To think it’s selfish for parents to retire early when their kids are renting?

[Lesbeavinu]

Dh has decided he is going to retire at 59. He has a great government pension and private pension/savings. He earns a decent £50k a year (same as me) and we have no mortgage.

I said that dh should continue working for another year or 18 months and gift the money to dd for a flat deposit.

We worked, we saved, we paid tax. Please leave us alone. Sick of the nonsense being thrown at boomers (a 20 yr age band).

Try reading the post you quoted.

Yep. I’ve helped my ACs and GCs, but I wouldn’t have allowed their circumstances to dictate my retirement date. 🙄

Totally agree with BearF75

It’s about time your ‘child’ grew up and stood on their own feet

Not another one who makes everything about themselves and takes personal offence to factual information.

Here's one link just for you with some info'. There's plenty more available online:

You have your opinion I have mine, based on personal experience. MN seems to have lost sight of the fact that in later life everyone reaps what they have sown in their younger years, in the rush to blame boomers for all the worlds’ ills. We didn’t have equal opportunities, paid maternity leave or protected rights if pregnant or disabled, to name a few. Lots of benefits younger people enjoy now were fought for by our generation. As I said, everything is relative.

No idea what your opinion is @Rosscameasdoody as I wasn't replying to you but you can always have a look at the video I linked to the other poster.

I saw this and it struck a chord with me.
We help our kids no end. I think their generation have a totally different attitude to money than ours. For instance they think nothing of spending hundreds a month on nails ,eyebrows, socialising, coffee's, ASOS and Amazon deliveries all by a click on a computer screen or a tap of a card. I question why when I've worked for years shouldn't we have a worry free retirement a reward for being financially careful.

@Rosscameasdoody Most people posting here will have had maternity pay as it’s nearly 40 years since introduction. We also had mortgage relief and DH and me had a combined income of £8500 in 1978. So before tax, NI and pension contribution I guess we lost around 1/3 of that. Easily afforded a 3 bed semi in the SE. It was relatively cheap to buy and we quickly upgraded to a detached house with 4 beds when DH had accounts after becoming self employed. It was significantly easier than now. That’s why we have been able to buy at a very advantageous time and are financially secure. Many DCs now cannot save as rents are high and cannot always live with parents.

We are in this situation. DH has been told by doc that he really needs to retire early from stressful job that might affect his health if he continues. We have saved and are financially able to do so…but he keeps wondering if he should continue working in case dc need financial support. We have to think how would they feel if he continued and it did affect his health? Also, might it not be better for them to have to work/save for deposits, and they’ll appreciate it more? Also, isn’t there always going to be something even adult kids could use? He has colleagues still working when they should long ago have retired because things just keep coming up for their adult children.

Exactly!

It's never about the dd's flat.

I expect wife is totally pissed off dh is retiring and she's not.

The only question to ask is, whether wife will continue working an extra 12-18 months beyond retirement to help pay for the darling grandchildren?

bravo

Not selfish at all! What’s selfish is expecting someone to postpone his retirement for this. It’s great to be able to help out your kids where possible but certainly not at the expense of one’s own happiness. Your husband deserves to be able to retire early if he wants to because he’s clearly worked hard to get to this point. Perhaps you can work an extra 2-3 years or so to help out if it really worries you? Helping out financially is a lovely thought…I would definitely help my children out if I was in a position to do so but it shouldn’t be expected of me and I certainly wouldn’t be postponing my retirement to do so.

It's his life and his choice , just like you have choices as does your daughter.

My DH is retired - he can do what he chooses - his DF died at 61 , my Mum at 64- I have had a cancer scare in my 50 s and intend to retire in next couple of years and enjoy the rest of my life

Will I help our teenage DS16 - probably - because I want to - that said. I expect he will work and save and want us to enjoy our retirement together not expect us to fund him

This is a bit like my husband thinks I’m ‘tight’ because when my daughter has kids in the future, I don’t want to look after babies and toddlers for 10 hours a day so that her life can carry on as normal. It was a ridiculous suggestion of mine to suggest that he could bloody well do it then, but there you go.

Same here! Retired at 55…never a dull moment!

Why would you look after grandchildren every day? So many odd views on here. No recognition that helping is a nice thing to do. Most families pull together if they can. Of course people need some time to themselves but all this anger directed at their dc isn’t what I see in daily life.

Did someone gift you a deposit when you were starting out? It’s good for people to earn their own money and forge their own way in life, not be bailed out constantly by the bank of mum and dad. Why should your dh work longer to subsidise your dd? I’m assuming he’s worked all his adult life, he’s entitled to retire when he’s ready.

Didn't bother clicking on the 'boomer economics' thing because these sort of sweeping generalisations always ignore the significant minority of that age group who have always struggled financially and still do. Even worse, their plight is almost always ignored, because to many people they don't exist due to the false narrative of "all boomers are rich". And it's not usually down to 'poor life choices' and more because in every generation there's people who've had shit life events happen, and also there's lots of low paid jobs that someone has to do.

The man who seems to be presenting those YouTubes clearly is in a privileged bubble and is either assuming everyone is the same as him, just because they're a similar age, or deliberately ignoring the unlucky people of his age group.

As I said earlier on this thread, if people want to generalise,The age group in the most relative poverty is 60-64

Although personally I don't like generalisations, by age or anything else, as there's too much variation within groups. As this below shows

The other noticeable trend is that inequalities within older generations are some of the most extreme in society.

Husband has the right to make his own life choices.

grumpypedestrian · Yesterday 07:21
People on here really don’t get the reality of the difficulty in home ownership for the younger generation.
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Reality is a lot of people will have been forced to live in multiple homes, so gone through the financial and emotional stress of being forced to move through no fault evictions.
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The property ladder concept is outdated and no longer works for younger generations due to rental prices and deposits.
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I absolutely would help our child, we’ve been through the same (both mid 30s) and have experienced the difficulties ourselves.
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The ‘just work harder’ idea just shows how out of touch with reality some people “

Oh stop it. Of course we do. Ours are 29 and 21.

we are currently going through the downsizing process and will gift them each a reasonable sum when we complete (which our parents were not in a position to do).
Our eldest is married with one child and owns their own home through help to buy. Our youngest has just finished their degree and is looking for their first professional role.

My husband is 65 and disabled, works full time. I’m 60 and able bodied. We’re mindful that at some point we will probably need professional help, which we will pay for with what we have left.

The idea of home ownership was a dream to both of us when we were 20. Both sets of parents lived in lifelong council tenancies.

That's the issue. The shameful lack of social housing.

You're a loving mother and I would ask hubby the same, at the same time respecting his decision not to agree to do it.

People on here really don’t get the reality of the difficulty in home ownership for the younger generation.

It's not only the young though. There's around 2 million private renters over 50 (and 4.6 million people 50 and older still having to pay off mortgages).

I quoted from statistics in my previous post (that inequalities within older generations are some of the most extreme).

Generalisations by age are unhelpful and detract from the real issue. The real issue is as MrsSkylerWhite says
The shameful lack of social housing.