To think these baby boomers are missing the point?

[Hundredacrewoods]

I grew up in an area where house prices have quadrupled since 2000. I consider this an intergenerational equity issue. Whenever the topic of house prices and 'millennials' comes up with my parents' generation, all I hear is how hard they worked and how much they sacrificed to get on the property ladder. AIBU to think that they're missing the point? No one is denying that they worked hard and sacrificed. The point is that if they worked just as hard today, and made the same sacrifices, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

There weren't costas on every street corner, and you had few fewer choices of tv channel.
Certainly no Sky subscriptions, mobile contracts, netflix, and any other regular payment people justify these days.

No there werent..
But there WERE landlines, dinner dances, record players, electric bread knives???? wall mounted tin openers????, cheese slicers, lemon squeezers, Apple corers, ratchet screw drivers, wall mounted barometers, egg slicers, new double glazing, new upstairs loos, new central heating, social clubs, tupperware parties, babysitters, the mod cons of the time, silver eyeshadow, cinema trips....
It was NOT a more frugle generation, they just bought DIFFERENT superfluous stuff!!!!!

It's similar to how if we mention that DCs are invited to a friends party, both PIL & DPs launch into "it's all hall parties and soft play these days, whatever happened to just having a little birthday tea at home with a few friends and jelly? EVERY.TIME.

Well DPs/DPILs.....for a start...you're both full of shit, neither of you "just did little parties at home for your kids, as both DP and I both had and attended swimming parties, cinema parties, and fast food restaurant parties as kids so...
Secondly, the parties we DID have at home were facilitated by the fact that you both raised us in relatively large family hones, with separate dining rooms and gardens. And the DCs friends who hire halls often live in small flats, so STFU about how extravagant a £30 church hall party is compaired to your IMAGINARY frugle parenting of the past.

Same thing with this scrimping to own business, they've got frugle-tinted glasses!!!!

Brilliant @PancakeInMaBelly.

Yes, most parties I went to or had as a kid were in Macdonalds or the local social club which most of the adults frequented daily anyway

There weren't costas on every street corner
No, because they were all pubs.

Fugal tinted glasses! So true!

But there WERE landlines, dinner dances, record players, electric bread knives???? wall mounted tin openers????, cheese slicers, lemon squeezers, Apple corers, ratchet screw drivers, wall mounted barometers, egg slicers, new double glazing, new upstairs loos, new central heating, social clubs, tupperware parties, babysitters, the mod cons of the time, silver eyeshadow, cinema trips

Definitely different universe. I didn't do any of these things nor have any of these things apart from the indoor toilet (Didn't have that even growing up).

Well then Im utterly stumped as to how so many Woolies, Wimpys, Pubs, Social Clubs, Cinemas, Swimming Pools etc stayed going quite so long if BBs never bought anything frivolous or went anywhere non free????

Its a mystery.....

Didn't you know your only purpose in life is to work til you drop @PancakeInMaBelly

Exactly! Like the BBs did soap, with their horses and carts and hand spun yarns, nobody had radiators they just snuggled up to a goat.....

Pancake

Well, all the accounts I've heard of my family members for generations scrimped and saved to buy their own properties.
They had a bottom drawer that your gadgets wouldn't really fit into, and household things were bought as wedding presents.
Young people tend to buy these themselves now and ask for money for luxuries for their weddings, usually after forking out several K for stag and Hen holidays.
Surely your examples were life after owning a home, you certainly couldn't have much of a social life when you were saving a deposit.

Also that lovely unicorn ride of increasing 'national debt': Money "printed" into existence by indenturing future generations with the consequences of the unfunded liabilities, without those future generations having a say in the matter. It's a pretty despicable state of affairs.

With the UK's real national debt estimated at £75k+ per person, everyone experiences that suffocation a bit. We don't directly pay the monthly interest on that, but we still do. Some more than others.

Never hear boomers apologise that they didn't stand and fight against this, and that their children, grandchildren and unborn grandchildren have inherited the consequences.

That's totally unfair. What the hell could we do about it? Blame the bankers where the problem originated.

While I feel incredibly sorry for young people now - and am doing the best I can to help and support the ones in my part of the woods - I'm getting pretty sick of being reviled for having been born in the 50s. Because that was obviously something over which I had complete control and should take total responsibility for.

nobody had radiators

Is that meant to be sarcastic.

We didn't have radiators.

I'm not a baby boomer, but did manage to buy my first house in the early 90s - then sold it at a loss a few years later.

BUT - having done some maths. Back then, interest rates were 15%, and mortgages generally about 2% above that.

Our first house meant our mortgage payments were nearly 600 pcm, and I earnt quite a bit less than that. Nowadays, the same house sells for over 100k, but with lower mortgage rates, the monthly payments are about the same. People do earn more now than I did 27 years ago, so I would assume that a pair of young professionals like DH & I were could afford it. They may take longer to get together a 10% deposit, but it isn't impossible.

We did 'go without Costa' and then some (no car, very limited food budget, no going out, no movies, no holidays, only drank water or tea, no new clothes except what our parents bought us for birthdays etc.) to pay for our first house, and I spent over a decade of my life having to watch every single penny I had just to make ends meet. There was even a time when the hot water AND the heating broke down in Feb and I just had to sit in the cold.

I know that it's tough when you're trying to scrape money together. I know that we were both in graduate jobs (and I earned a whopping 5k per year!) and that it is really disheartening to think that you can't even afford a pint at the pub. I had to live like that for so long. Finding the money for basics like tampons and bread was difficult.

And that's what it took. I don't actually think that the younger generation should just go without a Costa coffee or two, but when I say I cut back to get my first house, I really did live in very "poor" circumstances, but I did at least have my tiny little starter home due to that. It was only people with graduate jobs who had a hope of achieving that back then, just like it is now, and people in the SE had no hope of getting a home for several years.

It doesn't actually seem that much different.

Again. No one is questioning boomer work ethic.

Houses are just more expensive now.

I think what’s being missed is that it’s not just about the house/wage gap that is ever increasing and which bbs are profiting from massively as they retire (before anyone jumps on me I know not all do but I can only speak from what I see first hand in my own life).
It’s that so many have retired at 60/65, enjoy triple lock pensions on top of generous private schemes (not talking about those who genuinely struggle on low incomes). My own parents qualify for the winter fuel allowance despite living abroad, my dad got a pension despite working abroad for 30 years and not paying very much tax to the uk over his entire working life. My parents in law freely admit that they don’t need free bus passes etc but still get everything that’s available - in the wealthy village we used to live in the buses were full and no one was paying!
There’s actually a lot that bbs who have been very very fortunate could do, start downsizing en masse to stop family homes from being at such a premium when they no longer need the space for one, day no to social benefits that they don’t really need. They shouldn’t have to make all these changes by themselves though, government should incentivise the generations to help each other.

My parents in law freely admit that they don’t need free bus passes etc but still get everything that’s available

my friend freely admits she doesn't need child benefit for her 5 kids - they earn around 80K between them (and inherited her BB mother's large house)... but she still claims it.

Different generation, same attitude.

Well anyone having more than 2 kids now won’t get child benefit & it’s means tested.

Definitely different universe. I didn't do any of these things nor have any of these things apart from the indoor toilet (Didn't have that even growing up).

Bit like there are young people now who don't have an expensive iPhone, don't holiday abroad or have a car and never go to Costa. Generations are not a homogenous bunch of clones they are all individuals.

All generations have had people who wasted money and spent money they could have spent more constructively for a variety of different reasons.

beyond the page it's a strange attitude that people should not claim free bus passes and clog the road with their polluting car instead or not claim cb.

Your friend might not need it to keep the Wolf from the door but in that case she can save it for her dc who bloody well will if they ever want to get on the property ladder.

Do mega rich people offer to pay additional tax just because they don't need all their money and assets? Er no I don't think they do.

There seems to be a lot of jealousy on this thread instead of just getting on with your own lives!

I'm not jealous, just annoyed that some bb's think themselves so superior to young people and have voted to screw young people over even further.

It’s not jealousy to just want a more even playing field. We’ve done alright and own a nice home but I doubt we’ll get the same benefits in retirement that we’re currently helping to pay for, never mind how our children will struggle further. I would just like to see government and bbs (through attitude and voting habits) starting to look at how we might endure future generations can also prosper.

The flat TV thing. Do they even make the old ones anymore?

It's a shame that wanting equality makes some people brush off as jelousy and tell people to just ignore it and get on.