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!

The main things here are -

Housing costs in some parts of the UK are huge- to buy or rent. You have my sympathy there.

A single salary no longer buys a house in the SE (unless it's a 6-figure salary and even then it's not enough.)

Your husband is earning next to nothing.

if he was on £35K your life would be easier. He's underemployed.

This is what I can't understand. I wouldn't be buying a new 6 bedroom house whilst my kids are trapped in expensive cramped rentals.

Not all families are having less than two children.

Look at the birth rates! There are more 1 dc families than the past.

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

Not everybody works near a bus or train that services their workplace or works traditional hours. Of course there are time constraints, after school club runs till 6pm, not every working parent can make that & again there aren't places for every dc.

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.

I think many would rather a neighbour care for their dc...

House prices were lower back in the day but so were salaries.

Of course, the key element is the ratio of wages to prices.

I think the OPs post and other comments on here are typical of the current generations’ self entitlement. Ironically they think the ‘boomers’ were selfish, when in fact the current generation are all about ‘me me, me’. They want everything, with very little effort involved. We’ve become a nanny state, where no one takes responsibilty for their own life choices, and just want everything handed to them, blaming previous generations.

What jobs do you do? I'm thinking for my DC that having a degree isn't necessarily the right pathway

For those on here disputing that younger generations have it harder than those before us, how about some facts about just how difficult it is these days for people trying to pay their mortgage vs previous generations:

www.leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk/_resources/pdfs/press-pdfs/press-releases/housing-is-now-at-its-least-affordable.pdf

@ploppydoppy Child Benefit was only a universal benefit from 1975. Before this, there wasn’t a payment for the first child.

Surely if everyone achieves their earning potential, there will be no one to be a TA? Do we not want people with high quality skill sets working with our children? People criticising I bet are also the first ones to moan about TA’s who make spelling mistakes and make speak in a grammatically in correct way. Surely the side is how we pay certain jobs and what society deems as worth higher pay.

This is a very lazy, stereotypical generalisation. How do you know what each set of individual elderly parents give their children? Many have provided all sorts of help, both practical and financial.

In our case we paid fully for a wedding, generous house deposit, recently the equivalent of a decent house deposit as a gift. This is before helping with childcare. In retirement you're very aware that you're in the last years of your life and many elderly people are bored and like the distraction of the odd holiday and why shouldn't they? Maybe they do actually help their children too and if they don't maybe there's actually a good reason why not. It's certainly not 'one size fits all' as you are stating.

I agree with previous posters who point out that you have chosen to have one partner (your husband) on a low wage job which he enjoys as it’s less stressful. That’s your lifestyle choice. Your living situation sounds similar to very many others from previous generations. I think that viewpoints on Mumsnet are often skewed by posters who have parents who bought houses in the south east London bubble. There are very many people from older generations who were born and brought up in Council houses and it’s not their fault that the Government of the day chose to sell them off. Also in1975 only about 6% of the population attended university and got a degree.
I agree that todays generations have it very very tough but I agree with a PP who said it’s lazy thinking to blame previous generations for the awful Government choices that we’ve had in the last 15 years.

They don't sound very average, seem fairly well off anyway, probably similar to the ones that are on the property threads here discussing their huge kitchens. To get the windfalls from the mutuals, I think you needed £100 in each bank or a mortgage, you also needed the spare money to buy shares and not many people retired at 50 or 55 unless in good jobs

Does anyone wonder why younger people do get pissed off at some of the rhetoric from older generations? I am old and find some of the crap & denial spouted unbelievable.

The idea that the majority of older generations were more frugal, prudent & sensible with money and never relied on the state is nonsense. If that were true we would not be in this economic shit show!

Boomer bashing is certainly not my intention.

I did try and say it shouldn’t be a blame game, I accept that there are difficulties of different generations.

But I get frustrated with the idea that things were harder in their day because interest rates were 15% etc

I have seen both sides of this across MN least of in this thread. But what spurned me to post today were comments on a BBC article
saying in my day things were harder etc
There was a comment complaining that they were 64 and had to wait until 66 to get their state pension. I felt that for me and people younger than me that have 30 years or more until retirement age of 68 it will take a miracle for their to be any state pension.

I read that article @KeenGreen .

She made a fair point that her generation did have to save and also they didn't expect then what is now considered 'essential- ie holidays, subscription TV etc, mobile phones, eating out , etc.

Your problem is mainly the low supply of houses to buy and therefore the cost is high.

Your husband. He's got some MH issues from what you say and has taken a very low paid job as this is all he feels he can cope with. He's not an equal partner in terms of his earnings and now most couples do need two incomes (both median salary) to buy a house.

You're lucky you can buy a house on your combined income because in many parts of England that is not even possible.

Where I live, a 1-bed flat is £200K+ and a 3-bed semi is at least £450K.

In my experience the most expensive years are when you have a young family and are often towards the beginning of your careers. Bringing up a family is expensive. I'm a boomer and when my DC were young I really scrimped and struggled to make ends meet. No UC top ups in those days. Mortgage rates went up from 10 percent to 12 percent overnight as we tracked the Exchange mechanism. There weren't fixed rates in those days, everyone was on the variable rate. We didn't live near to any family either. Nearest were almost 160 miles away. My Mum sent me money for food for about 6 months. I worked 25 hours a week and DH worked about 50-60 hours a week. As DC got older DH got a promotion and I went full time. Things became easier. The Government stopped tracking the Bundesbank. Mortgages came down over the years to about 7 percent. DH and I started to build up our savings. Now I'm older my kids are all living independently in their own homes and I am comfortable. This is the cycle. I often wish I could have afforded to take my DC on holidays when they were young but I just couldn't afford it. Now I can afford to pay for my DC and DGC to come on holiday with us. I've been able to afford to help DC with their house deposits too. You are finding it hard now but your DH is earning less than NMW. He'd be far better off training to be a teacher. There is a teaching scheme where you train on the job in a school. He'd still have school holidays off with your DC. He'd be earning double what he makes now and paying into the Teachers Pension Scheme. Why doesn't he step up for his family? I don't expect my exh wanted to work 50-60 hours a week when our DC were younger but he did it for his family. You'll find as your DC gets older and doesn't need so much out of school care things will get more manageable for you. With only 1 DC Ince she's grown up you'll be comfortable. You'll be able to afford much more. I always think it's a huge shame that parents have most money once their DC are older and left home. It's just the cycle.

Child Benefit was only a universal benefit from 1975. Before this, there wasn’t a payment for the first child.

Yes, therefore many boomers received it when they became parents which was my point.

🙄

@KeenGreen , I’m 61 and I don’t know who is saying that young people today don’t have a more difficult time financially than we did, it is clearly not the case.
In turn our generation had it harder than our parents and it was their generation in my opinion where it all went wrong. Up until my parent’s generation a man in a quite ordinary job could support his family and usually his wife stayed at home looking after the house and children. My grandfather worked at Fords Dagenham a pretty lowly occupation but supported his family on his one wage, in their case they rented. The Second World War bought a massive change, men went off to war and women took their places at home in factories and other jobs towards the war effort. When the war ended many women found they were no longer content to be homemakers and wanted to continue to work. There was a need for them too because not all the men came back of course. Women going out to work meant that people could afford to spend more on housing be it renting or purchasing which was inflationary. Housing costs are the largest drain on a family’s finances. By the time my husband and I bought our first home housing was relatively much more expensive than it had been for our parent’s generation and in turn it is now much more expensive for young people than it was for us.
I would add that relatively speaking the cost of food is much cheaper now than it was for my grandparents but their lives were so much more simple and they had none of the financial demands of modern life, cars, holidays, computer consoles and extra curricular activities.
I worry for my grandchildren, your children.

And should we talk about MIRAS?

It's this attitude which is the problem. There is a decline in society and it started with the boomers. Greed and selfishness.
The only generation who resents their kids for having anything they didn't.

It never gets mentioned when discussing the 18% interest rates.

Yeah but people don't want to hear it. This thread shows that. They like to believe that the wealth or financial comfort is due to hard work and good choices. Which obviously play a role. But you can work hard and make good choices now and the wouldn't pay if like they have for the baby boomer generation in particular.

People will always come back about high interest rates in the past or inflation. But it's bit comparable. House prices as a % of salary were significantly lower. Then they rose massively giving significant wealth to many. In addition younger generations now need to get into substantial debt to get a degree for jobs which did on the job training for previous generations. Starting off adult life in a worse financial situation. But yeah it's all the coffees people buy!

Speaking as a tail end boomer i can say that some things were hard (there was a lot sterner attitude by banks regarding financial hardship) and no one gave a rat’s arse about your mental wellbeing but … mortgages were 3 times your salary (mostly achievable with a small bit of savings) not the 8 it apparently is now. I bought my first property in my late 20s as a single person, on a bog standard secretary’s salary. I don’t think that could be achievable today. Jobs were easier to get, no being dumped in the algorithm bin before anyone has even looked at it. Casual jobs were super easy to get, just walk in, enquire, start the next day. When I left school at 16 I had no idea what a CV was and went straight into the Civil Service knowing nothing about anything. That wouldn’t happen today.

I was a kid in the 70s and both parents worked full time as teachers. I remember things being grim financially.

They couldn’t afford two cars even though they kind of needed two to get to work, so dad had a moped. I think most middle class families now would have two cars if location/work meant they needed it. We never went abroad/had holidays. Food was really expensive and many meals consisted of left overs. Stuff was expensive. I remember mum saying when they first got married they sat on deck chairs for a year while they saved to buy a sofa. In the early 80s a VCR machine was £700 which was a months wages. Dad used to make yoghurts every week as they were considered too expensive to buy. I remember mum crying over the gas bill.

Now it’s like things have flipped. General stuff has got cheaper compared to the 70s and 80s, but houses are more expensive and relatively wages have got lower over the last decade or so. I wish for first time buyers sake that property prices would fall but recognise that would affect people who have already bought. Wages need to go up for sure, we’re a low wage economy. Dd is thinking of moving to Canada and is on 22k here but would be on 90k (dollars) there. But then stuff over there is more expensive 🤷‍♀️

Nobody has to meet their potential. They can cruise on by enjoying their wok/life balance. But taking three/ four years out of the workforce to do a degree and acquiring the debt associated with a degree and then emerging to work pt as a TA is a very expensive way of going about life.