We’re spending the kids inheritance

[Tuppenceabaggy]

Does anyone find it weird when parents/older people say this and so proudly?

Ive heard a few times people saying they sacrificed everything for their kids, now it’s their time…is this a bit selfish/odd? Children don’t ask to be born, do they.

Now i’m a parent, I just find my parents and some others way of doing things quite odd.

My dad worked in a good job and Dm was a sahm. I had a part time job since I was 14, if I wanted something, I had to pay for it (except clothes treats out of Christmas and birthday money) I paid for all my own driving lessons (I had a lot and it cost a fortune) I bought my own car and paid insurance etc, Dh and I got our mortgage ourselves with no help.

Now I have Dd, there’s not a lot of spare cash to go around, but I will have a savings account in the event of going to uni (if she chooses to) helping with driving lessons and first car and hopefully a little help with a first home (provided we can try our best to save for this)

I don’t want my parents money, i’m
happy to see them spend it on themselves and enjoy it a bit, but it’s just not how I see my life, everything I think about is for Dd first.

Is this just a generational thing?

I lost my job when I got pregnant, these days this would rightly cause outrage

unfortunately this still happens

Same

It is the "joy" my M gets out of saying it to the waitress that sets my teeth on edge. Like she is Lady Bountiful paying (rarely these days)

It is like the "work hard, play hard", "you dont have to mad to work here - but it helps" and "be there, done that, got the T-shirt" brigade - all think they are so hilarious in their sayings, but actually are teeth jarring

My MIL is like this. Totally hell bent on leaving nothing to her only child. The irony, every penny she has, which is loads, she inherited. She inherited so much she retired at 52. Life of luxury. But an attitude of being completely out for herself. She didn’t support her child past the age of 16.
My parents are the opposite as are we towards ours. My friends parents are like mine and none of them understand my MIL’s attitude toward her child.
But she is the most self centred person I’ve ever met, so I am not surprised.

I am a boomer. My DH died last year. We enjoyed the last years we had and did not worry about budgeting, although we did organise finances in the event of one of us dying. Our blended family will inherit what I now have but I will have it first and I will not stint on what I want now, I also have a life and my family is encouraging me to live it. By the time I die (likely) the DC's will be in their sixties and seventies, beyond needed any more from me (DH and I helped with deposits etc earlier), grandchildren will be well established and great-grandchildren will be in late teens early twenties and making their way as we did, their grandparents did and their parents did. There will be some inheritance which all can use but which they cannot fritter. But while I live I am entitled to live, not scrimp.
Some on here talk of the selfishness of boomers. We have worked hard for what we have. House prices were high when I was buying for the first time and women's income was not taken into account for mortgages. In the eighties interest rates were 15% - and the average mortgage was c. 60k on wages of about 11k a year for many professions. Added to that many of us were brought up in eye-watering poverty. If you would like to see what some working class life was like in the 50s and 60s Call the Midwife has good footage - it's accurate. The people you call selfish came out of conditions such as those. They worked hard to make sure their children did not suffer such conditions (my family spent many years living in one room in multi-occupied houses, with shared kitchens and bathrooms, for example). It's our money and we earned it. We can spend it. It's not yours.

Maybe a dick head thing, my mum is 57 and she does everything for us kids, I try to pay for anything and she sneaks the money into my wallet and then it goes back and forward for about 4 weeks before, usually me gives up and then it goes use it to buy a family takeaway. Which she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. She always says we are the kids and she provides for us not the other way around. She doesn’t have much nowadays but she said when she dies the house is a family house and we are not to sell it. I try to offer her money when she’s in a tight spot but she won’t have any of it.

I think it's a testament to how much time people spend on screens
Literally all of their free time in some cases.
They don't have time to cook 😂

You don't seem to be bothered about them spending your inheritance as the title suggests but more so that they didn't save for your driving lessons?

Maybe they didn't have it to save back then! My parents certainly didn't. There's a 10 year gap between me and my next sibling. Their childhood was dramatically different to mine! My parents had established themselves, begun to be able to save, had a redundancy payout, started a business!

I didn't go on holiday until I was 12, they were 2.

Same parents, same beliefs, different circumstances.

I want them to spend every hard earned penny before they go!

Sorry, barely did the school run either as we all walked there and back to school 😂 we’d get up, watch cartoons, mum put out the cereal and bowls, get ourselves dressed and walked to school.
Makes me laugh when my mum scoffs that I have a cleaner each fortnight as she just did a bit of cleaning everyday, of course she did, had all day to do it 🤷🏻‍♀️yet still the majority of parents had less involvement in playing with their kids, taking them out or doing extra homework with them or many clubs…parenting back in the day honestly looks like a breeze in comparison

It’s not just about interest rates, salaries also have fallen far behind inflation.

You see, for 14 years baby boomers voted in economically illiterate and morally bankrupt governments, one of which finally crashed the economy properly. Slashing the value of my DC pension. But the boomers don’t care because 47% of them are sitting pretty on their final salary pensions.

The boomers also voted for brexit, which has been an economic and social disaster.

Clearly you are correct.

The boomers also voted for brexit, which has been an economic and social disaster

You definitely better duck as people hate been reminded of this!

I think it's a testament to how much time people spend on screens
*Literally all of their free time in some cases.
They don't have time to cook *

Previous generations just spent more time
in the pub or smoking!

At the end of the day there are two types of people. The narcissistic types who think they’re special / worked harder / had it harder / didn’t have Netflix in their day. They are the type who will sit with loads of money in the bank, proactively flaunting it at the dinner table even when their adult children are of the ‘just spend it’ mentality. They love flaunting their wealth and not sharing it or they will only share with strings attached.

Then there are the parents who are generous in spirit. They might have a lot of money to give or nothing at all, but you know whatever they have to give they will proactively share with you at any time without you having to ask….whether it’s a meal, childcare or money….they share because they find happiness in sharing. These parents usually have a better relationship with their family, because they’re just nicer people imo.

This isn’t specific to boomers, it’s all generations

The reason I sacrificed to save and buy a house rather than renting was mostly so my DCs would have an inheritance.

I can't understand the mentality of people who think in parenting ends when DCs are 18.

Lol.. It's never long before "We had rates of 12%!!!"

Take the £64k 1990 house. What's 12% of £64k? £7,680. That's without deducting the £6.4k deposit that would take about 3yrs max for a couple to comfortably save. I was on £13.5k as a trainee at 18 in 1999.

Same house, now £780k at a bargain 5%. That's £39,000. And just the £78k deposit to save. That's not happening in 3yrs. Many combined salaries don't even total £78k.

12% of feck all, is not a lot of money. Whereas 5% of a large amount is. Without even considering the total repayable in proportion to salary increase.

If only the millennials just worked harder...

That sounds lovely. I hadn’t intended to generalise in my posts - just to indicate that some people clearly had been lucky re house prices etc and in those case it would be nice to acknowledge it.

The war generation cared about living frugally and felt some obligation to the younger generations arriving after them. They were principled and caring.

The boomer outlook is all about them. I can’t stand that ‘joke’ because I see it all of time in real life, literally spending every last penny - despite benefitting handsomely from their own inheritances and families.

Boomers are in their 60s and 70s. When we were in our 30s, we were stoney broke, worried about repossession and certainly not able to travel, go abroad or run two cars (two recessions in the 80s and 90s).

Now we’ve got 40 plus years of work behind us, things look very different. Stop comparing us now, with you now. Wait until you’re in your 60s and I’ve no doubt you will find things easier. We didn’t start paying into our pensions until we were in our40s and then when kids left home we overpaid our mortgage and stacked money into pensions.

And my parents were dirt poor ( born in the 1920s), got no inheritance from their families and we got no inheritance from our parents (renters for DH and care home fees for my parents). Your generation have much more chance of actually getting inheritance as Boomers are much more aware of estate planning now and more likely to have property.

We’ve helped our kids out with deposits, are available for childcare and often treat our kids. But it’s our money and we’ve earned it. Until I die, it’s not your inheritance.

Yes, they were drunk a lot of the time, around all the kids too and smoking in the house and car…oh and lots drink driving too..,I mean 🙈

If only the millennials just worked harder...

quite

@theresnolimits younger generations have less disposable income after housing costs then previous generations did at that age?

I agree, my grandparents provided very well, worked really hard and went without when younger for their families. They were very generous into old age too

They benefited from jobs for mice, property boom, gold plated pensions designed by them and propped up by the young. They say they ‘paid their dues’ without looking at the actual maths - if they did they would realise the taxes they paid and NI barely touched the sides, which is why the young today are unlikely to reach retirement at all, but don’t expect them to care.

They will blame 50p avocados rather than their own selfishness.

• life