. However the house that they bought cheaply wasn't that nice in lots of ways and it's only been I the last few years that they have got central heating and double glazing. My dad has always worked 2 or 3 jobs. So I wouldn't say they had it easy, although even they will admit it was easier for them to buy a house than it was for me. And my dad often says he feels sorry for my generation in regards to pensions and retirement.
I think both generations moan tbh. My mum moans a lot about everything, as does my mil. But I have friends that also moan a lot. The social differences are so huge that I think it makes it difficult to judge which is better off, my mum thinks that technology is a luxury, I see it as a necessity etc.

If you could have a mortgage free house in 2018, no one would pick going back to 1968. Pretty much everything is better now than in the past. If you are a woman or a person of colour, doubly so.

Yes you will get paid less in the North East and there are areas where housing is cheap because it’s a depressed area. The Northumberland town I grew up in was not in a good place in the late 80’s/Early 90’s and I went to what would be classed as failing schools but looking at my cohort a large amount of them are in good/professional jobs that may be paid lower than here but are offering them a high quality of life/‘spare’ spending money when housing costs are lower, they probably don’t have a large commute and things such as meals out and nights out cost less! I think me and DH worked out that if we lived in my home town he could earn about £20,000 less a year and still have more spending money (I was factoring in my parents taking on childcare costs as they’ve often claimed they would if I moved up!) and now the ‘bad town’ I grew up in seems quite appealing, it’s got lots of new housing, money in new academy schools, it’s by the sea, close to Newcastle for jobs. Yet it would still be classed as a poor place overall. There aren’t many more social problems than in my ‘affluent’ South eastern town though. Also a lot of my family still live in Council housing and it seems as if around there supply isn’t so bad and it’s not so difficult to get. Private rentals in my parents estate are very rare, more people seem to own or be in social housing. We were renting a studio flat here at age 28 for the price of renting a 3 bed house up there as well. Loads of my friends lived at home until they bought though as private rentals were seen as a huge waste of money. The benefits of staying local I guess.

Differences in wealth between the average millennial and the average boomer are dwarfed by the difference in wealth between the richest in and the poorest in each of those groups. But as long as we are squabbling about how much worse off millennials are than boomers, maybe we'll all forget how, since the start of "Austerity - we're all in it together", the rich have somehow managed to get considerably richer.

Yes millennials have it so much easier. Look at us, walking around like we rent the place...

Yes millennials have it so much easier. Look at us, walking around like we rent the place...

Haha!

And of course you're walking, you can't afford a car.