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.

Can people learn to read the OP? At no point did I say I begrudged the older generation their standard of living, at no point did I say they should be stripped of it or not get any NHS pension or their state pension. At no point did I say that they hadn't worked hard!
The fact of the matter is that in the 1980's a and an admin assistant could get a house with no deposit. She could give up work to raise children. They could afford to eat if not go on foreign holidays or afford private school but survive. They then inherited from parents before the reforms on social care or inheritance tax. And they had better pensions. My old house was sold in 1984 for 40,000, it's now worth £300,000. Its not comparable to now.

Actually impossible for my mother’s generation (born in 1943) unless a cash buyer as women were unable to take out a mortgage until 1974. Up until then it was legal for banks to refuse unmarried women loans or credit and to require a husband’s permission for married applicants.

To me that is shockingly (and depressingly) recent.

We’re in our 50s. Paying for kids through uni and been utterly broke for most of the past 20 years of raising kids but always paid into our pensions and never defaulted on mortgage.Have paid tax and NI every day since turning 18

We’ll be so much better off when we retire in 10 years. Mortgage will be paid off and we will have state and private pensions.

Why on earth should we not have access to the NHS and pensions we’ve spent our whole lives paying into? We’ve actually contributed more than many people younger than us.

I checked my state pension forecast recently and I still don’t have a forecast of a full pension despite 45 full years of contributions. Yes 45! I expect it’s because of this ‘contracted out’ business that happened, but my main work pension I’ll be relying on isn’t great as it is based on your last 3 years employment. I went p/t after my first child then left after my maternity leave for my second. Screwed.

Why does the state retirement have to increase... with the current changes in technology and AI many people may be out of jobs in the future... Maybe we should be looking to change how we live in society?

Why are we still making people do jobs that many don't like when it really isn't necessary.

I didn't say "everyone" will inherit. I was addressing my remarks to the posters who complain about their parents inheriting. They pop up on every thread like this.

SOME people fit this description. Many do not. Those of us from working class backgrounds - whose parents were never able to buy property - inherited nothing.

There are prnsioners who are well off, reasonably comfortable, just about surviving and living very badly indeed.

People need to stop it with these huge generalisations.

There will come point where those who inherit will attract the odium currently given to "Boomers". Or landlords.

Your post is wrong on facts. There is no pension pot paid into.

Working people this year pay the pensions/NHS/Social Care of retirees this year. The burden of those is commensurately than when current retirees paid for the generation above.

No greed. No envy. Straight facts. Straightforward unfairness. Economically unsustainable.

The fact of the matter is that in the 1980's a and an admin assistant could get a house with no deposit.

I was an admin assistant in the mid 1980s and there was no way I could afford a house where I lived. My team leader was an admin officer and could only afford a house with 50/50 shared ownership with the local council. It was a teeny tiny mid terrace that was narrower than his Fiesta car.

Some people are in for a big shock. No everyone doesn't get a state pension. Most people will have some qualifying years towards a state pension. But might not get the full pension. Which is nowhere near enough to live a comfortable life.

Its not a matter of fact though. I was a clerk in the 1980s and I couldn't afford a house with no deposit. I had to stay living with my parents for years before I met my husband. As for giving up work, I had no choice as there was no specialised childcare for my autistic son. I ended up working nights because we couldn't afford to live on one salary and even then it was hand to mouth (this was the late 1990s onwards). As for foreign holidays, I can't remember when I last left these shores. The point is you're generalising and as many posters have described on here, we all have individual stories and experiences. We are not all the same, whatever age we are.

Yet we have one of if not the smallest state pension in Europe so it's hardly unaffordable for a country such as ours. It is just down to what the Government choose to spend our money on - they can magic up/loose billions on stupid/unnecessary/useless/failed endeavours when they want.

Their primary job is to make life better for the people of Britain and keep us safe and they aren't doing that very well in education, healthcare, environment, cost of living etc. I am all for restructuring our finances if it makes things better for us but taking away the pension and health care for the people who have been heavily taxed for 50 years is not going to do that. You might as well bring in a dystopian system where everyone is terminated at 70.

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.

On the plus side by retiring early they’re freeing up jobs, they’re helping the economy with all their spending and their children are benefiting too. I don’t know what you’ve got to complain about.

The fact of the matter is that in the 1980's a and an admin assistant could get a house with no deposit. She could give up work to raise children. They could afford to eat if not go on foreign holidays or afford private school but survive. They then inherited from parents before...

@downdowndowndowndown Lots of assumptions in your post - many people my dad included, who had a similar level job as an admin assistant certainly could not afford to go on a foreign holiday in the 80s....We didn't go abroad until the 90s and then it was a massive struggle to afford that. Private education was certainly NEVER an option and they couldn't afford a house until the crash in the late 80s early 90s (I can't remember exactly)- they rented for a long time. And they certainly did not inherit from parents.

@12345change I think that's what I wrote, they could afford to eat but not go on foreign holidays or private education.

A lot of that generation are doing well though. Certainly all the home owners, even those who were modest earners.
I remember queuing for an event and the person before me, who I know owns multiple houses, paying half what I had to pay. I'm in favour of some universal benefits, but some of the discounts handed out to rich old people while the rest are struggling really get to me.

@Oliotya perhaps people should learn to rely on themselves? My parents, who are absolutely not millennials, came from impoverished backgrounds. Every single thing they have, they have earned, paid tax on and and know the value of. They literally didn’t and don’t have anything to give me, so they taught me to rely on myself too. Is that such a bad thing? (obviously baring any inability to do so, the social care system is a disaster, but that is a different thread)

Your title is ‘Am I unreasonable to think the standard of living for retired people had to change’ and although you say you don’t begrudge their lifestyle your thread is dripping with envy.

Your last post is littered with generalisations, you’d put my parents in this category if you looked at their life now. The reality is that they had many periods where they a meal was a bag of frozen veg in a suet pastry because that’s all they could afford, the heating was barely on to save money, clothes were hand me downs and cheap stuff off the market. Even now they save leftovers and budget week by week even though they have more disposable income than me. They invested wisely and they saved their money, they went without a lot of things including sitting tight in a house they didn’t like during the recession and massive interest hikes so that they didn’t end up in negative equity, all to create a safety net for their family and they’re still looking out for us now.

Edited to add that they both were raised in council houses and came from very working class backgrounds

Yes the world has changed but not all of the changes are external to the individual mindset.

State pensions are low in the uk for a reason. In many European countries the state pension is paid into by employers i the same way that employers pay into pension schemes here. You don’t get a separate employer pension there so you cannot compare. Comparing apples and pears.

and the triple lock state pension means that state pensions are rising exponentially as an area of government spending. It’s a statistical fact that the triple lock will have to end at some point. Otherwise at some point there would be no other public spending whatsoever.

Your latest post is so full of unreal generalisations and inaccuracies. I bought my first property in 1984. I had to pay a 10% deposit which I got by saving for 4 years before I could afford to buy. I inherited nothing from my parents. Yes property prices were cheaper but wages were a lot less too, you don't seem to realise that. I was a teacher and I couldn't afford foreign holidays. I did extra jobs like private tutoring and exam marking to help pay the bills. The only car I could afford was 18 years old when I bought it. I'm 69 now and still working because I'm one of the WASPI women who weren't notified of the increase in pension age.
I'd love to have been an affluent retiree but like the great majority of people in their 60s, it hasn't happened for me and never will.
Don't judge us all by the few that you know of who are lucky enough to have had things go well.

I do worry for my sons. They’ll probably have to work well into their 70’s as by then I think the pension age will have risen significantly. I do think the current generation of retirees has it good - they were able to retire quite early on in their lives, and quite a few have enough money to not just live comfortably in their retirement but actually enough to be able to splash the cash how and whenever they choose.

The prospects for my generation and my children are not so rosy. That’s the truth of it. Working longer = not able to have much retirement life at all & nowhere near the level of affluence we see currently in the retired generation.

But you can’t begrudge people their slice of the cake. People are products of their time and when my in-laws embark on their £12,000 cruises around the Med x twice a year or whatever, I would actually rather cheer them on than not have them here. They’ve worked very very hard and raised a family, they had their own struggles some of which will not apply to my generation or future generations.

Bitterness gets us nowhere - I don’t feel any bitterness but I do worry a lot about what the future holds for my children. I would hate to think of them old and poor when I’m not here.

Agree. My PILs for example, FIL retired at 50, lived to 85, on a very generous bankers pension, so was retired for more years than he worked,. MIL, who has never worked a day in her life, lives very comfortably on pension income of over £3k a month, house paid for. Don't think this can happen again for ordinary working people.

@downdowndowndowndown I see - it did not read like that to me.. but I see. I would also say many could do those things too. But as I have said lots of differences within generations and between. Pitting generations against each other I personally don't think that is helpful

The current OAPs did not ‘earn it’ - they just changed the rules so they were entitled to it.

What “rules” were changed? And when did it happen?