to be annoyed that so many on mn seem to begrudge pensioners?

[Slartybartfast]

for mainly being too rich
so many of you seem to think that those who have retired at 65 and are likely enough to have a good pension have somehow cheated

Means testing would cost too much so it's easier not to unfortunately, I remember celebrity pensioners on the One Show saying they donate their winter fuel payments to charity.

My Grandmother (84) is fairly well off now, so much so that she has already pre paid her funeral but only because she rarely goes out and lives very frugally, doesn't holiday, drink, no mobile or internet and shops in charity shops for clothes. I don't think it's at all fair to complain about pensioners, Both my Dad and Grandad died before 70 so barely claimed a pension!

I currently pay £50 a month in to a pension and DH pays £80, both are topped up slightly by employers and we earn less than 50k between us. I would encourage my DCs to save and do try to but they don't listen as would rather always have the latest mobile model and takeaways.

It's this sort of attitude that people are complaining about. People like you seem to have no appreciation as to how good you have had it compared to today's 20 and 30 somethings.

Boomers have had it good in terms of houses (at least those who own houses have; the one in 4 of over 65s who don't own their house haven't been so lucky) but younger women in particular have had it lucky compared with boomer women in terms of employment - range of careers open to them, increased maternity leave, ability to return to work afterwards, options to address sexual harassment at work, and so on. Life for boomers wasn't great in all respects, and some of the hostility to younger generations is a defensive reaction to be told that boomers have had a wonderfully easy life. In some respects they have; in other respects, they've had different difficulties.

It would help if both sides would recognise that the other side has had their own difficulties. And that boomers are not in a big plot to deprive young people of everything. The decisions that have led us to being where we are now are a result of voting in a different era, where expectations of the future were very different, and boomers were being no more or less selfish in their voting than younger people today.

It doesn't actually matter how much your house price has increased unless you are planning to down size or move to a cheaper area. It's just your home that's all.

"And your dc clearly aren't in nmw jobs if they've been able to do that, because their upbringing with financially secure, involved parents has given them the chance for that outcome. And not everyone gets those opportunities." Which is what my earlier link referenced.

"I remember celebrity pensioners on the One Show saying they donate their winter fuel payments to charity." Ugh virtue signalling rubbish, they can decline payments.

"Life for boomers wasn't great in all respects" no but in many financial aspects it was/is.

Gosh some boomers really are their own worst enemy.

You are rich if you own your home outright, have a state pension from your 60s (worth around 250k!) and have a "small" private pension on top of that.

I live without central heating now, it's cold but I just get on with it and coal fires are a huge help.

Yoof of today won't get a state pension, many won't even afford a house and lots won't ever see retirement.

It's sad that so many people try to mute other people for pointing out that they are subsidising a lifestyle for others that they will never achieve.

The worst any pensioner now will have if they claim everything is 700 a month, rent all paid, winter fule allowance, 25%+ 75% council tax discount, free unlimited bus travel, free prescriptions. And that's all if they never saved a single penny. That is more than many people working full time have.

Why is means testing cheaper not to? Means testing CB clearly isnt otherwise they wouldn't continue with the farce.You get the impression expense gets trotted out simply as an excuse not to.

And in many ways younger women have less choice. Very few can afford anything but the bare minimum as regards spending time with their dc. Many families now are running 2x full time jobs and all the stress that brings as a family from a very young age simply because they have to in order to keep a roof over their head.

jayne
That is a set of circumstances I am familiar with. Very frugal elderly in laws. They have savings because they went without.

My own parents died soon into retirement and before they had any chance to enjoy retirement ‘rest’ or pensions they had paid into ~ and before enjoying the travelling, meals out, new decor they had imagined they would have. Never owned a house, so left nothing to inherit.

My husband and I have burst our guts after years of study to work in very time time consuming and stressful careers that would be impossible to do up to age 67, and bought a house, car and holidays as our rewards for not slowing up e.g. working part time (for quite a few years our child care bill was bigger than our mortgage) to taking time out etc. Delayed marriage and children til we could provide ~ or so we thought, but there was always a big bill to pay and the savings you were encouraged to rely on ~ endowment mortgages, never did what they were meant to do.

Our kids live a very different life, money earned is spent on experiences rather than things. Some of their friends have taken off to work abroad and earn a great deal more than they could here. Some modest earners here (beauticians) are earning huge salaries in Dubai. They are taking risks and leaving family networks to make their financial futures as secure as they can and deserve every success.

No idea which way in the right way, but suggesting the previous generation has to solve the problems for the current generation is not the way to go.

but suggesting the previous generation has to solve the problems for the current generation is not the way to go.

Why not?

1 these are your children and grandchildren

2 SOME of the issues have been caused by actions of this generation of pensioners (inc their voting record - I didn't bloody vote thatcher in I wasn't old enough to vote! Still getting the shit from her policies though!)

My mum bought her council house at a huge discount, she was a single mother working in admin in and wasn't even earning the average wage for the time. She got the council house when she was 19. She studied and got a degree for free, she divorced my dad with the help of legal aid. She's decided to give up work and will receive a final salary pension in a few years.

Great. She has worked hard and we did endure real poverty before she divorced my dad. But would any single mother have the same opportunity now? Of course not, they would be living in private rented accommodation, the rent topped up by housing benefit because its 90% of her wages. She wouldn't be able to study due to the £27,000 + tuition fee debts, and lack of time. Divorce would be more expensive since legal aid in family courts has been cut. The child that was me living now might wearing brand new clothes from supermarkets rather than secondhand jumble sale clothes, she wouldn't be going on little holidays down to the coast because of the fines slapped on parents who can only just about afford out of season holidays, and she would probably be struggling with her asthma due to the damp mild that the landlord won't fix. Every time I see whole families stuffed into studio flats or emergency accommodation on the news I think that child could be me if I was born 30 years later.

I'm proud of my mum and I know I was lucky myself to be born when I was, it's sad that my DS's won't have the same easy access to opportunities as mine, and previous generations did.

Depriving people from affordable housing be it buy, private rent or social is removing the starting blocks from life. I'm not saying pensioners should give up their homes to struggling young family. But maybe acknowledge that it's not down to incompetence and bad life choices, maybe think before objecting to any new housing being built in the local area that it might be needed, maybe considering future generations when voting and not just safe guarding their own perks?

I’ve never voted Thatcher or for any Tory government. My kids wouldn’t either ~ but a lot of young people do. (Scots have never voted for a Tory government yet keep getting their shit!)
I do support my own offspring ~ doesn’t everybody support their children? I also support other people’s offspring through taxes that supports the benefits system. I also see too many abuses of the benefits system ~ and it isn’t from the pensioners who have paid in to the system.

Depriving people from affordable housing be it buy, private rent or social is removing the starting blocks from life
Exactly!
An adequate secure and affordable home is as essential as education and Healthcare without it is very hard to get on in life...you're hobbled from the get go

Selling off council housing stock was appalling and we are stuck with the legacy of that.
Germans don’t appear to be as obsessed with house ownership as we are ~ there is a huge rental stock

I think what grates is when baby boomers brag that they bought their first property at 21 and worked hard all their life to achieve a current lifestyle. What they don't acknowledge is that mortgages were more easily available, deposits weren't required and the cost of a property was a much lower multiplier of salary. Add in the appreciation of house prices and the baby boomer "wealth" isn't all because of working hard!

I'm a baby boomer. I bought a flat for £17k and my salary was £7500 in 1986. I sold it 2 years later for £29k. Highly unlikely my hard working DCs will be in a position to accumulate any kind of asset like that.

Every generation faces challenges but I think young people today face particular challenges, many of them created by their parents' generation.

I can't believe people are still blaming thatcher!!!! She has been dead a few years and left front line politics over two decades ago. Those who succeeded after her had plenty of opportunities to take action but never did. Personally I blame Blair. I remember the 'golden' years and the BBs all shaking their heads saying 'it's happening again!'.

Don't forget it was under Blair that the NHS was left with PFI contracts which are like a noose around the NHS neck. It was under Blair that house prices were allowed to run rampant. It's absolute insanity to blame Thatcher when we have had decades of time to change the course and take a different path.

I am under 40 and left the Uk to 'get ahead' which I have accomplished. It's nothing new. My friends back home are mainly living well above their means. The wages today are extremely depressed because of the huge amounts of labour that has come into the UK from the EU. It's flooded the market to the detriment of the more vulnerable sections of our society. Young people starting out are greatly affected by this and I hope to see wages increase over the next decade.

olly Mortgages were not easily available for BBs at 21. My dad was signing off on loans for my grandmother in the 70s because the bank wouldn't lend to a woman. To buy a home you needed at a minimum a 25% deposit.

No you didn't, utter bollocks. I bought my first house as a single parent on a 100% mortgage. Why are people just making up stuff as they go along?

olly my mother was refused a mortgage repeatedly because she was a woman.

Boomers didn’t get houses given to them - they scraped and saved. You needed at least a 25% deposit and at two points in the 70s house prices almost doubled within a year. Interest rates were at 13% at one point.

Each generation faces their own challenges. Boomers had to grow up with rationing, poverty in a scale we’ve forgotten, serious sexism. No internet, no access to university for most. They had things that were better and things that were worse.
Millenials also have their own challenges and advantages. Much better access to education, far less sexism, better maternity leave. Cheap travel, the ability to live and work in other countries. Less good things are that they now compete in a wider pool, so those who are not at the top struggle, higher house prices, fewer decent paying blue collar jobs.

No generation has EVER had it universally good. All have faced their own issues.

And in many ways younger women have less choice. Very few can afford anything but the bare minimum as regards spending time with their dc. Many families now are running 2x full time jobs and all the stress that brings as a family from a very young age simply because they have to in order to keep a roof over their head.

My parents both worked full time(opposite shifts for years) for as far back as I can remember and my Mum still does at 64, so that is not a new thing.

My parents in their early 70s and all their friends it was a choice if the women wanted to work. Most just did bits and pieces for when they wanted money for a holiday or a new car.

Families these days have it way woorse as there is no option but to drop the children off at childcare and work. And that's to barely afford a small home.

State pension of £250k? At today's rate you'd have to live to be over 100 to get that.

No. You'd just have to live to the average LE! Espically with the triple lock.

That 250k is a pot you'd need privately to get the same annuity rate as a PP pointed out.

Nobody is saying that the boomers had it easy or that they didn't work hard for what they have. Just pointing out that it was an opportunity they had that younger generations don't.

Like elsewhere in the country, there's an area of housing near me that has a lot of retired baby boomers still in their big family homes. And when you look at the types of jobs they did, compared to the careers the younger families living there have, there's a huge gulf. The younger families tend to be consultants, or barristers etc, with both parents working, the boomers were teachers, skilled tradesmen etc, and most only had one ft worker.

It's that difference that some boomers need to acknowledge rather than it being about whether they worked hard or deserve it. It isn't my lesser work ethic or spending habits that prevent me buying a house like the boomers, or that will make my retirement very different to theirs, so hearing about how hard they worked to get it is rather missing the point.

Of course it's missing the point but I'm going to ask what I've asked again and again - what do you want us to do about it? We have no control over when we were born or the economic environment when we were young. What do you guys want from us? I've already pointed out that whether we help our family, spend our money, save it or set fire to bundles of fivers we're going to upset some people.

Of course it's missing the point but I'm going to ask what I've asked again and again - what do you want us to do about it?

Not hold the government to ransom everytime an idea is floated that disadvantages you but helps other people. Can't see that day ever happening though.