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.

My silent gen parents are absolutely broke. They have almost come to the end of their equity release, so that’s almost all gone, and live very frugally. So, it’s not all that generation.

Some info missing... retired on pensions and save a grand a month!!??!! £200K in investments over and above their pensions?

They must have scrimped and saved for their whole working lives to accumulate that much!

You need to adjust your expectations. Everyone does. There is one generation that did well out of the post war boom years. They lived through bombs, rationing and shit working conditions, restrictive social conditions and had no idea they would ever reap any unexpected benefits in their later years - many have not!

Look around you. See what fucking amazing things that generation developed and invented for you. Be as grateful you didn't have the negative things they lived through as you are resentful of the things they gained

@JudgeJ so you agree with me then? people did holiday & go to the pub.

Everyone also forgets MIRAS when discussing high interest rates in the past.

Why would you presume that? Neither my DH or I will inherit anything from our parents.

This, plus you possibly benefited from a much more "comfortable" childhood than they did.

Planning the same

The two years was not the total extent of the deposit, we both had savings. But the poster is moaning about her parents great standard of living and how easy it seems to have been for them. Maybe we had more opportunities to buy a house, but it was not an 'easy' life.

All this generational spite. What goes around comes around. Enjoy. It will be your turn next.

They are in their 70’s and you aren’t.

I wouldn't believe everything you read, Honestly. I'm a mid range boomer and my friends babysit/do school runs/childcare/volunteer/buy their children cars/give or load money for house deposits. Look about you and talk to people. There's a lot of bile in the media about boomers, little of it true.

Introduced in 1983 and bit by bit reduced and eventually phased out in 1999. At its peak it wasn’t very generous - it was applied at the rate of taxation of the higher earner - as an example a higher rate 40% tax payer with a mortgage of £60,000 saved around £1200 a year, which reduced as various reductions came into effect.

I still prefer it still existed @Rosscameasdoody

Hang on. What were their circumstances when they were your age? You can’t compare how they are now with how you are, presumably 25 if not more, years younger!
My own parents died very well off (and I benefited from that). But at age 40 the story was completely different! My father was a doctor but had almost a full year in hospital from a disease, my mother worked and had three of us all under ten, she says she’d sometimes have to decide between a pound of sausages and a dozen eggs. She had to borrow money for our uniforms.
Eventually through lots of work etc things improved financially and by the time they were in their 60s were quite well off. But my Dad worked til he was in his 70s.
So yes things may seem unfair, it is a different world now. My dad could afford, one his doctor salary, a big house in a good area. Now, my doctor sister could never dream of owning such a house. But it’s never crossed any of our minds to begrudge them this as you seem to be, despite you saying it’s the situation.
The house value is how the market is. To have £200k in savings is pretty good for two people on low wages - did they invest well?

My parents also benefited from universal family allowance/child benefit

Quite easily in the 80s/early 90s. ExH and I got our house for £48K, a 3 bed semi about 40 miles outside of London.

He was on about 12/15k, me 4K

😂

and you only have to read down the first few comments on the thread to see why that graph is misleading.

Grow up.

My parents are elderly and well off. Im not banking on inheriting anything, if either parent need a care home every thing will go. It will have to because I have no money to support them. Neither do I have the time or the will to live with them or have them live with me. I can't provide care because I'm working a full time job with no prospect of being able to retire. I can't afford it. If I do inherit anything it will probably go to my children because although they all work buying a house is out of their reach. I don't begrudge my parents their money. They worked hard for it. What saddens me is the generational erosion of living standards.

I think it’s a case of just acknowledging that there has been an anomaly, and within families trying to even it out a bit if you can.

Just the acknowledgment from a lot of boomers would be helpful - it’s the “we worked hard” as though previous and subsequent generations didn’t that is jarring.

Some boomers are obviously lovely, and grateful for any good fortune, and keen to help their kids.

But when you read on here about people who have already had that benefit of the housing market growth, final salary pensions etc, and then get an inheritance from their own parents, but decide they’re going to spend it all and leave nothing for their kids, that’s what can be quite hard to hear. In the past “generational wealth” was seen as just that - something you received but tried to pass on in turn.

Mind you, people did care for their elderly family themselves in those days too. Or the women did - men have generally had pretty charmed lives in that respect!

This 😅 Cry me a river. OP has more than many by the sounds of things. I'm in my forties and have parents with very little. What they do have I wouldn't expect. Our generation is full of people crying about how badly off they are whilst watching their parents not fritter anything away (and saving more in this case), presumably so they can pass the lot on to you. I would be telling them to enjoy it on a round the world cruise, not moaning that they have too much. I get that things were easier then, hardly their fault.

Do you mean the few shillings women were given just after the war? That was all the money many 'boomers' were raised on!

Or do you mean the Child Benefit, a whole pound in a time when women earned about half of what men did, and only just been 'allowed' to have control of their own finances, could still be forced to have sex within a marriage? It was, ostensibly, to ensure a child got fed!

That's how many of your parents and grandparents survived, as in had food put in their mouths. That's what Family and Child Allowance was put in place for!

Yes, imagine how much harder life would be if you had to support them financially. I have been there and its a strain in itself.

@SamphiretheTervosaur how come it's not still universal? Do today's children not need to be fed?