Retired parents UPSIZING house

[toastlover100]

I’m pretty sure IABU.

My parter and I are late 20s, renting, good careers but still waiting for salaries to increase much.

We are engaged and trying to save for a very small wedding, we know we could just go the registry office but that’s not what we want.

We are also trying to save a house deposit, but it’ll take a long time on current earnings. Hoping to maybe get there by mid thirties.

We would love to have children in the next couple of years but the likelihood is we will still be in our rented flat.

My parents are retired from reasonable jobs but never high earning at all. Through some luck, paying off their mortgage, house price rises, they are about to buy a house worth around a million. This is a huge upsizing.

AIBU to begrudge them this?
We are struggling to make any headway financially, spending thousands a year on rent, wanting a family but not being in the right position etc, whilst my parents are about to spend a huge amount of savings I didn’t know they had to upsize to a large family home they really don’t need.

I'm not worrying about. I'm simply making the point that standards of living are likely to deteriorate based on these things.

Agreed, but the boomers don't seem to appreciate this or how lucky they are that they are likely to be the only generation to experience it.

The usual life expectancy at that age is only 20-25 years anyway

Yes, exactly.

What do you mean when you refer to standards of living though?

Except in the past most people didn't retire at 60 and live until 90. The state pension was never meant to support people for a third of their lives.

Not true. Both my parents had 25 to 30 year retirements and they were born 1918 and 1931 respectively

They were lucky then. Most of that generation would not have been able to say the same. The boomers are the only one where the majority will experience it (and maybe GenX if they are lucky too).

I said most people - of course there will always be outliers in every generation.

Perhaps we do mean different things here because you appear to be suggesting that having access to lots of tech outweighs the importance of secure housing!
What I am referring to here is prosperity in a financial sense. Perhaps we might have improved quality of life in some other ways eg perhaps communities might connect better or perhaps families may become close or whatever.

My point was they don't now. A very small minority of people live past 90.

Perhaps so, but that's not what you said first off

It's not just "access to tech" though, is it, it's about how much easier that technology makes our day to day lives.

Of course, but living thirty years beyond pension age is a relatively new expectation. Most people had 5-10 years of retirement at most.

I don't think anyone is going to be assuming that I was saying that no-one in human history had managed a 25 year retirement before 2010. That would be silly.

Same.

Even the people looking for 'freebies' on local sites (with their sob stories) seem AMAZINGLY particular about what they want (feel entitled to) for free. Oh, and they need it delivered, too.

There are obviously many advantages but it definitely doesn't make everything easier. It makes some things harder and has other disadvantages. Do you have children?

Why is that relevant?

I think posters are conflating the experiences of different generations. Being a young adult in the late 90s was a very different experience to being one in the late 70s. And obviously class and our individual families wealth, has a huge impact on our educational outcomes and other life opportunities. Theres no blanket rule that one generation had it better than other (post ww2) - life was just different and whether it was better or not is very individual.

Interesting thought on length of retirement.

My df, born 1908, retired at 66 and lasted another 17 years.
Dm, born 1921, retired at 63 and lasted another 24 years.

I intend to outdo both of them if at all possible 🙂

When did we stop wanting our children to have a better life than us? Do we really just want them to work themselves to exhaustion, never have a home they can call their own, never retire, and begrudge them the smallest of luxuries? I don’t want that for my children.

This. Well said.

It's a good thing that nobody on this thread has said they want that for their children, then, isn't it?!

People forget in the 80’s repossession was not uncommon due to 15+% interest rates and negative equity.

it may have been easier to buy a home, but it was also very easy to lose it.

They might not have said it but that's what they've delivered.

It's not "well said" at all. It's actually ludicrous.

For the majority of those parents who are able to, their children get pushed on to a greater level of 'achievement' for the want of a better word. I know my generations had more opportunities than my parents' did, and my DC have had vastly more opportunities in life than we had.

I don't want to work myself to exhaustion either, never retire, have to sell my home to fund theirs, and begrudge myself the smallest of luxuries either!! They've already had the best of everything I could possibly afford for them. Am I meant to suffer in old age to continue to provide for them?

Are you quite mad?