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.

The current OAPs did not ‘earn it’ - they just changed the rules so they were entitled to it. It’s today’s workers who are earning it

If you really believe this, why don't your generation change the rules to suit you? Mind you, you would probably just change the rules to make everyone's life is more miserable in a race to the bottom

People lived more frugally. I remember when my parents relocated in their 40s, the lounge stayed empty for two years until they could afford furniture. We sat on chairs from the dining table to watch TV. Now people would rush out to IKEA and put it on a credit card, and then moan that they "can't afford to save for a deposit."

Yeah, l was struck by this when ds and his friends bought houses. They all had to be perfect when they moved in. Fully furnished and decorated.

I bought my first house in the late 80’s. We had a sofa bed which we carried between living room and bed room every day.

I didn't have Avocado on toast til I was at least 40 and I still haven't been to Thailand.

I still can't afford fake nails, tits, hair and lips - filler here and filler there. None of us could afford that in the 80s, because we were all saving up for mortgage deposits, despite interest rates being 15%...

I could go on... but I'm passed my mid fifties.

The state is also sitting on a ticking time bomb when a good majority of elderly people in 30 or so years time are going to have to have housing funded thanks to the stupid inflated houses

That is an issue, but the big elderly population "bulge" will have passed by then as most Boomers and a good chunk of Gen X will have died before then, thus freeing up property and reducing the pensions bill. So it might not be so grim as people fear.

Most people I know aren't having retirements like you describe. My parents were poor in low paying jobs and no pensions. Yes they got a cheapish house but that's their only asset and we went without for many years to meet the mortgage payments which were high thanks to interest rates and relatively low wages.

Regardless, I think old people deserve a nice retirement after 50 years of work. They certainly shouldn't be cold and hungry for 20+ years. Pensions are hard to live on and whilst some have the old final salary pensions and live lives of luxury, the reality is most pensioners live in poverty and struggle to get by beyond the basics. I'd hate to see this get even worse, at it seems to be.

As a society we should be finding the money to look after disabled people and old people, and yes, give them some level of luxury. We can find hundreds of billions for other less worthy causes.

I’ve just retired, aged 66.

Had an average salary sort of job, in a sector that never paid any pension contributions until the latest date at which it was legally enforced, and at the lowest legal contribution. Never benefitting from free childcare hours, it was hard to make significant private contributions. Then seeing kids through Uni at a time when their rent started to be very high.

So, I get full state pension, and with a pension pot that I know may need to last 30 years , and which is currently losing value so losses in terms of draw down will be crystallised, I will be living an OK but very frugal / modest life, on the band of pension income which I think is called ‘Essential’, rather than comfortable.

I really do fear for younger generations, especially around house prices, energy costs, the economy as a whole, and climate change.

But I am sick of being told how wealthy my generation is and what greedy bastards we all are. All my friends are in a similar situation , economically.

And I am amazed by the salaries often bandied about on MN by people in their 20s and 30s, and the substantial savings do many accumulate. Good for them! But not everyone is struggling in younger generations and not everyone is living in clover amongst current retirees.

I am 4 days past the cut off date for the Winter Fuel allowance for this year, so swathed in blankets watching TV in the evenings because I can’t afford the heating.

Yes, OP, you're absolutely right. All old people had the opportunity to have a free university education and then walked into fantastic jobs for life and bought houses with pocket change and then retired at 60 to spend their lives on cruises... 🙄

Where do you live, OP? Go the local market and take a look at all the older people there, trying to save money on food. Go to the library and see all the older people spending their days there in order to keep warm. Go and stand at a bus stop with all the older people who don't have their own transport and are returning to their rented homes. Then watch I, Daniel Blake and come back and tell us that all old people are wealthy and had it easy.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/

Some people have suggested that this is an ageist thread. I disagree. It’s a debate. Shutting down debate is never a good thing, (albeit Stonewall would have you think otherwise).
But I digress.
I think every generation has aspects that are tougher than others. I’m Gen X and I think we have had a good time of it. It’s the current generation of young people whose lives I wouldn’t trade for anything. Social media is horrific and is responsible for a huge hike in mental health issues if that generation. But property: the fact that many of them will never get in the property ladder or have access to stable high quality rental properties is the single reason that I think Gen Z have it worst. I would absolutely hate to be starting off in my career now. Flats at 15/20 times the average salary of a grad. High interest rates, high cost of living. It looks bleak. I don’t know what the answer is and “ Conservative Party scum” is just a lazy argument.

A significant percentage of retired people live in poverty But I'm sure they are glad your relatives are doing fine.

Another day, another ageist Mumsnet thread.

Yep

Ageism is rife on here!

For your info, OP, not everybody who was a boomer owned their own homes or cars etc etc !!

This is almost identical to us - the difficulty of the late 80s being on maternity leave and trapped in a sky high mortgage and no way of selling due to Black Monday was something I'd wiped from my memory! We won't pay our mortgage off nor be able to retire until we are 70 because we have had to help our kids with their mortgage deposits/university costs etc.

We both left school at 16 and have not been out of work since (I worked through my degrees) - I will have worked for 54 years of my life and think I've paid for my bloody pension thank you!

Our first house was a terrace house with no front garden in the 80s, not many young people on here buy those houses, they all want detached houses with large open plan kitchens and perfect decor.

Get an electric throw, @Brimful. They are cheap to run and are really toasty.

Some young people have a difficult time now. Some older people do too. In addition to high interest rates in the 80s, we had no subsidised child care, no child tax credits and as a prospective adoptive parent I was told I must not work until an adopted child reached the age of 5. I gladly did that as I wanted to adopt, but now (though I don’t regret the choices I made) I feel that such a rule was a bit unfair when I see that it has had an impact on my pension. And yes, we did without holidays, new cars, furniture etc until we had saved for them. I think it’s a case of the grass always looking greener on the other side.

*My Dh is 64 and still working. Our lives will be nothing like you have described. We won’t have enough money. One of the reasons is we encouraged our Millenials to live at home until they’d saved up for a house deposit.

We charged very low rent or board. So we supported them for a long time and were unable to save for our retirement because of this*

Same here, dh 71 and we still have 4 years left on our mortgage. Borrowed on it to get kids through uni and do some house maintenance. Didn't charge them rent, so they could save.
I'm still working at 68 and will do for as long as I'm capable or at least as long as they want me. I think we gave our kids a good start and accepted it would be at a fair cost to us. We will have more cash when the mortgage is finished so looking forward to that in one way, but in another we'll be 4 years older so . . .
Kids both have nicer houses than us. Pisses me off 😀

I think while there are many people like that there are many that aren't.

My parents have the type of life you describe, although have downsized to a retirement flat.

My aunty and uncle, though have a small council bungalow and a small income (state pension).

But yes, we couldn't continue because of the big bulge of the baby boomers needing NHS care as they get older etc.

We bought a property at that point. Interest rates were around 5-6% which might have been fine if I had a decent salary. Not everyone did and a mortgage was only doable because we had two incomes. So one 25 year mortgage later and we still can't afford to move to a bungalow (for the old age....) without taking out an extended mortgage for a bigger loan.

Or the more accurate view OP...

Compulsory private pensions didn't begin until 2018. More than half of pensioners live on the state pension alone.

Many do not own their own homes. Many married women had to resign when they married (my mum) and didn't have the ability to build up anything. This after starting work at 16. No chance of university.

Your uncles may have been lucky but you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that is the norm. So cut our your ageist drivel and try educating yourself of the true facts first.

Honestly...the ignorance of some people 🙄

We bought our first house around 1990... and the interest rates promptly spiralled FAR above anything they have been in recent years.. I remember them hitting 12% I think, if not higher.
The market crashed and we ended up in negative equity for years. We were broke, really really broke. We couldn't afford childcare which limited my earning potential (it never recovered after having a child with special needs and all that entailed)
We didn't have any furniture that wasn't someone else's cast offs until my eldest was 10.
I'm 55, Dh is 61 and working a 60 hr week (I'm part time because, guess what, I'm needed as Granny care so that my daughter can manage) We are not well off, we won't be well off, and for that matter my Mum (late 70s) isn't well off either, even after 30+ years as a teacher.

Every generation has it's struggles... they just vary. At least you can now divorce, not be subjected to marital rape by law, be gay, and as a woman have a bloody career if you so wish.

I think the current generation is most screwed with housing/rents but in other areas there is more opportunity and certainly more expectation.

OP - completely agree.

There is a huge division between rich pensioners and poor pensioners - from what I've read, it's about a 50/50 split. Most of the UK's wealth is concentrated in the hands of older people, but poor pensioners have it really bad.

My parents are among those who've benefitted from being middle class in Britain at the right time in history, and also have a huge house, another one they recently sold in Spain, and very generous pensions. Of course, I don't want any less for them - but what does grate a bit is they think they've got more than me and my siblings, their Gen X and Millenial children, because they've worked harder. They have never been able to understand that finances have always been much tougher for my generation, who had to pay for university, house prices soaring way beyond reach etc etc. I've worked full-time since I was 21, have a Masters degree, and do well in my chosen field but there's no chance of me having the same lifestyle as them unless I marry a rich man! Or win the Lottery. Which is a bit depressing.

Up until 2010 women got a state pension at 60. Now we have people in their 70s, 80s & 90s saying they’d worked hard all of their lives …. Whilst many of these people may have paid into the system, but most have taken a lot more out than what they paid in. That’s on top of a private pension too. They’ve already sold their homes & given the kids their inheritance & moved back in to council accommodation, now they moan they have to pay full rent … Some kids (couples) will have 2 lots of inheritance from both sets of families, or more. Whilst others will never have anything apart from the crap low paid job & council flat. As for shooting them all, the fact that they lived longer means that many will never retire & work until they drop just like they did years ago. I don’t know any poor pensioners, how many people admit to being loaded?

I don’t know any poor pensioners

FFS

Not always true that staff don’t know who is self funded. In the hime where DM was the front office had a glass wall on to the corridor. Each resident had a large box file on the shelves, clearly marked with names in large letters, and self funders’ files carried a large red stamp on the spine.

I think it's more complicated than just council funded/self funded. My DMIL is in a lovely new (quite expensive) care home but she could only go there if she had at least 2 years worth of fees in savings. After that time if she ran out of money she could stay with council funding and presumably be subsidised by other self funders. But since she has already been subsidising others for 2 years + I don't think that's unfair. Hence at her expensive home there is a mix of self funded and council funded but all have paid full fees at some point.

By contrast, my Dad is at a private care home organised (and mostly paid for) by the council. It's cheap (less than two thirds the cost of MIL's) and is scruffy with poor food and a huge turnover of staff (some are nice, some not so but they're never really there long enough for me to get to know or for them to get to know the residents) but it's what the council can afford. I can't imagine that there are many self funders there purely because you wouldn't actually choose for your relative to go there if you had the money. As with most things, money gives you choices.

No state pension for me till 67 and what private pensions I've funded (more like savings than pensions) are not enough to function on, let alone live! I have worked full time from the age of 17, did not go to university but studied whilst working with the OU. Many of the earliest roles had no pensions and some none for women, so not like every employer did well by us either. Been made redundant 5 times, cared for two parents, mortgage at 15%, struggled through three recessions, still working full time at 61. Inherited nothing, had to work hard to have paid off my mortgage by giving up holidays and evenings for years renovating total wrecks, so never had it really easy and the harder you work the luckier you get perhaps! I am still contributing to a society that increasingly seems to think I am a cash cow and can be milked for taxes locally and nationally for non-existent services and to support those who are making little or no contribution (not talking about genuine cases, but those that have no intention of contributing to our communities). My Mum and Dad lived in 2 rooms, on the 2nd floor of a wreck in London (I remember the rats and outside toilet) when I was born and only got council accommodation due to demolishing the house for a new build estate. They could not get a mortgage as a builder was not seen as a secure job, they worked their backsides off in full time roles and never complained about working hard and just got on with it. My Grandad was a Miner from the age of 15 and never even saw his retirement, alongside many of his contemporaries. Let's stop with the generalisations please and perhaps start wondering why the 'blaming someone else narrative' is being pushed, when we should be questionning why life, health, education and even wealth is not better for all. Who benefits from blaming others, when we should be blaming the few who are failing the majority, like those in power, none of whom seem to be struggling, do they!!

Incidentally OP, on Black Monday when we left the ERM and financial chaos descended, two of my colleagues at a bank, committed suicide. We were then buddied up to prevent any others trying.

I was on my second ever mortgage payment and suddenly could barely eat. That's no car, no holiday, no phone, no heating, no evenings out, no anything except the mortgage.

Now I'm 60 still working full time, still got a mortgage. So please don't imagine this is the first time mortgage payments have been a challenge. Remember, it's better to stay silent and let the world think you are a fool, than to open your mouth and tell them you are.