‘We didn’t have expensive mobile phones”

[MidnightPatrol]

Why is this now used as a criticism of the young by the old, particularly in debates around affordability of housing etc.

No you didn’t have a mobile phone in 1974.

But that is because they didn’t exist. Not because you made a financial sacrifice.

Is the suggestion young people shouldn’t have mobile phones? This would be a little limiting in today’s environment.

In the 1970s were young people criticised for owning washing machines rather than hand scrubbing their clothes in a copper pail?

40-50 years ago people started their "responsible adult" life a lot younger, in there early 20s. Formed relationships, got engaged, saved up for a house, got married, started families. Nowadays many spend their 20s travelling, holidaying in exotic locations, off to festivals, gigs, wall to wall socialising etc. Then they hit 30 and realise they can't afford to get on the property ladder. So no point in blaming the earlier generations, because they didn't have things handed to them on a plate 😉

Okay, I'll bite. As one of the hated baby boomers will you please tell me which decision I have made has caused the world to be in such a mess?

I had a color TV in my bedroom in 1974. I was 11. It was very controversial. Lots of judgments were passed....

According to this (link below) a home landline (which most people had in the 70s) cost equivalent of £23 pounds a month plus an equivalent of a few hundred setup fee including the telephone unit. Basically the same as an average phone contract now - for which you also get a camera (which you don't have to pay to have films developed every 24 pictures).
The whole "young people and their mobile phones" argument is a total crock.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/customer-experience-1970s-style-marc-humphries

Ha, how did capitalism get to be so rampant if no-one born before 1990 or even 2000 spent anything. Who invented the PCP or the credit card? It annoys me really because older people have spent plenty their whole lives. I think my grandparents generation born pre-war had to be frugal but their kids certainly weren't

I used to work in banking. I used my annual bonus one year to buy a microwave. That's how comparatively expensive they were when new tech.

As a generation the boomers have taken more from the world than they've put into it, which is why the following generations are now fighting for pieces of an ever smaller pie.

Awarding yourselves generous guaranteed pension schemes, to be funded by the generations following you.

And you don't think your children and grandchildren will say the same about your generation? No-one I know has "taken more from the world than they've put into it" - you are just repeating ad naseum what you have read somewhere.

Well as I don't live in the UK I'm baffled how you've come up with that one You do realise that the average person on the street has very little to do with awarding themselves generous guaranteed pension schemes - and who do you think paid for the pensions (such an old fashioned word btw) of the generation before mine?

But- when I and my first husband bought our first home, we didn't have expensive anything. No car, no proper curtains, no expensive clothes, the most basic food, basic furniture, no coffees out or takeaways, no holidays...you get the drift. Buying the flat was all we could afford, and we didn't want to get into any more debt than that. And we were brought up to believe in the expression 'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves'.

This resonated with me, @Shodan .

I left home at 19 in 1974, and rented until I bought my first house in 1982.

I didn't have a single item of new furniture until I bought a brand new bed in 1990. Everything, even my cooker, washing machine and fridge, were bought second hand or handed down from friends/family.

I lived like a pauper until the early 90s. And I've still never spent more than £5k on a car.

Now I'm semi-retired, I still live like a pauper. People are astonished when I tell them I don't have Sky or Netflix, and still use a phone that must be around 8 years old. (Sadly, the elderly phone may have to go, as lots of apps don't work on it, including the pay for parking app in a nearby city that is dispensing with machines for paying parking charges.)

Now you're talking like the stereotypical boomer.

The very worst thing about the complaints about the increase in house prices on here is the complete ignorance about what makes houses more expensive.

No boomer deliberately say down and decided to price people out of the market.

When it was normal for a family to have only one wage houses cost 2.5 times one wage.

When families increasingly had 2 incomes houses cost 2.5 times 2 incomes.

Mortgage lenders started to lend larger multiples of salary, so houses started to cost 4.5 times 2 salaries.

The bank of mum and dad started to give large sums towards deposits. This helped their own children, but to the detriment of others who didn't have that advantage. Houses started to cost 4.5 times 2 salaries plus a hefty cash boost.

Houses, like everything else, cost what people will pay for them. One thing which would help would be to increase the supply of houses, anything in short supply always costs more. The population of the UK in 1940 was 47 million, now it's about 63 million.

And people kept stuff for longer rather than getting rid of things because they were “dated”.

Well, I'm still waiting for you to list these sins of mine which have made life harder for you. Trotting out rubbish like this doesn't give your comments much credence. It's just boring repeat, repeat, repeat of something you've heard/read.

I'm talking about as a generation, not as individuals. Only generation in history to be richer than both their parents and their children. Haven't contributed much of any value but do love to patronise the younger generations whilst telling them to respect their elders.

Another thing about the 70s is that car ownership was relatively very much more expensive. Only well off families had more than one car.

What's all this sudden opprobrium being heaped in older generations pensions being paid for by the current working generation? Who the hell do you think paid the pensions of the previous generation? Yep,!! We did!!
I for one am sick and tired of the boomer generation being blamed for the ills of today.
Much wealth was created in the 80s and everything was booming. Property prices boomed and people were making money on them. (Not forgetting that those houses had been scrimped and saved for in the 70s with crippling interest rates) you could buy your council house for a big discount (yes inagree that new social housing should have replaced the properties sold)
Why would people not take the opportunities that came along and have extra money on their pockets for a change after having to scrimp along for so many years?
It's not our fault that the current generation have turned out to be a bunch of whining snowflakes who want everything handed to them on a plate and need trigger warnings in Disney films!!

I agree that we need more houses. Like, a MASSIVE National house-building scheme. But there are issues - a) we’d have to expand onto green-belt probably and b) we no longer have the numbers of skilled construction workers required. If people can’t find a decent roofer to repair their old rooves, where do people think decent roofers will come from to build thousands of new homes?

There are loads of urban brownfield sites and boarded up houses but no one wants to live in high density housing.

Contributed to what?

What are you on about? We didn't 'award' ourselves anything. You joined a company, they asked if you wanted to join the pension scheme, you said yes or no. Yes we were fortunate to have final salary schemes but we had no reason to think it would ever be different for following generations. And the amount you got out was based on what you and your employer put in. If you were offered the same today would you say no?

I think the equivalent in future will be that millennials all extended their houses because they couldn’t afford to move, so the starter homes are even more expensive.

Everyone round here is doing the loft / extension because it’s cheaper than trying to move.

The problem is that when the pension’s were introduced, we had something like 9 workers for every retiree.

We now have 3 workers for every retiree.

In a decade it looks like it will be more like 2.

Which makes the ‘current workers pay for today’s state pensions’ system not work. Hence the introduction of auto-enrolment where people are saving and investing instead.