TO think Millennials need to get their act together and

[brownmouse]

Form a political party:

• stop Brexit
• prioritise housing
• impose at least 50% tax on all inheritance
• impose second home taxes

And other stuff. But they should be IN CHARGE now. They need to rise up and sort things out.

I keep telling my DC but they are too busy on instagram. AIBU?

But i agree it's doable

I wouldnt wanna do it

(I guess we are also assuming that there are no children involved and both of the people in the relationship are equally able to obtain part time skilled jobs...on top of their weekly jobs)

Apologies

Ive just realised that saying 'keep it real' makes me sound like a complete twat

I obviously meant realistic

Sorry

Yes people are right about tax. But you graduate at 21 and do that extra work (and by the way I have done plenty of extra work like that including marking A level papers which is not a route to riches but every penny helps when you are saving a deposit) or you take al;l the overtime you can get at work and with 2 of you doing it even if it has to be over 4 years not 2 then by the time you are 25 you can afford that 2.5% of the 5% deposit each and bobs your uncle or you can not save up. Other routes if you are lucky enough to be able to live at home or rent a small room involve saving more of your salary. Rooms in a shared house in this bit of outer London where I slum it to live cost £400 a month which even with commuting to London still means people can do okay and save a bit up. If you are our mythical couple who both graduated at 21 you can even share that one room between you whilst you save that 5% deposit.

But you graduate at 21

Not everyone graduates at 21.

you take all the overtime you can get at work

Most people who are lucky enough to have a paid graduate job and not to be working minimum wage while they try and find a job in a decent career path, or be doing an unpaid internship, will not get paid for overtime.

Aren't you a lawyer? When was the last time you heard of a trainee solicitor getting paid for overtime? Or having the time to do A-level marking or take a part-time job on a Saturday?

with 2 of you doing it

And what do single people do? Most people I know were not with their future life partner at 21.

If you are our mythical couple who both graduated at 21 you can even share that one room between you whilst you save that 5% deposit.

A lot of places will say no couples when advertising a room.

This 21 year old graduate couple sharing a room in London for £400 a month and saving up a deposit by doing paid overtime you speak of is indeed mythical.

ethel

Yep

There are young people and couples out there who through hard work and luck will succeed at this

And loads who wont no matter how hard they work

Some points about this working 7 days a week thing.

1. No one has mentioned expenses relating to working: namely transport costs. This is heavily influenced by where you live (and where you can afford to live). You never take home your entire pay even after tax. Thats going to take another significant chunk out of what extra you get. Also if you are working 7 days a week, the temptation to resort to more expensive ways of feeding yourself through more takeaways or ready meals is always going to be much higher. Even if you have determination and iron will that is going to be sorely tested when you are knackered from working 7 days a week.

2. The whole idea is predicated on the idea that you are just saving to get on the housing market and get that first 1 bed flat, then after that your sorted. The assumption is largely that you will have an income increase through pay rises and career progression. Thats not actually been the pattern in a lot of fields over the last 10 years. Even if you are good at your job, pay has been incredibly squeezed. If you are working 7 days a week, the idea that you are going to be perform at your main job to the best of your ability and be competing for those rare promotion opportunities and being able to justify a pay increase is dubious. Burn out is a real thing. Indeed it also forgets that the expectation is already for people not to do a strict 9 - 5 in many professional areas, and people are expected to work late.

3. You have to be beating house price increases with your income to increase the amount you can borrow to be able to move up the ladder or live in an area which is up coming and is beating others in relative price rises so your equity increases significantly or be saving more than your mortgage so again you are increasing your equity.

With depressed wage increases, this is more difficult. If you buy in an area where house prices have stagnated or even decreased, this is more difficult. And the cost of living has increased somewhat, so it is more difficult to stick to a plan of saving as much as you might have previously calculated.

All of these things have real basis in reality. If you get hit with one, you face an uphill struggle.

We got caught for a number of years in negative equity. I know people who have had worse issues with it. It can be like running to stand still.

4. Its been identified as a real problem that even those who have been able to get on the property ladder initially have faced real problems moving up, as a direct result of not getting lucky with issues relating to my point above. People have ended up stuck in properties which they have out grown.

5. You also have to take into consideration the age at which people buy. Its time limited to start a family and thats a major hurdle. People are only getting to step one late. Getting to step one is heavily reliant on having a partner in many areas. Now perhaps you can plan for your half, but you also have to count on meeting someone who is doing the same. Hands up how many people ask about financial planning when dating? Its a bit of a passion killer. Plus if you are working 7 days a week, how do you also plan to actually meet a partner?

6. Working 7 days a week, also is difficult for certain groups (not including those with children). Shift workers who are not tied to 9 - 5 for example.

Also the problem I had with more causal work being on a zero hours contract was they still expected you to cover certain shifts if it suited them. Not whether it worked for you. There was no guarantee of hours either. You were very much at the beck and call of the employer, and juggling this with another job might well hit problems.

This isn't being difficult, but I have a problem with pie in the sky idea that if people just worked harder they'd be fine.

Being able to do this is the exception rather than the rule. The odds for many are stacked heavily against being able to do it. Its not always the will to do it, that is missing, but the lack of opportunity to do it.

For those who magically did manage to get a 1 bed flat working all hours for two years, thats not necessarily the end. They may have to do it for years more to get into a house suitable for a family. And that's a race against time before you actually start a family.

It is fantasy. Teachers shouldn't be forced to work two jobs and be required to find a partner as a prerequisite to owning a home for gods sake! Yet thats exactly what some people are actually arguing should be the case. That is insane and it will have other social consequences to our economic wellbeing as a nation.

No one is saying working 2 jobs for 7 days a week is ideal. Just that in the short-term, for a year or two it would give you a huge advantage and enable you to save for a deposit. With regard to pay freezes there are no strong unions now for most jobs who in the past fought for better conditions for their workers.

At least, once the party has been formed, they wouldn't need to worry about gaining voter confidence and thus winning an election before taking power - they could just march straight in, violently throw out the incumbent government and take charge by force. What is usually known as a dictatorship.

Or were you expecting them to do things traditionally, based on democratic process? If so, they would understand that a majority voted in favour of Brexit and therefore respect the electorate's wishes, however unpalatable many people who wanted to remain may find that decision.

Also, you do realise that the very rich never pay inheritance tax as they set up trusts and exploit legal loopholes that ordinary folk don't have the money or resources to do? There was a high-profile case (and I'm sure it's far from unique in principle) whereby two elderly sisters had never married and lived together in their childhood home, which they inherited once their parents passed on. Because of the passage of time, the house now has a huge market value - but, to them, it's just their own home. Their only 'crime' is staying single and growing old. They even looked into a civil partnership purely for tax reasons, but weren't allowed as they're obviously blood relatives. Are you volunteering to be the one who throws a very old lady out of the only home she's ever known when her sister dies?

In my view you can be positive and make the bst of the situation we are all in life and get on with it however hard it is or you can sit back and moan and say you will own a property. It's your choice. You can always find reasons that things will never work and you don't try and you never own anywhere. The more people who do that the more chances for those of us who take the opposite view to buy as there is less competition so in a sense the negative thinkers benefit the rest of us.

My parents had to have two full time salaries for 10 y ears before they could have babies or buy - that was working in the 1940s and 50s. Same with my marriage - two of us working full time (I graduated at 20 as I was a year young at school and have never had a gap year) buying before we had a baby. Peopl have often in history where lucky enough to buy somewhere had to buy with a spouse before they have children. My grandfather who eventually bought in the 1930s or 40s in the NE was in his 50s when he bought their house.

On the teachers issue we had that - mmy children's father is a teacher. He taught a full day then did music and other tutoring on at least one evenig a week and all day Saturday and had an organ playing job on Sunday mornings. That is one reason we own a house. People thought we were silly to move out of a school flat to buy our own small terraced house yet who is laughing now - the teachers with the higher income there and the rented school flat or those who bust a gut and worked 4 weeks of holiday clubs in the summer holidays too to own a home.

No one is saying working 2 jobs for 7 days a week is ideal. Just that in the short-term, for a year or two it would give you a huge advantage and enable you to save for a deposit.

Its not just far from ideal. Its not fucking realistic based on the pressures, expectations and realities of working in 2018.

And what the fuck is the point in doing it, only to get trapped in a 1 bed flat with a baby without any possibility of being able to move upwards? Doing all that only to find, it might be preferable for you to go back to renting anyway is a nonsense.

Seeing this as just being about getting on the first rung of the housing market, without much thought as to what happens next, is compounding problems.

As I say, neglecting planning for affordable second tier homes, is known to be now having an effect. Its showing up in numerous reports on housing.

Take some time to bother reading them rather than spouting bollocks about 'experience' and generational laziness.

Xenia.

Newsflash.

This is 2018. Not any other year.

@brownmouse why the fuck would you or anyone want inheritance tax?!

My grandparents worked in coal mines and minimum wage jobs and bought a house, that's their one asset and legacy.
My parents have built themselves from nothing with no help, why would you strip their estates of half their value?

How dare you suggest that the haves and have-nots is because of inheritance, it's because of work ethic. Work hard, save, make sensible life choices and you'll get what you want/need for a contented life.

I have never referred to generational laziness. I have 5 children who work incredibly hard as to all this family and many other people including my Sunderland ancestors who never owned anything.

However we have ways to make our lives better and the routes to those are worth following if you want to improve your own personal chances and those of your family. We have choice. We have agency. We have some power, however we are.

My overtime comments were directed at the lower paid. Eg my son did 3 years as a postman and now drives a van. There is a lot of scope in those jobs to do over time (as loads of people are pretty lazy and just want to work a few hours a days so there is a constant difficulty for employers in getting people signed up for over time). In the higher paid graduate jobs you might move into at 21 or 23 I agree there is no over time but then your salary is higher - eg trainee London lawyer £40k so obviously on that with 2 salaries of course you can save your 2.5% each of the property value.

Personally, I think that any inheritance tax is immoral in principle. Call me wacky if you will, but in theory, I believe that all taxes should be legally avoidable - should you choose to only earn up to your tax-free limit, only buy zero-VAT-rated goods, not live in a dwelling subject to council tax etc. In practice, you would have a seriously restricted existence if you did this, but it still theoretically remains an option.

Dying, on the other hand, is not something that anybody, however diligent, can avoid.

@holypieter

‘You can’t trust millennial to get out of bed’
What a sweeping generalisation and utter rubbish.
Go along to the local supermarket. See how old the person is who serves you. Probably a millennial on a zero hour contract made possible by the wonderful baby boomers/generation x politicians.

Go along to a and e any time. The junior doctors and nursing staff who treat you will likely like be under 40. Why is that? The older baby boomers and early generation x are all retiring in their 50s on their brilliant pension deals. Just as well the millennials get out of bed isn’t it? Those lucky millennial doctors, nurses and social workers are left with the crisis of the aging population because the oh so clever generation x did not plan ahead for the aging baby boomer population. Then the crisis hits who’s sweeping up the mess?

Baby boomers and generation x have outsourced many primary and secondary jobs to import from abroad. So what does your young person leaving school now, who would have been an ideal candidate for a trade type job do? Their opportunities are limited. Call centre work, crappy zero hour contracts.

Now I don’t have a chip on my shoulder, I have a uni education paid for by myself. A reasonable job and have managed to get on the property ladder, and I don’t generally whinge about the older generations. But sweeping generalisations like yours really do infuriate me, when many of the problems facing society were largely ignored by previous generations Until the crisis hits and all of a sudden it’s our fault.

After considering all of that if you still think the millennials are lazy and feckless, well maybe take a look at who raised such a useless generation. You’ve only got the generation x bunch to thank for that.

I keep telling my DC but they are too busy on instagram. AIBU?

So, to get to the pulsating heart of your urgent clarion call, what you're really saying is: "Somebody should do something about this sort of thing sometime" ?

There are problems problems which are unique to 2018. We need to address them. In order to do this we need to acknowledge that they exist and stop bleeting about whatever previous decade it happens to be.

Whilst previous decades might be a reference point, they also are red herrings too, if you are saying that 'if you just work'.

Simply because one of the very problems unique to 2018 is the very fact that for some, no matter how hard they work, the idea they will have any chance of buying a family home does not exist, when previously someone from a similar background / position would have.

Focus on the here and now, rather pretending there is no issue and it'll just sort itself out. Cos its won't. Not without some horrendous consequences first.

Just going on about the past is an abdication of responsibility and burying your head in the sand.

The older baby boomers and early generation x are all retiring in their 50s on their brilliant pension deals.

I'm retiring early on my 'brilliant pension deal' towards which I have contributed almost 10% of my wages for most of my working life. There have been times when, as a single parent and a DV survivor I have been properly poor. But I still contributed to that pension by choice for over 35 years.

Sorry if that makes you bitter....

The older baby boomers and early generation x are all retiring in their 50s on their brilliant pension deals

ODFOD, do your homework.
A lot of our pensions went bloody bust and many ended up with FA.
we paid interest on our mortgages of up to 14.5%, we didn't have childcare on every street corner, it wasn't subsidised by the tax payer.

You've never bloody had it so good.

Hear, hear, RomanyRoots

My ds is entitled to 30 free hours in childcare from age 3. All we have ever been entitled to.
It was 15 hours fee age 3 when I was a child then school after this.
So if an extra 15 hours childcare means I’ve never had it so good, then ok.
However house prices were not so ridiculous back in the 80s and 90s that two parents didn’t always have to work to survive. Now if you are on a low to middle income and want to own a home you need to. Simple as. Unless you have family help of course.

Furthermore there was good quality council housing for people in need. None of that now. Baby boomer and generation x politicians got rid. Now if you can’t afford to buy you are potentially at the mercy of some unscrupulous bloody private landlord.

Saidsharktotheflyingfish enjoy your pension I’m not bitter at all. It was the deal you had, you paid it, worked for, got it, now spend it and enjoy it.
What I do object to is people saying that millennials can’t be trusted to get out of bed. Simply not true neither my dh or I are any less hard working than our parents or grandparents.
I’ve worked since age 14 in one capacity or another Saturday jobs and part time jobs to sub my way through uni. Working class background did the best I could without generous family handouts. I suppose my uni debt means I’m so lucky to and never had it so easy?

I work hard for my employer for a reasonable wage as does my husband.
So how dare anyone suggest I don’t get out of bed. Some things may be easier for my generation, others harder. But I feel very strongly that we should not be scapegoated for the failings of previous generations to recognise the looming crisis of an aging population. And to make out we have it so easy as we have 15 hours extra free childcare for one year before school starts

Now if you are on a low to middle income and want to own a home you need to. Simple as. Unless you have family help of course

Wrongo. , plenty young folk getting on the property ladder, just like we did.
My dc are all managing it with not too many sacrifices.
They don't spend anything on what they don't NEED just the same as we did.

Not sure why people think millennials will never own homes. Maybe not in London but definitely outside of it. I only graduated 3 years ago and I'm well on my way to having a housing deposit saved.

I'm retiring early on my 'brilliant pension deal' towards which I have contributed almost 10% of my wages for most of my working life.

10% is a fucking TINY employee pension contribution

My parents didn't get 15 hours a week free childcare for me.

But on the other hand, my dad could afford to buy a small house in Surrey and support a stay at home wife and two children on his fairly unspectacular salary, so they didn't actually need to pay for extra childcare.

Swings and roundabouts, eh?