Superboomers - never had it so good!

FlicketyBWed 13-Aug-14 14:47:11

I agree with this post; it sums it all up. There will always be rich and poor, those comparitively well off and those struggling. Today's younger generation have higher expectations of what they need and want to enjoy a fulfilling life; it does not dawn on some of them (not all) that this will mean that they cannot afford a better house or indeed a mortgage to buy any house at all.

durhamjen I don't blame you for feeling maudlin. I'd feel the same. I hope what ever comes my way good, bad comfortable or well off I i'v still got my husband to share it with.

I think the majority of people of all ages work hard for their living today, as they ever did. Their have always been scroungers. I can remember my DPiL muttering about a certain neighbour who had been living the life of Reilly on the dole and a friend was outraged when she moved house and discovered her neighbour, the same age as her, hadn't worked for over thirty years after the local docks closed down.

There have also always been unemployables, people who for some reason have lives in such total chaos that they are incapable of going to work or holding down a job. Whether there are more of them now or we just hear about them more I do not know

What ever we have, we WORKED a long time for !!!!!!!!!!! ( I worked full time for 45 years ).

A lot of people can't even SPELL the word "work", let alone do some ! Let them get off their backsides and do what we had to do....provide for our older age, by not not expecting the world to give us a living and not wasting our money on "luxuries" every week like smoking, drinking, going out for meals, getting take aways/ready meals, etc. etc.

But in any population at anytime there are those that benefit and those that don't. look back hundreds of years and you will see a lot of old people living to extreme old age in comfort and leisure and many not making it to old age because of the effects of a life of abject poverty.

Now at least those at the bottom are guaranteed an income. Look forward 50 or 100 years and I really do not think we will see any difference. There will be some older people retiring into comfort and leisure and others that won't. Remember, until relatively recently occupational pensions were only for those in white collar jobs. In many companies manual and production workers either did not have the right to join company pension schemes or else had their own schemes that were substantially less generous so were completely dependent on the state pension.

Every generation has some things the previous generation did not have access to and will not get access to things the older generation did have.

Both my children are ostensibly less well off than we were at the same age, but both have a lifestyle we could not aspire to when we were that age. Neither of them is doing this on borrowed money and neither of them has expensive habits, but they take holidays, eat out, go away for weekends, go to the theatre and to shows and festivals and take for granted all sorts of other things for that we simply couldn't consider. On the plus size we had a better and more expensive house than they have - but mortgage interest rates never fell below 6 - 7% when we had one and were frequently much higher.

You cannot win them all.

Agree, russet. Because of the employment and jsa situation, workers have very few rights these days. My son works for the local authority and does flexitime. He ended up having to give them an extra weeks work last year because there was no way he could catch up without jeopardising his own work situation, and there is only so much time you can carry over from one year to the next.
My other son is a teacher so lots of us know how long the hours are that they work.

In the 1970's there were lots of manufacturing jobs that paid a decent wage and employees would get time and a half or double time for any extra hours worked. In addition, private companies, banks and the public sector would offer training to school leavers.

Today, this level of security has disappeared. My son often works 10 hours a week over his contracted hours for nothing and his basic wage is very poor.

Jenn The operative word in your post is ' some'. Just the same as some younger people are not hard up .

Jenn my son who will be 40 this year, will have his mortgage paid off by the time he's 55. He is paying into a good, private pension fund and has a very healthy lifestyle, so hopefully he will be able to enjoy a healthy retirement.

My daughter, just a year older, will never pay off her mortgage as far as I can tell and will doubtless have to retire at 67 living on the bread line.

But then one cuts his cloth, plans ahead and make sensible choices whereas the other .....

I was lucky to retire at 60, too, with a state pension and no mortgage after we'd sold the guest house and downsized. However, my husband died six months after he retired at 65, after 15 years of being disabled. I do not think my children or grandchildren will envy me.
Feeling maudling at the moment as it is my wedding anniversary.

Super boomer .......yes

. I retired at 60 ,mortgage free,with a good pension and I'm healthy.

My parents were never in this position and my son never will be!

I think I was so lucky to be able to retire at 60, most of my friends are having to work until 67!

So ,yes, as I drive up to the stables and tack up before riding out, chat about my holidays and enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle I do think some of us are very fortunate.

I would also add that, far from trekking in the Himalayas, visiting the Galapagos Islands etc many boomers and older people are providing childcare and helping DC financially. Besides that, many are the mainstay of the charity sector, giving of their time and expertise willingly and often at a financial cost to themselves.

I agree with so much of the (latest) above posts.

Eloethan, your 3rd paragraph about university and gap years is very pertinent; although most of us born in the 1940s would not have gone to university (even after a grammar school education) and had to work and pay our 'keep', neither did we accumulate a mountain of debt.

Your next paragraphs about credit is so true - credit cards were being pushed at us in banks, in stores, wherever you turned. It would have been so easy to have acquired huge amounts of debt just to have the lifestyle that many (as far as I could tell) younger people seemed to be enjoying. But it was all built on sand and pushed at us by ruthless people eager to earn their huge bonuses.

Same here. In 1973 we had put a deposit on a small semi - had to save regularly to show the building society we could a) provide a deposit and b) afford the payments. Interest was 13.5%, my name wasn't on the mortgage, nor were my earnings taken into account. We saved to have our first baby, only used the old banger of a car for travelling to visit parents, bus or walk to work. After divorce, I was heavily in debt by the time my fourth child finished university and gradually paid it off, then the money I was used to paying out on reducing debt was paid into AVCs to catch up on missing pension. I got used to living carefully, so being on a pension isn't hard, but I paid for my pension and am not living off anyone else's contributions. I downsized to a tiny house and have helped my children financially and with free childcare/babysitting, ferrying non-driving family around when needed. In what way is this 'having it all?'

I agree, Brenda! Married at 19, 3 children, back to university at 27, then 30 - 40 odd years of 12 hour days for both of us. I fully appreciate where we are now, though, both financially and with our family.

Sorry I continue.... We bought our first house in 1971 with a 2 1/2 annual salary limit. We had no fridge, a second hand cooker , two chairs and a new bed.
When our neighbours moved in I lent them my ironing board so they had a table to eat off.
My parents were a carer and a plumber but my brother went to university.
We supported one daughter through six years at university and paid our other daughters living expenses as her job did not pay a living wage.
Through luck and very careful budgeting over the last forever we now have no mortgage and both have good pension, worked very hard for.
I'm pleased with our standard of living but it's by our hard work and doing without. It was not given to us.

I'm a baby boomer. Got married at 21 and had children at 23 and 26

I was born in 1954 . I worked full time from my 16th birthday until I had my first DD 7 years later. When my 3rd DD started school, I worked part time until 3 years ago. My DH has worked since he was 16 and we have never had any hand outs, state or otherwise apart for child benefit which was always used for the children.

Before we married we spent 3 years saving a deposit for our first home. No meals out, no holidays, only essential new clothes. We didn't / don't drink or smoke. No gap years, no concerts or festivals. We bought nothing unless we could afford it then and there. We were paying around 15 % interest on our mortgage. It took us years to properly furnish our home.

Once the children arrived, things were much the same. Simple camping holidays and celebrations. Days out were fishing in the local park with a picnic. When we went into town for the day we took our lunch and drinks with us.

I could go on. I am not complaining, I have loved my life .

We have now arrived at a time with our mortgage paid off (which we did by paying extra instead of spending on other things). DH is still working . The children are grown up and looking after themselves and luckily have the same values.

I am not smug but I am proud of what we and our family have achieved. I do not take kindly to anyone telling me that we have had it easy.

flicketyb - can so agree with this in your post
And what the original complainant forgets is that that will be the pattern for the future. So many of today's couples if they stay together even with a less advantageous pension system will still be well off. It is the single pensioner, now and in the future who feels/will feel the pinch.
as a single pensioner - as lots of us find ourselves in old age - it is the burden of all the 'must be paid bills' with no economies of scale, only one tax free allowance and only one state pension (plus whatever extra pension we have managed to accrue) - the average figure for single women pensioners is income of around 12K per year (gross)
and even if we could afford a holiday we are hit with paying a lot because we are a singleton.
not complaining just stating the facts that even if we are mortgage free we are not rolling in 'loads of money'

Hear, hear! It couldn't possibly have had anything to do with bankers, irresponsible mortgage lenders, ease of access to eyewatering amounts of credit, so it must be the "old dears'" fault!
But one final word re bus passes - it seems you're damned if you do use them and damned if you don't!! If bus services in country areas are underused they are axed and everybody - young mums, students, people who don't have cars etc - would be the losers. So let granny on the bus I say!! (And some would say, keep death off the roads )

I think bus and train fares are too high anyway and that's why those with free bus passes are resented so much. Younger people probably also fear that by the time they reach bus pass age, the whole scheme may have been ditched.

I can see both "sides' " point of view.

I was born in 1950 and at that time it was quite unusual for young people from a fairly ordinary background to go to university, let alone have a "gap year". Not as many people had cars, owned their own homes or holidayed abroad. Many young people started work at the age of 16/17 and were expected to give something towards their "keep". Although there was hire purchase, I think it was some time before the credit card was introduced and used more widely.

In the last thirty years or so, credit cards were heavily marketed as the magic way to get whatever you want whenever you want it. So there was an explosion in buying on credit - holidays, clothes, cars, etc., and this became, for many people, the "norm".

When the whole thing came crashing down around our ears, we were encouraged to look for the "culprits" and these turned out to be, not the crazy, virtually unregulated banking system but: the "greedy/irresponsible", the pensioners, the unemployed, the immigrants, the public service employees, the "malingerers" - well, just about everybody but those that actually caused it.

Now that we have paid our mortgage and are both in receipt of fairly good pensions, I would say we are comfortably off (though I agree "ninathenana" it's probably unwise to be too complacent as who knows what the future holds). We have both worked quite hard, but I'm sure working people today, in the main, work just as hard, if not more so. I think we have not been more virtuous but more fortunate. But we have helped our children quite a lot financially and practically, as do many parents/grandparents.

Although many people these days have much more "stuff" than we had in our youth, access to the necessities of life is becoming more problematic. The homes being built now are much smaller and more expensive, rented housing is equally expensive and very insecure, energy and transport costs are a major part of the budget - and, most importantly I think, average earnings have fallen dramatically.

It's no wonder that people are angry and resentful but a shame that that anger is, in my view anyway, misdirected.

Inishowen - I'm glad you're happy and fulfilled, but your little grandchildren will be very lucky if they find that the fabric of society has not become extremely threadbare by the time they get much older. It's happening already.

What a lot of negative comments. I agree with the Daily Mail. We are happy and fulfilled since we retired. We have two little grandchildren. That's what it's all about, spending time with them. I feel a bit sorry for their parents. They both have to work to make ends meet. Nursery charges are horrendous, but parents can't afford to leave their jobs, because they'd never get back on the ladder again.

We are also the first generation where a considerable number of women worked and have state and occupational pensions of their own. DH & I would be living a much less comfortable life if we were living on DH's pension only. Because I worked, paid into an occupational pension as well as always paying the full NI amount and not the married woman' stamp, my pension contribution to the family income takes us from managing to comfort.

And what the original complainant forgets is that that will be the pattern for the future. So many of today's couples if they stay together even with a less advantageous pension system will still be well off. It is the single pensioner, now and in the future who feels/will feel the pinch.

His chauffeur takes the car to the bus stop where he will get off, and drives him from there to the door.