To ask what your quality of life is like compared to your parents'?

[Echobelly]

Do you think you have it better than your parents or not? And will your kids have it better than you?

We are fortunate to have a good quality of life, owning a good sized home without too massive a mortgage, money left after bills. But (though I expect no little violins whatsoever to play for us) at our age my parents in the same position could regularly go to the opera, my mum could buy designer clothes (I twitch at spending over £40 on anything), they could buy new cars (we've never owned a new one), could send my brother to private school (wouldn't want to pay for schools, though) and so on. I guess this is a lot to do with that they bought our family home for less than 1.3 times their household income... our one was over 8 times, although we were very privileged in having two properties to sell. But still a much bigger proportion of our income goes into mortgage than it did for either of our parents.

I do worry for our kids... unless something majorly and permanently gives with the housing market, it's going to be impossible to own somewhere. The best hope seems to be that a decent corporate-run rental market emerges and they buying a place is less of an issue. I hate debt and I'm almost inclined to advise them not to bother with degrees if their main impact on life is a 5 or even 6-figure debt to start your adult life... maybe it'll be better to work your way up after leaving school!

I'd say the same as my parents as in both cases it was one DC and two full time working parents, we also bought our house before the boom when we were only 18 so mortgage is not comparable to current mortgages.

We have a better quality of life than DH parents as they had four children and MIL was a SAHP so only one wage coming in.

DS probably has a life comparable to me growing up but not DH IYSWIM.

My life is nothing like my mother's was. As soon as she got married she gave up work and had a lovely life as a SAHM. I'm going to have to work until I can no longer physically manage it.

And before you think my DM was a baby boomer - no, I am. We don't all live in mansions and drive gold plated cars

Thanks, but I think we are pretty unscathed by it all.
Life is good, peaceful, we have good relationships with our parents and we help them out and have helped them out alot over the years.
Taking them on their first ever holiday abroad, helping them to sort their finances out. (The ils)
I help my mum out alot, she is separated from my dad who has a new family BUT who is unrecognizable (in a really good way) to how he was when we were kids.
They are happy nowadays, it's all turned out ok in the end.

Housing (presently); my parents own their small home in a city worth 400k, we own rurally a bigger home worth 400k, 3 children millennials all own their own homes in their respective communities varied worth.
Education; parents left school early in the 50’s, I attended college (husband uni), children 2 with uni degrees, one with a specialty college diploma.
All three generations have spare money and spend it differently.

I'm probably better off than my folks. They were both primary teachers, didn't go to uni, but were on decent salaries by the time they retired, and had good pensions. They benefited from buying their council house and selling it at a big profit, then could buy a nice Victorian semi. But at my age, they were still in the council house in a not particularly nice town. Thanks to an inheritance, we have a smallish mortgage on a niceish house in a lovely town by the sea. We both have degrees and our jobs are much easier and more fun than teaching. We have fewer kids so more time and cash. But tbh, my mum does help us out a lot. I'd say I've definitely moved a step up the ladder from my folks, but just a small step. I think my DC will probably move up a bit more, due to the things they are interested in, which will probably be both fun and lucrative.

Materially we are better off than my parents, but we have dc with sn which makes some aspects of our lives harder than theirs. Because of the sn, I’m a sahm, and I remember my dm as a self-confident independent working woman with envy. In terms of relationship, I think we’re much better off than my parents. And there are aspects of my childhood that I think were better than my children’s lives.

So a very mixed bag from me. I think I’m probably happier than my parents were, but I think that’s attitude rather than circumstance

My quality of life is infinitely better than that of my parents, in every way possible: I haven't got any children buggering it up

Well I am free while my patents were slaves to their government (USSR) so my life if a hell of a lot better.

Our lives are very similar materially to my parents' at the same stage in life. My husband's retirement is rapidly approaching and we have decent pensions and no mortgage. We have four adult children between us - two are doing well in career terms, one (who became a father at 18) is lagging a long way behind, while the fourth earns decent money and spends much less so is also OK. The latter two will have very different lives to us - one through poor life choices, the other through choosing a much more basic lifestyle.

@stevie69 However many children I eventually decide to have I am never going to have the same number as my parents as they started in their 20s, there as I'm in my 40s.

Yes I have a much better life than my parents. My dad was a postman and my mum worked part time in a shop, neither had aspirations for more and we grew up in a council house, although they did get their act together and buy the house when I was about 15. I'm not ashamed of where I come from, I think it made me appreciate everything I have more.

We grew up always worrying about money, having to pay things by cheque so that it didn't clear until they'd been paid - sometimes I had to pretend I'd forgotten my dinner money so the teacher would pay for it and mum would pay back a few days later.

They're separated now but neither have decent pensions, my dad declared himself bankrupt a few years ago due to payday loans and the like. My mum isn't in the best physical shape but has to clean for a living because there's not much else she can do, she does have a better life now with her new partner though, thankfully and she's made a lot of money on the council house.

DH and I own a lovely detached house, have 2 wonderful dogs, a baby on the way, 2 nice cars, work hard but also do the things we enjoy, we're not extravagant particularly but the main thing for me is that we have security and even though we're in our 30s, we have goals and aspirations that are not just simply about ensuring 4 kids are fed, which must have been very stressful.

I would say slightly worse, in that my father was able to retire at 55 with a full pension - highly unlikely I will have that luxury. They also bought their house in the very early 70s so inflation meant that very soon their mortgage was peanuts compared to my father's income. They had an endowment mortgage and made a profit .

Overall, I think I have slightly more luxuries in my life than they did at my age, but that's because they had two children and I don't have any, so money that they would have spent on children, I spend on myself.

I've definitely had a more financially comfortable 20-30s than my parents did, they didn't have a lot of money when we were children/teens and only became properly financially comfortable when they got into their 50s and a variety of circumstances changed.

However they will probably have a better and earlier retirement than I will. So it's swings and roundabouts.

Immeasurably better because I had a happy childhood and now have a good relationship.

I think it is true when some people are saying here that it's hard because it's not comparing like for like. Someone wrote earlier here about aspirations and horizons being different, and I think that is true too.

My parents had/have far more money than me but they worked their arses off. Especially my mother. I doubt I'll be able to replicate half of what she's done. In terms of quality of life - I have a better one.

I'm far happier but much less wealthy. My dad was abusive to my mum. At my age, they'd had my oldest brother and were living in the barn they'd converted on my grandparents farm. Over the next 12 years they had bought (cheaply, from my grandad) and converted a further two barns and we were living in a very nice indeed 6 bed conversion. We had quite a lot of money growing up, skiing every year, horses for each of us etc... dad was still abusive and left my mum in the end for her best friend.

Given the choice between my happy but sliiiightly tight life (I'm by no means poor, but we are scrimping to save for a home, we're lucky to have the money available to save I know) or their wealthy but miserable life, I know what I'd rather have.

I am literally a 1000 times better off than my parents in all ways! Dad was an alcoholic, mum never worked. We had literally no money as kids. I was the one going to school in raggedy ill fitting clothes!

But... I had friends who had one or both parents working but even then they weren’t what I would call “well off” in comparison to today’s standards. I have flown all over the world on holiday, something which back then wasn’t really possible unless you were really rich. We have all the mod cons like dishwashers, washing machines (my mum had to spend all day using the twin tub!). We have so many more choices of entertainment now.

The problem in terms of housing is that we are not like many other parts of Europe where renting is affordable and the norm. My GPs are actually Swiss and were definitely middle class. My mum went to private school. They lived in the same home for all of their married life, and it was rented. And yes they both ended up in a care home, which was paid for by a combination of their savings and insurance. It’s the UK brainwashing “you must own your own home” mentality that is making life harder and harder for young people.

I'm probably better off, but largely due to the sacrifices my parents made to give me opportunities.

I don’t read this as a baby boomer bashing thread because, for one thing, a lot of us have parents who are closer to gen x (in either age or attitude or both) than boomers. My parents led a joyously feckless lifestyle pre-kids and had never bought property or a new car until they hit their 50s. DH and I are better off in our early 30s than my parents were, largely because unlike them we didn’t devote our 20s to taking drugs and living in squats and other interesting but not financially stabilising activities they gave that all up and had me and my brother and have been wonderful, generous hardworking parents both emotionally and financially. They’re taking me and dh, our dc, dbro and dsil and their dc on holiday in a few weeks and refusing to accept any money for it. I hope I’ll be able to do the same for my dc when they’re adults.

Impossible to give a simple answer- whether better or worse- because it’s far more complex than that. Also it depends what perspective you’re looking at it from.

I was born in the sixties (so I guess that makes me a baby boomer) but in terms of housing, my parents had an easier time in that they bought a house with a mortgage on my dads income alone and my mum was a SAHM for about 15 years. When she did return to work, it was really just for pin money and a break from coffee mornings. So you could look at that and think ‘wow, how lucky to not have to work.’ But on the other hand I feel I’ve gained far more through having a career and a more equal relationship with my dh. Swings and roundabouts

Materially I'm a lot worse off than my parents. But I'm extremely happy, not an alcoholic and am very involved with my children. They may not get 3 holidays a year and live in a fancy house but they know they are loved and are happy. Yes more money would be nice, but I think they will end up being more successful in life than I have been.

I am luckier than my parents in that they both had childhoods blighted by the war while I had a very secure 60s/70s childhood, all playing out on bikes and trips to the allotment. Also all my children are far nicer to live with than my brother and I were. My mother was just as much a knackered working mum in her 50s as I am, but she and my dad retired with generous pensions at 60 while I'm going to be working till I drop.

My mum died a few years ago, but my dad has a lot of money, (to be blunt). I can’t say his quality of life is that wonderful, as he misses my mum and it’s very sad. He rarely sees my only sibling who still lives near to him, so that’s quite sad and the rest of us live a flight away, so he misses the rest of us too. But in terms of career, (he has a great career which he loves), and cold, hard cash, he’s a lot better off than me and I think he is a lot better off in monetary terms than I can ever hope to be, bar a lottery win.

But, when he was my age and he was more junior at work, I think they were actually pretty broke. My mum used to tell me some stories about how they had to buy television sets on credit and then pawn them to buy groceries because the supermarket wouldn’t take credit cards and they had no money. This was when I was a baby. Things started to look up for my dad when we were a bit older.

At the moment, we’re doing fine. We now own a modest house in the SE of England. We have a sizeable enough mortgage, but we could reasonably expect to have it paid off in the next 10-15 years or so. We also waited till we had some money behind us before having children. We have been pretty broke before at points shortly after we left university, but because our dcs weren’t on the scene then, we haven’t had that awful feeling yet, where we might not be able to afford to buy any food for our children to eat. I appreciate that not everyone is so lucky.

The assumption that we will inherit from our parents isn’t there anymore either, due to care costs, as has already been mentioned.

All in all, I just think adulting is really, really hard and it seems to get harder as we get older. I don’t think any generation has it particularly easy.

I have it better than my parents. We had holidays abroad most years but then had our home repossessed when I was a teen, my parents never recovered financially and were never able to get back into the housing market. When my father died in his early 60s he barely had a penny to his name. DH and I have a decent house, although in a grim part of town and are stuck here for the foreseeable future, but usually do manage to save up for a holiday abroad most years and go out fairly often for meals or concert tickets, which is something my parents never did.
My hope is that my children do better themselves, maybe even be the first in either family to go to uni, get a career rather than a dead end job and move to a nicer part of the country!