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.

There was no minimum pay, no right to holiday pay, and no right to an employee pension when i graduated in ‘91. I also graduated into a recession, a decade in which 400,000 homes were repossessed. It was not all milk and honey. It was shit.

State pensions are c. £10k pa. It’s not a fortune and it is achievable for the world’s 6th richest economy despite what the right wing press and politicians like to tell everyone.

I’m a very normal millennial, suspect at least one of my parents will work until death or they are no longer physically able. Grandfather retired at 80 from a manual job and has been abroad once in while I’ve been alive, I’ve had no financial help from my family other than rent paid while at Uni.

I expect to have my mortgage paid off in my 40s, my grad job pays over £100k after 10 years, and I anticipate my retirement looking a lot like your Uncles and starting when I’m in my late 50s.

Anecdotal evidence isn’t helpful at telling a story, there will always be ends to a spectrum.

Hear hear!

Added to this, my lovely parents were living on 14k a year in their retirement despite dad working from 14 to 65, with three years national service in-between, he only passed away two years ago. They were war babies.

But hey, that had it all and life was so easy for them.

It's a load of crap, not facts, but I am not going to waste my time trying to educate someone with such a closed, narrow mind.

Read the rest of the thread. You might actually learn something.

Nor could they get UC or help with paying your rent. No state handouts. You worked and if you didn't earn enough to live on you went without. You got child benefit if you had DC. Nobody had mobile phones or satellite TV or Netflix so no expensive subscription to pay for. Growing up my family never had a home phone or a car and only 1 black and white TV that was rented.

I agree to a point but I always console myself with the thought that there probably has never been a better time to be a woman.

I’ve recently done up a house (I’m 59, for context). It contains - as well as some new furniture/furniture I’ve bought in the past - a bookcase, table and wing chair from my parents, which I’ve had since I first moved out into my own permanent place at 25, a chest of drawers from my parents which I was given when I bought a house and they downsized in 2001 (it was their post war utility furniture so the6 had had it since 1949 when they married), a table from my in-laws, a bed from my sister in law and one from my niece (no longer needed in their houses) and a wardrobe and garden furniture from my daughter. I bought two garden chairs, a sofa and a kitchen cupboard, plus a new bathroom suite. I think we have the habit of being a bit frugal. In fairness, my daughter (cusp of millennial/Z) sat on cheap garden furniture in the living room of her first unfurnished rental until she and her BF could afford a sofa.

I think it's plain to see who the stupid one is.

That's the way the system works, for the hard of thinking. The contributions of each generation fund the older ones. It's not rocket science. How ignorant and begrudging.

Essentially using services/roads/resources but not contributing to growth or generating anything except spending money

If they're spending money then they're putting it back into the economy. You appear to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet about gold plated pensions- are you talking about public sector pensions? because if you mean final salary pensions that's private sector.

Yes. They are my primary concern.

From their 20s to their 40s they will be paying the pensions of the current 60-80yr olds.

From their 20s to their 40s they will be paying the health care of the current 60-80yr olds.

From their 20s to their 40s they will be paying the social care of the current 60-80yr olds.

And then they will be trying to build their lives, solve the housing crisis and the environment crisis with what’s left.

I’ll be encouraging them to vote to limit free NHS care to under 70s only.

And just who do you think created the "better time to be a woman"?

Gee whiz. The evil Boomers were instrumental in fighting for equal rights and equal pay. For you to have a year on maternity leave while we got 18 miserable weeks. Yada yada yada.

This in a nutshell!

That's utterly fucking disgusting.

In that case, I hope you live to be 110. On the state pension.

Spending money is not growth. It’s about productivity.

(Come at me with your bad economics, cos on that I will win oh yeah )

How did you do in Maths @mayorofcasterbridge ?

I don't understand the selfishness of some of the younger contributors to this thread. I think the grasp they have of UK social and economic history must be really poor. They don't seem to understand the social contract at all. A third of our pay used to disappear in tax and NI FFS. Women were often paid significantly less. Some employers used to deliberately give women hours and a pay rate that meant you were below the NI threshold, making it sound as if it was for your benefit so you didn't have to 'pay a stamp', but meaning that your pension entitlement suffered.

Yeah, I’ve been doing this for 37 years. We all have.

What’s special about your dc?

"Free NHS care for the under 70s only"

Now I've heard it all. I am utterly shocked that any right- thinking person could even entertain such an appalling thought as this.

I had written loads about how my life has been but you know what it's water off a ducks back to you lot so I've deleted it, there's no point telling you

You have a small sample size of those in your family. Obviously, like any generation, many boomers/elderly live in poverty and struggle without adequate food or heat.

Overall boomers may have had it better financially but each generation has had unique struggles.

Nothing - I was asked about them upthread so responded in kind.

Are they not paying council tax then? Or VAT on everything they buy except food? Or keeping restaurants, pubs, cafes and garden centres’ staff in work?

Or paying income tax on those gold plated pensions you resent so much? In fact, I think the next round of pension increases will push everyone into tax as the personal allowance hasn’t been increased.

But they’re clearly not contributing …

I agree @mayorofcasterbridge

And just how are these over-7Os on tiny pensions going to pay for their NHS care? That is not a society I want to live in. It's inhumane and totally batshit.

Retired people actually contribute a lot to the economy. They are keeping garden centres, out of season holidays, pubs and restaurants during the week going. They are using their pensions for bathroom upgrades, housing projects, cars, etc. helping out children and grandchildren financially. Many who are in good health volunteer. Food banks, charity shops, National Trust and English Heritage all rely on volunteers. Places like that would fold without them. Then I expect you would be moaning about that.