To feel poor compared to when I was a child growing up

[Keepgoing88]

I'm curious to know if there are many people out there who as a family are less well off than when growing up? We are not poor but I do feel a lot less well off than my parents were. We haven't been on a foreign holiday for few years (prob could afford a not so fancy one though). We could never afford the house I grew up in and sometimes struggle to break even on a month (large mortgage etc). It gets me down that I feel the standard of living we have is less than when I grew up. Does anyone else experience a similar situation? My DH feels fine but we are considerably better off than he was growing up.

My mother often didn't eat dinner so we could have more. We had a comfortable home and to the outside wouldn't have looked poor, but my mum and dad had to count every penny. This was 80's.

My work ethic is consequently completely OTT. I drive my family on all the time. I save like crazy and constantly fear redundancy. It broke my dad and I will always remember him walking home the day he lost his job.

@Keepgoing88

YANBU.

Taking inflation into account, compared to some 4 decades ago (and further back,) house prices are three times more expensive than what they were then... (much more than that if you count London/swanky areas.) And for many people, wages are a third of what they were then.. For some people, even less than that.

No wonder people are fucked, cannot afford to buy a house, spend almost half their income on rent, and have to go to food banks. The poor, and the JAMS (just about managing) in the UK are screwed, they have very little hope for the future, they can never better themselves (as it's made almost impossible to do so,) and all they have to look forward to is a pension in poverty.

In addition, as someone said earlier in the thread, no family can live on one wage anymore, so both parents are often forced out to work. People have sold their right-to-buy properties for somewhere 'better,' and landlords buy up the properties, creating transient tenants, and unstable communities...

In fact many communities have broken down... There's no (or very little) camaraderie or community spirit in the neighbourhood, and people rarely stay in the same area for more than 5 to 10 years. Crime is at an all-time high in many areas, and people are afraid to leave their own home after dark.

There is also no such thing as a 'job for life' now, and many employers don't care about their workers, and will happily tell them 'there's the door if you don't like it...' And zero hours contracts are at an all time high. Lots of people have very little security... in their job AND their home....

It's no wonder some people choose to stay on benefits, because they are often worse off working. And don't even get me started on what this Government has done to people on disability benefits, with the grossly incompetent disability assessments declaring ill people fit for work, when they're not, driving them into depression and suicide.

Then you've got the extortionate price of a university degree, pushing young 20-somethings, into debt - with that - til they're in their mid 50s, and people who have worked hard all their lives to pay off their mortgage, having to sell the house for their care, whilst others who didn't buy their house get it for free.

It's an unfair, unjust, rotten-to-the-core society, and life in general for many people now is fucking awful. The gap between the rich and privileged, and the poor, is enormous. Bigger than it's ever been... in MY lifetime anyway. (Born 1960s.)

The rich and elite cream off profits and funds and stash them away in overseas accounts, while the poor don't have a pot piss in, haven't had a pay rise in over a decade, and can barely afford a day trip to Rhyl, let alone a holiday overseas.

Seriously, no wonder depression, stress-related illnesses and conditions, and suicides are at an all time high. And I don't see it getting better anytime soon either, with a Government that doesn't care about the poor, and doesn't know its arse from its elbow, and an opposition leader that's as disingenuous as the day is long, and who would bankrupt the country in a heartbeat.

I fear for the generations to come, I really do........

In our family I'm better off than when growing up. By a lot financially, but practically actually not much more. My parents were working class but could budget and lived a nearly middle class life (a previous poster mentioned rented colour TV - I'd forgotten that! ). Also we are in London so house is worth a lot, but is a 50s ex council place! We are a single income family.

My partner comes from a middle class background from what was a developing country. So had cleaners, mum never worked, some private education. But financial crises and crime.

I've done alright compared to my parents. My partner less so in some ways, but now lives in London and we fly to visit home every other year. They couldn't come to Europe.

I really notice the difference in spending attitudes. I try to minimise cost. My partner just wants to spend.

My parents were quite hard up, but they kept it from us kids. We knew we didn't have money to burn, but then nor did any of the people we knew, everyone was in the same economic boat (60's/70/s childhood).

I only found out just how poor my parents had been when my mum looked back on some of the things she had to do when we were young to make the money stretch. We had no idea.

We went on holiday every year. I thought we were quite rich! (we stayed with relations).

Yes definitely. Growing up (I'm now 60), we were able to have a 3-bed detached house, no mortgage, with a large garden in a nice area just from my dad's income, which was got from running a small café. Mum did not have to work, though later on she chose to help out at the café. This kind of luxury would be unattainable now on one wage and difficult on two. Most people seem to work terribly hard now for very little payback.

itsabongthing
My mother worried about financing their (by which she meant hers!) illness in old age, but nonetheless they had a high old time in retirement, travelling the world.
She died relatively quickly after her cancer diagnosis without needing to go into a care home, and my dad managed at home alone (with our support and some paid carers) for a year or so, before deciding he wanted to go into a home. He was extremely happy there, although the fees were way beyond even my mother's worst nightmare scenarios. But that was what the money was always for, and rightly so. As it turned out, Dad didn't live there long and he died very recently. He was glad to still be able to leave his children and grandchildren very well-provided for.
I think it was the better way round, for us, to have learned to be careful with money as children (because it didn't seem as if there was much to go round), and then benefit in later life. We certainly won't be frittering it away.

Interesting to read the various posts - but the one thing that keeps appearing is 'they could buy a house and have children on one wage and we live on reduced food from Asda' kind of thing. I am older (as you can tell from my NN) and yes, we did buy a cheap house - still took 2 wages but the main difference that I can see (and I am generalising here) is that in those days we didn't spend £100 a month on a phone contract, or £20 a week on bought lunches/coffee and our cars were heaps of junk that just about got us to work each day. I KNOW house prices are an issue, god knows I have a son who will be living at home until he retires possibly due to being unable to even afford rent on his own, but there are other 'unnecessary but nice to have' expenses that make me blanche at the cost, particularly these car loans ... just my threepen'north

I'm much better off than my parents were.

My parents were well off in the 1970s. Both in reliable manual jobs, bought a house aged 22, lots of holidays and meals out and luxuries. Then Thatcher closed the pits and our community was plunged into poverty. We lost our house and had to move to a council estate and claim benefits. Crime and drugs were rife.

A lot of the miners (now in their 60s-70s) never worked again. A lot of their children (my generation, now 40s-50s) never got jobs to begin with. Many of us went to university (for free!) in the hope of improving our prospects but it only worked for a lucky few because there simply weren’t any jobs.

There’s been some redevelopment now. My children’s generation (the grandchildren of the miners) are getting jobs, mostly in service industries. The world is more connected so it’s easier for them to move away for work too. The “lost generation” are still drifting around in poverty while their town gentrifies around them. I’m richer than my parents were in the 80s and 90s but not as rich as they were in the 70s.

This prompted me to look at the cost of the house I grew up in, roughly £850,000 . 😮 . So no, we couldn’t afford it. However I didn’t have foreign holidays growing up as I was privately educated and that did have an impact on everything else, I was aware that we needed to be very careful and that my parents went without things because of my education. My Dad resigned from his job at one point, due to a senior colleague making his life an utter misery. I remember that was pretty stressful for a while as they thought they might have to pull me out of school. So we were mostly fine, financially, but stretched by my schooling so not much disposable income.
My best friend had a pony, but apart from that most of my school friends didn’t have as much stuff as teenagers have now anyway, these were pretty comfortable families mostly, but some very stretched like my parents, by the school fees. In a pre tech age there wasn’t much we yearned for anyway, apart from tape recorders..! There was one girl from a very wealthy family who was often designer clothes shopping, she literally bought whatever she wanted. Some went skiing every Winter. I felt hard up in comparison with them, but not with my closest friends who were treated the same as me.

My dd has been on school trips abroad, but we have had very few as a family. I can’t imagine being able to afford my childhood house. I am curious as to the cost of my current house, vs my childhood house, in the year my parents bought it. I wonder if there was less of a difference then.

when my dad and mum bought their first house the cost was £3990, my dads annual salery at the time, and he was relativley newly qualified engineer with couple of years work experience was £5000, he says he was well paid amongs his peers but it was fairly average nationally , he tells the story of how you had to beg for a morgage, you can see how that generation built equity and upgraded their houses as they got older, had kids. while he did well and we were quite affluent it still wasnt the norm to have a foreign holiday every year yes we had some lovely holidays abroad and i probably remember them more because they were special, than the two weeks in the rain in a borrowed two bed cottage that we did every summer that my mum remembers with horror, i'd say i was almost a teenager before we had a second car- though my dad always had a nice car, i remember a school friend thinking we were especially rich because we had a dishwasher, didnt matter she was in a houshold of three and there were 6 of us, we had an early video recorder as children that also marked us out as rich

It's the complete opposite for me, my parents both worked as soon as they left school, in poorly paid but hard working jobs. Not because they weren't capable of anything more, but because they didn't have the same opportunities to access education. I grew up in social housing, and although at the time I didn't really think about money; from what I know now they often went without for us, and scrimped and saved for the one foreign holiday we had growing up. But I still had a wonderful childhood, and they were and are the most amazing, supportive parents I could have ever wanted. However, now I own a house with my partner, am fortunate enough to have money left to save at the end of the month, and although I am still quite frugal, I don't 'actively' worry about money. Although they couldn't financially support me through uni, because of EMA at college and then the maintenance loans etc at uni I got a degree which has led to a well paid job. I like to save what I can though, and we bought a house quite a bit under the amount we could have borrowed just as you never know what's going to happen; I feel very fortunate though to be able to even think about saving for the future and not having to count pennies.

I should add that although my Mum did work in my late teens, until then we managed on only one wage.

No, I feel much richer than I did as a child, though I'm not, financially. But materially, as a family we have a far better standard of living. House is about the same size but better kitted out with central heating, fitted carpets, duble glazed windows, two bathrooms.

In childhood we had no central heating just gas fires in individual rooms (rarely allowed to turn them on) and one bathroom between 7/8 people (five in the family and two to three lodgers.) We have a car and a telephone - had neither in childhood. My DC have good quality clean clothes, warm coats and gloves and shoes that fit. Didn't have those in childhood. We eat out. We did that twice in my entire childhood - local curry house for my mother's 40th, when we had to share dishes, and once in a pub with my mum when someone we were travelling with assumed it was OK to stop for lunch and my mum cried because we had to spend all the money my financial abusive dad had given her for the entire holiday on just three chicken in a basket lunches. We holiday in nice places and DC have travelled a lot. We used to go camping in France and Italy on a shoestring. It was more ordeal than pleasure. DC are at private school. We went to local state school. So all in all, the quality of living is much better now, even though we don't have secure incomes and rely on freelance work.

Comparatively, DH and I together earn less than my dad did. But we spend it on the family and on being comfortable.

It's hard to say, so I would guess that it's similar. We definitely have a higher income, both as a couple and while I'm taking a career break to stay home with the children until they start school, and we were older before having children so had savings and our own homes for longer but we live in a much more expensive area, so our house is smaller and our priorities are different. My mum prioritised spending for the family when I was a child and her priorities were large, well decorated home and as much of the school holidays away from home on holiday as possible, though not fancy holidays. They also spent more on socialising at home and out with my dad's colleagues. We have smaller but much more regular treats like eating out as a family or taking the children out and don't do much outside the home as a couple.

How far back are we comparing? Childhood in itself is relative.

I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, so have experienced proper poverty as a young child. After the Soviet Union fell to pieces everything started picking up a bit, including the standard of living.

We moved from a dodgy high-rise flat in an even dodgier area to a low-rise flat in a much nicer area. When I left my childhood home, we had a standard of living typical for a middle-class family at the time.

When my firstborn arrived (after I had moved to Britain) I had barely started work, had next to no money and started out in a dodgy flat in a dodgy area. Then moved to a nicer flat in a nicer area. And so on. By the time my eldest is an adult we will probably have a nicer standard of living than my parents' generation. I certainly have more opportunities than they had and so do my children.

So what are we really comparing against?

I suspect it's quite similar to my childhood tbh- although we probably have less spare cash than my parents did - but thats because we have 4 children and they only had 2

I was my Dad’s only child and my parents separated when I was a baby so I think he splashed the cash through guilt more than anything else. He always bought me whatever I asked for, took me on fancy holidays and we went out somewhere fun every weekend. When I turned 13 he stopped seeing me so much but instead would put £100 in my bank account every week for me to spend as I wished. It was so stupid, I was a young teenager so obviously spent it on absolute crap.

I have four DC so unable to give them all £100 a week or take them on fancy holidays but we own a fairly nice home and go out somewhere fun most weekends. I don’t feel as though they miss out on anything, they have stability I definitely didn’t have as a child.

Definatly better off though ona modest income.Ive never had to do without heating,food or clothes.
Did all that asa child.My grandparents funded day trips to the seaside.
We hadfreedom as children and we happy.
My mum had ituch harder as a young adult than me,I wasn't expected to get married and have children in my early 20s.
My mum is in her 80s now in a comfortable flat.I have a 3 bed house(necessary downsize after divorce)..
My DD may not have it so easy as an adult but as a teen she has what she needs.If me and her dad can keep out of nursing homes she'll be ok in the long term.

Jesus, not being able to afford a foreign holiday is not poor, OP.
You don't need to be loaded to go on a holiday. With a budget airline and rent an Airbnb - certainly not impossible.

I'm far better educated than my parents and with a professional job whereas they had blue collar jobs and yet far less stable. They owned a house and a car by my age and we have nothing, despite both having decent jobs, no debt and a pretty frugal lifestyle.

housing and pensions are obiously vastly less good/affordable than they were back in the day. so i guess are booze & fags.

most other things, such as food, clothing, long-haul travel, & so on are much more within reach than they were.

my personal view is that the first effect is more important.

Yes, I earn about the same but...

• They were in Stoke and I'm in the South East

• It turned out my DSF was cheating the tax man and he eventually got caught owing nearly £1M.

So that sort of explains it!

They're much better off but it's not really surprising; my dads a high earner, home owner, 2.4 children etc - and I'm disabled and on UC

Swings and roundabouts for us.

DH & I both had a very comfortable 70s& 80s childhoods. Our income is much higher but we spend a lot more - our parents didn't pay out for mobiles, TV packages, things like Prime etc. Christmas & birthdays were cheap and cheerful (parties at home for 6 or 7 kids, one main present and a few little stocking fillers - no 'piles' - at Christmas), there wasn't really a concept of 'designer' everything. Things were never replaced until they were worn out (am working on trying to replicate that now), expensive days out really weren't a thing like they are now. Takeaways, other than fish and chips, were not a thing. My family ate out more than most of my friends, mainly because we spent a lot of time in the US, but it was still a treat.

I think though if you were born later 80s/90s, by the time you grew up, house prices had gone through the stratosphere. We were born early 70s and most of our friends were shocked by house prices when we started buying late 90s/early 00s but they were nothing compared to now and that has made an enormous difference to living standards in some areas.