To think the standard of living for retired people had to change

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I'm a millennial. I will retire in my seventies. Many in my age group will be still paying their mortgage off well into their sixties. Many will never be able to buy. This is not a moan about that.

My mums generation were able to buy cheaper houses in the eighties. Some have also inherited well (houses which their parents owned and didn't have to sell to pay for care, which had risen in price to above a million). They had better pension plans. Some were able to go to university for free and their degrees actually meant something in the workplace: They often paid off their mortgages in their forties. I see a lot of my parents relatives have retired early and have very enviable lives.

Two uncles have retired in their early sixties. They are both in good help. They spend their days on many holidays, eating out multiple times per week, going to garden centres, renovating their beautiful houses, helping children financially and with childcare. They will have presumably worked out their finances and could afford to continue to live like this for the rest of their lives! Possibly thirty more years!

I think they are possibly going to be unique in their quality of life. We will never have that and I don't see my children's generation having things any earlier.

In essence the generation before me were mostly fortunate, unless personal situations changed their financial situation or they lost their homes during the nineties interest rises. Retirements and pensions were never designed to support people for three decades and that things had to change hence raising the retirement age and making people pay more towards their care.

I know. I think I'll go off and commit Hari-kari to keep younger generations happy lol 😉

What always surprises me with all this intergenerational rubbish is how people forget there are just as many differences within generations than between generations - and to assume that older people had it easier or vice versus is ridiculous...

IMO the whole welfare state doesn't need cutting back and I can't see how anyone can believe that would raise living standards for the majority - heaven help you if you no longer got maternity care free never mind education and child benefit

inheritance tax should be raised and used to fund a new wave of council home building so that everyone can have an affordable home to live in for life ( which will reset the private home market )

Maybe millennials need to scrap their brand new phones, cars, pushchairs, sofas, iMac and buy second hand like we did in the 80s then you can have more money in retirement. No I thought as much!

And me. Am writing to him tomorrow. Along with my dentist. The bastards have obviously ripped me off for hundreds of pounds..😗

I can't be bothered reading the full thread.
OP you are suggesting that people who worked their whole lives and made NI contributions in return for a promised state pension while also saving and investing via pensions, house purchases or otherwise should now give that all up for you??
Ageist, entitled nonsense.

In the 70s when we were buying a house, inflation was very high, mortgage rates were at 17% for a while, we were struggling, we never, went out for meals, or had holidays abroad, there were no cost of living handouts. We both had reasonable jobs, he was a teacher and I was a librarian, I went part time when we had children as he had school holidays and I could work evenings and weekends. There was not the same provision for childcare as there is now, very few nurseries. We divorced when the children were teenagers. I have a small local authority pension to add to my state pension, which takes me over the poverty line, and can just manage to run a car. I am one of the lucky ones, due to my and my expartners career circumstances, I didn't have to give up work, and paid off my mortgage. However I am not rolling in money, and have to be careful. I don't know any of these rich pensioners who are hogging all the family houses and going on luxurious holidays. I am seriously fed up with younger people blaming 'boomers' for all the ills in the world, it's just how life is, deal with it.

OP-your uncles are well off. They have not yet reached state retirement age so they are living off their private pensions and personal savings. They are not representative of all over 60s, there are well off and less well off people in all generations. There have always been people rich enough to live off their own means but they aren't typical.
I sympathise with young people with student debt and the housing crisis. Some things were much easier for boomers but some things were more difficult, particularly for women.
Some people on MN only socialise and work within a restricted demographic.
The person who spoke of retired people sponging off the working population and failed to understand the social contract shows ignorance.
I have paid tax all my life and continue to pay some income tax on my pension income of £16,000, made up of the older style state pension and private NHS pension. I don't feel hard up as I have no mortgage or rent to pay but I do expect the same access to health care as the rest of the population.

This; much more effective than setting generation against generation.
Wise words.

True. Every generation has had it tough at times. That's how it is. The next generation will be moaning about how good their parents had it, at some point.

Higher wages and cheaper housing is what we need. Not ever increasing taxes to fund an ever increasing benefits bill. We don't need "improved living standards" on taxpayer £££.

This competitive generational rubbish gets on my nerves - life should be getting better for everyone… no one should have to work until they drop… I certainly don’t my children to have sh*t just because my life was hard…

I think the days of retiring in your early 60s with a full pension should have continued. I'm in my 40s, I won't have it. Things haven't gotten any better since they upped the age and made old people pay for care. So all we've done is shoot ourselves in the foot! The government have plenty of money to spend on shit that benefits them or their friends. If they took the money from the old and said "But look at the marvellous infrastructure we have created for young people with the money" you might have a point. But things just get worse for everyone. They continue to bleed us dry and we get less and less for it. We can't even look forward to a decent retirement age now! Pay your taxes then pop off.

And it says a lot about a society how they treat their older people… things should be getting better for pensioners not worse - which is basically what it seems the op is suggesting

That is what I, and many others had to do. No government handouts back then!!

The state pension is a farce. Apparently I only need to work another 2 years to get my full state pension. I'm 51. So why can't I take it at 53?! No, I have to wait till I'm at least 67 or more likely 68 or 69.

Why hateful? Just fairer organised.

There are more ways of doing things than the current one.

Hear hear!

Aged 76 and still have a mortgage, also a 20 year old at home.

decionsdecisions62 · Today 18:21

Maybe millennials need to scrap their brand new phones, cars, pushchairs, sofas, iMac and buy second hand like we did in the 80s then you can have more money in retirement. No I thought as much

God so many old people cry agism at as much as a mention of how much harder things are for the younger generation, but then spout this load of old crap constantly. It's just lies. Have you seen the free pages on Facebook? Most young people I know furnish their teeny tiny flats or shared houses with donations from people they've never met. YES they have smartphones. But you bloody need them for everything and they weren't invented when you were young so you can't say you'd have not had them.
No they don't all go on fancy holidays. In fact the only people I know who go on fancy holidays are my age (young gen X) or older. Unless they're lucky enough to have wealthy parents who pay for them to go. They have to pay for their university fees, and no it's not a privilege to be able to go, it's a necessity now, so really that's just another tax. And they'll probably not retire till 75 or thereabouts.
And I don't know a single youngster with a new car. Like I said I'm a young gen X (almost millennial) and we have 1 car for our 2 adult, 2 child household, and it's 12 years old.
DP and DPiL on the other hand - 1 side has 2 houses, and the other decided to upsize to a 5 bed house on retirement. Obviously that doesn't mean all old people are the same, so why do people keep talking shite about young people?
And like a PP said it's 100% true that a larger generation (like the baby boomers) paying the pensions of the much smaller generation above them, there was a lot more money left over than the smaller gen X / millennials/ gen z who are paying the pensions of those baby boomers now . It's obviously not the fault of those baby boomers that they were born when they were, but let's not pretend it didn't bring significant financial advantages (along with political actually, being a bigger generation means they have more of them to vote in their own self interest as a generation).

I totally agree, however I fear any of us who try to say this get bombarded with, but ....., but ....., but ......

Young people just can't seem to understand what life was like a few decades ago, and how the standard of living, and the opportunities available, for most people is light years above what it was then.

With a growing aging population and a falling birthrate, something has to give. But it probably won't be people like your relatives who take a smaller share of the diminishing pie, it will be poorer people, those who haven't benefited from inherited wealth and help with house deposits from their families. Wealth inequality is increasing and it will become more and more entrenched. It's almost impossible now to become a property owner on the back of hard work alone in many areas, we're becoming like a feudal a society again, divided by those families who own property, and those who don't. The lifestyle of wealthy older people will be affected little, but poorer older people, or just poorer people of all generations, will be the losers.

You didn’t mention fact that many of those women, if they worked for the civil service and became pregnant had to leave their jobs without maternity pay

Sorry, I didn't actually mean to quote @Overthebow .

I refer you to my previous points about the change in social contract.

In addition, we need to educate and care for the young as they can’t make provision to do it themselves.

In the UK, the wealthiest demographic is the over-60s. They CAN pay for themselves.