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.

Yes this!
Another reason why the social contract is broken. Home owners NIMBYing. I go to local planning meetings - allllll retirees objecting to new houses. ‘Why do they need a garage? Can’t they take the bus?’ Etc. But all the working age people are at work or dealing with their families. It’s the retirees who have time to come.

Any attempt to point out that those generations used a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity and growth to feather their own nests at the expense of everyone else to come is met with extreme denial and whataboutery.

What do you think 'they' should have done instead, Scare, & how many generations are we talking about?

PS. I don't have a 'gold plated pension' from the public sector. I did without many luxuries to get and remain debt-free, AND I worked my way through University.

Please don't assume other generations had it better than you did. It's a struggle for all of us.

Well I don't disagree with you. But we're approaching a point where all the hard work in the world won't be enough without a helping hand. House prices and ever shitter pensions are the main issues to contend with.

Loads in my town. No judgement from me, but they fill the restaurants at lunchtimes and drive £50k+ cars, the ones I know personally have second homes and frequent holidays.

Can't have that can we? Healthy living - might make them live longer!!!

A 2 second google shows that average income for a pensioner in the UK is £304 to £350 per week after tax and housing.
This means that many are on significantly less. I know people in my mums generation who struggle and have no savings left in their early eighties. Those who had bought family homes have sold them and are using that money to supplement their state pensions.
For my generation (mid fifties), some have some final salary pensions but many don't. My state pension is 67. Such is life. We will probably sell up and downsize before then and we will be lucky that we can. Many/most do not have those assets to do so.

The current OAPs who are well off are so because they were able to buy a house that increased in value, often without them having to do anything so it's true that many of them made loads of money without earning it at all!

Flip me, you would almost think from some of the comments that we didn't work and rear our families, and pay our taxes, to support the generations ahead of us!!

Without ever begrudging it.

That is fair, agreed. You are continuing to pay for what you are using in tax. It would be fairer if you were also paying NI like working people. But it definitely does sound as though you will be net contributors.

Many, many of this current crop of retirees will not be. And the shortfall will be made up by the young workers.

There have been several posts recently about pensioners, pensions & retirement lifestyles

If we are fortunate, we will all be pensioners at some time in the future.

However, some of my friends & colleagues have sadly passed away before retirement age

It would be better if people discussed at an early age, such as teenager, in no particular order & made plans for the future;

How to National Insurance functions towards benefits & state pension. Also how this functions if you are unable to work or have time off work for children

Benefits of employment which includes contributions to a private pension, sick pay

Pros & cons of marriage, children

Pros & cons of further education, apprenticeship, multiple qualifications

Pros & cons of savings

Inheritance tax

Pros & cons of how the Internet has changed employment

Pros & cons of how AI will change everything in the future

When I was growing up, we didn't predict the Internet, cashless society, 10 year old having mobile phones at school

How will the world look in another 50 years ?

Only on paper!!

Plus they earned it by working and paying for said asset!!

I go to local planning meetings - allllll retirees objecting to new houses. ‘Why do they need a garage? Can’t they take the bus?’ Etc. But all the working age people are at work or dealing with their families. It’s the retirees who have time to come.

Hmm. Do you really? Round here people of all ages make their views known & are actually practical, wanting lots of affordable housing & knowing how people live & what's needed in terms of infrastructure. They don't get it & they're angry about it. It's not the fault of old people - they're fighting for good communities for their children & grandchildren's sake & just because they're, you know, nice people who care about their town.

@Thebestwaytoscareatory

Any attempt to point out that those generations used a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity and growth to feather their own nests at the expense of everyone else to come is met with extreme denial and whataboutery.

But……….can you honestly blame them? Would you not have done the same? People live in their time and they react as products of their time. You can’t with hindsight blame them for making the best of a good situation.

My paternal grandfather did clerical work in the public sector and paternal grandmother a cleaner. They struggled when my df was young, mainly I think because dgf had to work away, but they owned their own home.
DF never saw a bath till he was 18, but bought his first house in his twenties.

Maternal grandparents both in clerical roles in local government, married a bit later, but bought their first house together too.
These were all definitely ordinary people, but home owners more or less from marriage onwards.

That's a problem of poor pension planning @12345change. If you had started a pension fund for your children when they were born, as we did (because we needed a bit more money to kick it off, honestly) then your DC would already have the basis for a comfortable retirement. Our one child has 5% of our pension fund at 24. It can be inherited without tax, because it's not part of your estate as long as you are careful, so it has another 45 years to accumulate, and said child can allocate all the auto-enrolment contributions from employment into that one pot for retirement. I know people who think life is against them, but they are not the people who actively look for ways to make systems work for them. Our DC will also benefit from any assets we leave, but there are no pockets in shrouds!

Yippee another boomer bashing thread . Haven't had one of those in, ooh, a good ten minutes.
Yes, we should all sell our houses for.half price to deserving.millenials, move into one bedroom flats and live on bread and butter. That'll solve everything. Or, y'know - not.

"But……….can you honestly blame them? Would you not have done the same? People live in their time and they react as products of their time. You can’t with hindsight blame them for making the best of a good situation"

Of course, but they shouldn't then deny that houses were much cheaper in proportion to incomes when they bought them and that those houses appreciated often without any effort on their part to make them well off later on.
It's not someone's fault to have a privilege, but don't deny it!

Once again what “rules” were changed? Anyone who’s bought a house in the last ten years will have made a profit without earning it, it’s not confined to pensioners.

But your wealth is not mainly from your income from work, but rather from your home ownership and the appreciation.

It's not me arguing about rules being changed. I was answering your general point.

And most people buying a house now will be better off in 40 years. And they'll probably have inherited a nice lump sum from their evil, greedy boomer parents. Just sorry I won't be around to see their kids' generation bitching about how good they had it...

@Papyrophile

Good advice! I should start one for my children asap

"Plus they earned it by working and paying for said asset!!"

The houses were a much smaller proportion of their income!!!
The didn't 'earn' the appreciation of 'said assets'!!! It just happened.

I'll be sure to tell my boomer parents I'm disgusted that they both worked 12 hour days from leaving school to their 40s (latch key kid here...) and then 8/24 after that, in order to be relatively comfortable, and pay in to private pensions, but still be terrified to actually spend anything now...HOW DARE they not realise how lucky they are 😂