Parental income

[glassdarker]

So, context, just seen 10% pension increase.

At same time I've been talking about doing something jointly with my mum and dad. So as a result we talked about income. My parents worked in manual/ administrative roles, neither went to Uni, but worked hard all their lives. Retired ten years ago, own house and car. I appreciate that many pensioners won't be in that position.

They both have small final salary schemes (one less than 10k, one less than 20k). They both get full state pensions. After normal bills their disposable income is a 2k a month. 2k a month ! I am blown away !

But bloody hell we are both higher rate tax payers and we are counting every penny (though we have a lot of extra spend due to a disabled DC). But AIBU to be a bit shocked by the difference in how we are experiencing the cost of living crisis ? I am glad they are doing OK and we don't need money from them but I am still a bit jaw dropped by this... and fantasy spending even 1/4 of that monthly disposable income !

FIL just moved into a care home. Self funded as has over £16000 savings. £1200 per week! Ouch!

whether I can afford something and where and how we spend any discretionary income we have left is something I think about multiple times a day.

@glassdarker that was me in my 30s. One of my daughters mentioned recently that she remembered how, when she was a child, I used to sit on the carpet with my 'money book' every evening, checking what had been spent that day and what was coming up. All in an effort to get to the end of the month in the black.

Now, at 67, I'm in your parent's position (though my occupational pension isn't as good as theirs). I haven't flown through life having it easy and just dropping on a nice pension. Once we actually ended up with spare money at the end of the month, we became savers. And I'm now probably better off in the sense of disposable income and not having to worry about sudden expenses, than I've ever been. But it's because we worked on that for decades, and because my DH sadly died, and all the savings we gathered for our retirement now only have to serve one person.

I'm by no means well off by Mumsnet standards, but I'm embarrassed to be getting a 10% rise in my state pension (which I've only recently qualified for). I need it less than many. My winter fuel allowance is already going to be given to those who need it more than me, and I help my kids in any way I can. I'm going to think about how I can use some of my SP rise to divert it to those who need it more. That's not virtue signalling by the way. It's guilt. I have no reason to feel guilty, but I do feel fortunate at a time when others are in despair.

I think younger people forget that we paid into our pensions just as you are. That we worked hard for several decades, and just because we seem fancy free now, doesn't mean that that was our life before. It definitely wasn't.

I feel you in the sense that all the “pensioners” I know are very comfortable financially, planning their exotic holidays etc etc and getting excited about finally getting some interest on their copious savings 😂

The fundamental issue with pensions is the initial concept and situation was a generation of working age people with houses, cars, kids, who could afford it, often only on one family income, supporting elderly people to enjoy a few years rest in exchange for the promise they’d one day receive the same.

Now it’s a generation who can’t afford to own homes or have children and struggle just to get by day to day, paying for elderly people to have 20+ Years of rest whilst being told there’s absolutely no guarantee of anything for their future.

When working people who can’t afford to house, clothe, feed and create lives for themselves are also being financially tapped to provide a free income for a generation of elderly it’s going to cause a lot of anger and resentment because we know we won’t be looked after in the future. It’s not going to happen so as per everything else in life we are essentially just being screwed over by, and forced to pay off the debts of prior generations.

I DONT WANT A PROMISE OF A PENSION ONE DAY I WANT TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO LIVE NOW! ITS NOT A FAIR TRADE ITS EXTORTION.

Honestly though, we really do need have more conversation about how things are changing. Yes perhaps today pensioners do deserve it, not my place to judge. But the young today won't be going into retirement with the same resources. Home ownership is falling, workplace pensions are worse. My parents just retired early, and for their sake as much as my own, I worry about how things will be in 20 years. I just don't see how we can sustain the current system.

Going by most posts here, I/we should be ineligible for any state pension benefit. We have paid everything HMRC asked, on time. We have also simultaneously contributed to our private pension provision for 45 years of work. When we were younger and brassic, our retired parents used to take us out for a meal, even in the 80s and 90s. Now we are the oldies,we tend to pay.

I think there are many people here who do not understand the difference between the state pension that earners pay into, and benefits like the UC.

The former is not a handout to the needy; it's a return on investment based on on the contributions one made over the working lifetime. It's not need-based, it's contribution-based.

The UC and other welfare are needs-based and means-tested.

Means-testing a pension would be bait-and-switch penalizing of people who paid their contribution in good faith for 40 or 50 years.

Means-testing a pension would be bait-and-switch penalizing of people who paid their contribution in good faith for 40 or 50 years.

It would also be incredibly expensive and complex to adminstrate, which would eat up a lot of the savings that could be made. Also there would be bound to be many errors. Can you imagine the man/woman hours that means testing every pensioner in the country would take up?

There are really very, very, very few instances over the past 100 years of a one-income family affording a lavish western middle-class lifestyle on one income. Sure there are high earners but most aren't, and many of the things we take for granted as 'basics' today were far from basic 30 or 50 or 70 years ago.

Phones for every household member, contact lenses, cars, travel, dining out/takeaway, lots of clothing, university, TV and internet, labour-saving household appliances, etc. all did not exist in the budget of the ordinary family. Nor did expensive lessons and extra-curricular activites for children, big birthday parties and myriad other of what people seem to think is routine spending these days.

Those who think that their elders had it made and now are coasting on the backs of those less fortunate are really viewing the past through rose-coloured lenses.

And again, we are billions more on this planet than just a couple of decades ago. If you think overpopulation isn't affecting wages, housing prices, etc., think again. The standard of living for most humans is going to decline, not improve, in the coming decades. Climate change, global labour forces, supply and demand, environmental degradation are not reversible.

Every generation has its hardships; pretending that today's youngish workers are especially hard done by is disingenuous. Life is not guaranteed to be easy. Begrudging people who have done the bulk of the work and economic contributions for the past 50 years their extra few pounds a week is ridiculous.

This is wildly untrue

I work in finance, I sat down with my parents and asked them details about the wage they earnt when they purchased their first home, my father the sole earn, a tradesman on an average wage. They remembered the deposit they put down as well.
I found that house now online and using the recent sale price I was able to calculate, adjusting for inflation, that my father would have had to have earnt 3x the salary he did then in order to comparatively afford that house now. That’s not ‘well every generation thinks others had it better’ that’s just cold hard facts. Yes we have iPhones but my parents used to be out with friends in the pub multiple times a week, they spent money entertaining themselves and socialising just in different ways.

Life is financially much harder now than it was 40-50 years ago. Jobs no longer secure housing.

Maybe your parents should be relieved of some of their pension to help others like you.

Please report back in 30 years time.

I rather agee with @ZeldaWillTellYourFortune . We are a bit gilded, because we have been born at a good point, but we ALSO came through some really tough bits when mortgage rates were 15%. It was fine if you weren't paying it. But if you were paying attention, you looked at every way to save for your pension because really living on what is deemed sufficient is threadbare. We saved for our pension, and not just SP. I saved from the day I went self employed at least 20% of everything I earned into my pension fund from the age of 34. And now I retire. But I had one child at 43.

we are essentially just being screwed over by, and forced to pay off the debts of prior generations

Up until 2006 we were paying for a war that ended before we were born.

And having paid my bit, I am quite minded to retire somewhere else. Ideally with more sun. The UK can not afford mass migration of its wealthiest pensioners, but they also cant change weather.

I haven't read the whole thread but your parents are why the over 60s oyster card will be a valid form of voter ID and student cards won't

My own parents and my in-laws are all in their eighties and they all say they receive more money than they actually need.

State pensions and modest occupational / private pensions have given them all a very comfortable cushion but they simply cannot spend the amount of money they receive and they fully admit that.
No mortgages, modest small cars, too old to go on holiday now.

They are simply squirrelling it away for possible care needs in the future.

Younger people and families are in far more need of the money and it's such a shame that the government hasn't done more to address this.

They are simply squirrelling it away for possible care needs in the future

And who'll pay for their care if they don't?

Every generation has its hardships; pretending that today's youngish workers are especially hard done by is disingenuous. Life is not guaranteed to be easy.

But statistically they are

There are really very, very, very few instances over the past 100 years of a one-income family affording a lavish western middle-class lifestyle on one income.

Owning your own home isn't lavish is it? Having 1 child?

Can you show us those statistics?

Home ownership only became the norm in the 1960s. The 40 year rise was a blip.

When I was a kid in the 60s, most of my friends lived in council houses. My parents were outliers owning their home.

Of course, later, most of those other people became home owners when virtually all the country's social housing was sold off to the tenants. Likewise in the pit villages like the ones my late husband grew up in, people like my in-laws got to buy their coal board houses for a song.

Until then, owning a house wasn't really the norm unless you had a really good job. When I started teaching in the mid 70s several of my colleagues lived in council houses too.

@Blossomtoes I was comparing todays young to todays older generations as this thread is about that isn't it?

Plenty of info on google

Home ownership only became the norm in the 1960s.

My question was is lavish to want to secure housing?

Oh & @Blossomtoes you said working pensioners pay NI, do you have a source for that?

They are doing from next year

www.ft.com/content/81343d9e-187b-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640

ifs.org.uk/articles/how-are-younger-generations-faring-compared-their-parents-and-grandparents

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/09/how-cheap-money-broke-contract-young-old/

@Sugarplumfairy65 are they?