Generational wealth differences

[KeenGreen]

My first AIBU so let’s see what I’m in for!

First to make clear none of the problems now are the fault of previous generations. It is not a blame game!!

So AIBU to be frustrated with the rhetoric that todays generations of young families have it no harder than previous generations in terms of wealth and they just need to be more frugal to have the same standard of living??

I am sick of hearing the idea that older generations. So called boomers (for the record I don’t like this term) didn’t have it easier than younger generations.

I am 38 I have worked since I was 16, lived independently since 17. Put myself through university all the way through to PhD. My husband is 39 works in a school as support staff (LSA) and takes up circa £1200 a month. He has a degree.
I work in a university and earn just under £50K before tax so our household income is probably about £65K not the lowest by any stretch but enough for us to struggle to balance costs. We claim child benefit but otherwise no extra help.
Husband only works term time of course, but that means he’s around for our child during holidays.

We have one DC age 5, and can’t afford any more.
Our closest family lives over 2 hours away, so we have no family support with childcare or help if there is a sick day or anything.

We have a mortgaged small semi detached 1930s house with 3 bedrooms, It needs a lot of work but we haven’t been able to do much because of time and money. Current mortgage fix ends in 2026 and I expect our mortgage repayments to go up by about 50% extra £300 a month.

We pay off student loans and my pension contributions are also high.
I took only 6 months maternity leave because I couldn’t afford to go to half pay for long and not into no pay at all.

My husband had virtually nothing in his workplace pension because of low earnings.
Mine is keep being devalued because of sector changes and it’s definitely not the best pension in education. (Teachers pensions are better).
I can’t even imagine what it will be like to try and live off my workplace pension alone and I would have to go all the way up to retirement age which I can’t imagine myself doing in a stressful job.

Retirement age for us is currently 68, that means we have 30 more years.
But with the way things are going I have no hope that there will be a state pension at all for us, or the age will be pushed even higher, so will probably be dead! Despite the fact I will have been paying in with tax national insurance for 50 plus years by that point.

I just feel frustrated about this idea that I hear people say that our generation just needs to work harder, or get better paid jobs etc because it’s not that easy. We both work hard in the education sector. Enjoy our jobs for the most part and find them fulfilling albeit stressful at times!

Like I said not about blaming previous generations for the picture we are in, but I don’t like the rhetoric of ‘well interest rates went up to 15% in my day’ etc when house prices were so much lower in proportion to wages and the cost of living right now and inflation over the last 10 years shows wages haven’t increased in line with this.

ps I know we are not the most hard done by! But still feel the pinch and we certain don’t live an extravagant lifestyle!

No, but there are plenty more benefits you can claim than back then - maternity benefit for example. Boomers fought for a lot of the maternity protection that younger people take for granted now. Back then you had to save to afford children. There was no holding the job open for you to return - and no wrap around childcare. There were child minders and family. And of course, that’s if you weren’t fired for becoming pregnant in the first place..

I am a boomer and I think nowadays expectations are higher.

Some are eg tech young people would expect to have a phone for example because society is meant to progress. I don't think many expect to have a cheap home, 2dc, to retire at 60, etc.

My DPs worked low skilled factory workers saved for 6 years and purchased a semi detached 3 bed for 21k with cash in their 20s. While living in the property, council. Rent and bills all included. Even when Mum went partime they saved and did no holidays for that time and were able to do cash purchase.

Me & DH higher skilled DH 60k. When I worked it was £40k now a FTSAHM. We Can't afford a house in cash as my parents did. Even after saving for 15 years. Rent is high, our council tax is very high and all the bills and food shops we save a small amount each month. We live within our means yet we still can't save enough for a home. By the time we save in cash the amount needed the house prices will have doubled and we will be in our 60s so it is an impossible feat. (We dont dont do loans for religious reasons)

I’m not blaming boomers. You can observe facts about what opportunities were available at different periods of history without apportioning blame.

Your point about mismanagement is valid I think but I don’t know that people can be so cleanly separated from governments - who elected those governments?

Not all families are having less than two children. There’s certainly a mentality amongst the poorer paid/benefit receiving families where they absolutely see it as their right to have as many children as they want. And having two cars is not a necessity just because two people are working. Ever heard of buses, trains? Wrap around childcare means parents aren’t on time constraints on dropping off and picking up school aged children if they’re working. My mother worked, but caught the bus to work every day, as couldn’t afford a second car. We were cared for by a neighbour before school, as no adequate child care back then. As I said, if the easy way is unaffordable, then you have to find another way to make it work.

@ploppydoppy I agree with you on the gentrification issue, I grew up in a South London street like this. Houses were owned by tradesmen, junior clerks, men in the print, driving instructors, with non-working wives or employed doing very low paid work - typing thesis at 1p per page. Today, it is home to actors, accountants, a third home for someone in the money market etc. There are many countries / areas where you couldn’t just rock up and buy a property. Some of the new builds in London are mainly occupied by foreign investors. It is a challenge for Londoners for their children to buy in London.

Thats not the point though. A generation ago they'd afford a lot more in their circumstances.

YANBU. My income alone is more than my parents combined income as a child. They were able to afford a 4 bedroom detached house with a huge garden. My mum was able to comfortably stop working for about 8 years when she had kids. That 4 bedroom house is now worth around 650-700k. We would never be able to afford it now. The fact is Boomers and Gen X got lucky in when they were born. If house prices and wages had gone up at the same rate they house would be very affordable for us.

Another colleague is currently selling his 2 bed flat in London, which he bought as a single teacher in the 90s. The flat is going for 1.2 million. There is no way a single teacher would be able to afford this flat now.

That's not to say that some people of this generation did not struggle. Of course it wasn't always easy but life was more affordable for them.

Baffled by those saying you need to maximise earning potential. Of course if people earn more life is going to be more comfortable. But it is never going to be as comfortable as it was for people on the equivalent income 20/30 years ago.

I think you’re missing the point entirely. For some people who don’t have a university degree, being a cleaner/TA/road mender etc WOULD be maximising their earning potential. OP’s DH has a degree, so maximising his earning potential would put them in a better position. My NDN is a cleaner and earns a good wage; it’s no longer just a low paid job.

He works in a private school and could earn more in a state school doing the same role but he is happy and settled and been there for 10 years.

10 years in and earns £1200 per month? WOW.

He could absolutely train to be a teacher and I have encouraged this multiple times over the years but he doesn’t think he’s capable or wants that stress and pressure. I feel I need to support what he feels comfortable with.

So he doesn’t think he’s capable and doesn’t want the stress, then why is his wife on a public forum blaming generational wealth and boomers for your households current standard of living? The issue is your husband is in a significantly under paid role which has been in for 10 years and has no desire to improve your living standards. I would be looking to divorce if I was you as when you both hit retirement age you will be in dire straights with his pension.

If the roles were reversed and the earnings were the other way around would there be this much push back on it? Especially with a young child?
Husband picks up the vast majority of the housework

Yes you would get the same response. There has been plenty of threads on here recently where a SAHP has mentioned their DH wants them to go back to work full time and the bulk of the replies have agreed with the DH.

You really need to stop deflecting from your current financial situation and blaming other factors when you have a DH who is bringing absolutely nothing to the table in terms of finances and this will only get worse so do something about it now and take some responsibility for your child’s future.

No, but there are plenty more benefits you can claim than back then - maternity benefit for example.

Well the equivalent to child benefit wasn't means tested back then. You can only get maternity pay if you are employed but alot more mothers will have been working and paying taxes vs the past as more mothers work and the average age of ftm is older.

Back then you had to save to afford children

This nonsensical, people had more dc back then! Why do you think people today don't save for dc?

There was no holding the job open for you to return - and no wrap around childcare.

Plenty of mothers today are still discriminated against and many are forced out of the workforce by high childcare costs & wraparound don't exist for every child.

This is a classic example of the lack of awareness though. 18% of a low amount is not too different to 6% of a high amount.

When your wages can barely cover the 18% mortgage rate, and people are selling their houses before the bank do it for them, trust me, things are very bad.

Some of you think those days were nothing compared to the issues you face today. Grow up. Every generation has dealt with financial problems - the only difference is we knew how to save, while the youngest generations have lived on cheap credit for too long.

The population at the time elected the governments who were going to make things easier/better for them. Obviously that’s always going to be the case. But it’s not the ‘boomers’ fault - they took what was offered at the time. You might not be blaming boomers, but repeatedly on Mzn, many do apportion blame to ‘boomers’. As if they shouldn’t have taken the life that was offered to them. Observing historical facts is obviously fine, but to blame the generation who benefited from it is wrong.

If everyone maxed out their earning potential then there would be no low paid workers like TAs carers hotel staff shop workers cleaners craft fayres and no volunteers for scouting conservation etc

My NDN is a cleaner and earns a good wage; it’s no longer just a low paid job.

Aint that the truth. If you take into account university fees there seems little point now in maximising work capability - it’s just being a mug and inviting slavery, especially when there is no guarantee of security or work after. I know too many student nurses who’ve just been told that their degrees are worthless - but they still have a lifelong debt to pay.

Exactly…why is he working as a TA when he has a degree

Come on. This is naive at best.
Both salaries and house prices were lower, nobody is disputing that!

However house prices have risen significantly more than salaries. In the 70s it was commonplace for a couple with only the DH working as eg a teacher to buy (with a mortgage) a good sized family home in a nice area. It's beyond impossible for that to happen now.

The rise in house prices has been contributed to by the generational wealth that OP refers to. So that couple from the 70s has benefitted from the rise of house prices through nothing they have done and are also from the generation that (in some cases) inherited at an age where they could enjoy it, or use it to invest in other properties which has pushed the prices up.

I will add if your husband does want to earn a bit more and doesn't want the pressure, stress and demands of being a teacher he could tutor for a few hours a week.

And successive governments employ divide and rule tactics to keep us at each others’ throats for having slightly more or less than the Jones’s next door, or benefiting more or less than the previous generation. So the super rich can enjoy their unfettered pretty lives, not caring about the rest of us, because no-one is requiring them to. We’re too busy squabbling. As evidenced by threads like thse on MN every day. It’s depressing.

What I can never get my head around with boomers is the selfishness
like they will see their kids and grandkids struggle yet still go on ten holidays a year and not help in anyway

the are very unique in this manner as all other generations before and after them
want to see their kids do well and thrive above all else

I think your mixing up different time periods here… I’m a gen x/millennial, talking about growing up in the 80’s with boomer parents, I don’t know of anyone who didn’t have a fridge in the 80’s and 90’s. Your answer sounds like what my folks would say of their childhood.

I can’t be the only millennial who went on holidays as a kid and went to places like Pizza Hut?

@KeenGreen The problem here is your husband, despite having a degree earns £1200 a month. It’s completely unacceptable that he’s so happy being so low paid when he has the capacity to increase his earning potential and improve your overall lifestyle.

re your husband having social anxiety , this is a modern phenomena. My grandparents came to the UK with nothing but a suitcase and had to work work work …. No opportunity for them to have “social anxiety” .

This seems to be a recurring theme from younger people, looking at pensioners and thinking they had it easy. But I just think each generation has its struggles.

I’m in my 50s. My Gran died 30+ years ago, comfortably in a nice flat in a nice area that she owned outright. But she grew up in abject poverty - her father died, her mother left, so she had to leave school at 14 to support her 3 siblings. She married a man who built a cottage for them, but they had no bathroom or toilet until their son (my dad) was 20. They took in evacuees and the 3 kids all slept in one bed. They had no car, no washing machine, no internal plumbing, no heating other than a fire in one room. And this was all pretty normal for the time. So yes, by the end of her life she could have been seen as someone who’d got lucky - own home, free health care, free dental care, nice pension, bus pass etc - but her youth was harder than most young people now can even imagine.

I think if you’re going to make comparisons, you have to look at the bigger picture, not just the circumstances as they are now.

As if they shouldn’t have taken the life that was offered to them

The shift towards selfishness and greed shown in this statement is exactly why society is collapsing and will only get worse.

They should have considered what it meant for the future of democracy, freedom and equality, and rejected it. Too few did (there were the odd one or two). All societies that aspire to longevity understand the need for checks, balances and counterbalances to power and greed. In the west, they have failed.