To feel resentment that my parents are so well off

[Lissm]

I know I will get flamed for this...
My parents are in their early 70s. My father worked in a factory in a low skilled job and was made redundant when he was 56, and retired on a full pension. My mother worked on and off as a cashier and stopped working at 57.

They have a house which must be worth close to £800k, purchased for £40k, and £200k+ in savings and investments. They are able to save at least £1k each month.

We have worked just as hard as they have but we will never have their sort of financial security. We have 6 months of savings and that's it.

I feel so angry that this has happened - not at them but at the situation.

I thought every subsequent generation would at least enjoy the same standard of living. I dread to think what is going to happen to my children.

I don’t remember when you could get 3.5 x both salaries, and I bought my first tatty little flat in 1984 because I couldn’t afford to rent. The rule at the time was 3x salary and 1x wife’s salary, on the unstated assumption she would get pregnant.

They can't. It's just me, me, me instead of getting on with their own lives.

How do people know what money their parents have anyway?
I never did and my dad would have said mind your own bloody business!

Ungrateful people, I hope no one gets left anything.

I totally understand where you are coming from, my in-laws are similar, my fil left school with 0 qualifications but got a job with a company straight out of school, he started from the bottom and climbed up, when he retired he was on around 130k, he received 200k and a final salary pension on retirement. My mil worked in a bank on the counter before giving up work to have children, she stayed home until her youngest started high school. She then trained as a social worker before eventually working in the local council in an admin type role. She retired at 60 after less than 20 years work as she had my fil's generous pension. They live in a 700k house 5/6 bedrooms, they bought it for peanuts in the late 80's.

My husband and I have professional jobs after many years of study, but we aren't even close to the house/lifestyle my in-laws have. I had to go straight back to work after each mat leave, we couldn't afford for me not to work (not that I wanted to stay at home). We only have 1 car 7 years old despite having very busy lives and 3 children to run around, a second car is an expense we don't want. Meanwhile my in-laws drive 2 brand new BMWs (not the little hatchbacks either), they switch them every couple of years if not more often! They don't actually go anywhere apart to require a second car 😆.

It's just frustrating because if we were born in a different time we would be well off with a big house given our jobs, don't get me wrong we are doing OK compared to many, but we should be better off than what we are with a much nicer house. My in-laws didn't help with house deposits etc (I wouldn't have wanted them to) but they didn't offer either. They are annoyingly smug about where they are and can really look down on people, I always want to say to them it's sheer luck and good timing that you arrived at where you are.

@WhiteDiamonds it's why so many ended up in negative equity/repossessions were higher because people overextended themselves.

But how do you know and what business is it of yours?

Does anyone still have final salary pension schemes open or have they all closed? The one my work offered closed when I was at uni.

Just curious. Will you all miss them when they die?
Or had jealousy and resentment cancelled out love?

@Petitchat just curious, did you read the OP?

I bought my first house in 1996, I did it with a cash back mortgage. I paid a 5% deposit and immediately got it back which I then used to pay for my wedding.
The 5% deposit came from 3 years of student loans which I didn’t spend as I also got a grant.

Yes, and I got my violin out.

They caught the gravy train — we’re clinging to the last carriage, paying triple the fare.

50K is not a massive amount of money in the grand scheme of things.

One thing to remember is that a lot of older people were born when times were harder, and had values instilled in them from parents who were born when times were harder still, and there was little social safety net like today.

I think the advert on TV says that peoples attitudes to money are set when they are very young (below 10 years of age) and probably mostly influenced by their parents. So someone having a very frugal parent it is likely to impact their attitude towards money throughout their life.

Someone living like a pauper with 50K squirrelled away probably isn't that unusual, or that indicative of a dysfunctional a relationship with money.

Someone doing the same with millions while their kids struggle definitely qualifies for dysfunctional in my book. But for the miser/hoarder with a dysfunctional relationship with money and a deep irrational fear around financial security, no amount of money will probably ever be enough. It's a mental issue more than anything.

How do you think people know these things? Because they are told. Or are you imagining people like OP rifling through her parents post hoping for a reason to get upset?
I'd quite happily be oblivious to how much my mum has spent on holidays so far this year. And yet she's told me. More than once.

Exactly. Would you prefer it if they were destitute?

I have a final salary pension, it’s shite. It matures next year and I’ll still be working until I’m 70.

I don’t know why people think it’s such an amazing thing, the value still depends on what you were earning at the time, and in the public sector that is usually very little.

After a lifetime of experience and skill I’m still only just earning over minimum wage and I’m nearly 60.

Also, not everyone’s parents were rich, even if they were “Boomers”.

Your MIL sounds like a gold digger. Squirrelers that dont work are the worst. imo.

@Petitchat maybe get a book out & work on that comprehension...

Of course I have heard of them but don't know anyone who got one and certainly when we bought our house, my siblings bought their houses and friends bought theirs they were unheard of

@DaffodilValley you don't understand why people think final salary pensions are good? Really?

@mydogisthebest so you have heard of them but because none you knew had one you are questioning them? This thread is batshit 😆

We were refused a mortgage initially in 1979. Why ? We both had full time permanent jobs but I was disabled and the building society weren’t convinced that I would be able to continue to work - even though there was nothing to say I couldn’t - they didn’t appreciate the difference between disability and illness. And I was a civil servant at the time - practically guaranteed a job for life if i didn’t commit treason !!

My parents intervened and went as guarantors and even then the building society would only work on their terms. We were going for a new build so they limited us to a two bedroom house with no central heating instead of the very slightly bigger three bedroom (third bedroom was a box room ) with central heating we were going after. At the time the difference was only a few hundred pounds. These are things they would never get away with now, and yet at the time they wielded the power.

We were limited to 2x my DH’s salary and 1.5 mine, so all this talk of 3.5x salaries and being able to get more if you were prepared to pay higher interest rates is in the realms of fantasy.

They caught the gravy train — we’re clinging to the last carriage, paying triple the fare.

😆😆

I am a similar age and I am skint, this is because I was a single mum who never got any child support and paid for everything for my child so there was never anything over to invest. Like all age groups and demographics there will be huge differences between different people becuase guess what? people lead very different lives. They have different skills and do different jobs that pay different salaries My friends who have a partner are much better off than me, live much more finacially comfortable lives in much nicer homes in much better areas, that is just the way life pans out. I do agree that home owenership is very difficulty these days and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency as does the rental market but to blame everyone over a certain age is simplisitic

That’s exactly what happened with a lot of people especially when the interest rates went mad. If I remember correctly they went up to something crazy like 14% at one point.

I feel your pain! I just cannot imagine sitting on the money and not helping my family when it would have mattered.