Are pensioners perceived differently now?

nonnie you post came across as slightly smug. That maybe not your intention but it is how I felt it.
It is easy from a reasonably comfy place to think others are just a bit lacking in common sense and that if it was oneself in that situation you would manage so much better! Maybe you or I would. Life has not always been easy but I have never ( yet) been rock bottom. So easy to be wise when you are not actually in the situation. I do it too!

People want to buy because:

-The average mortgage costs MUCH less than the average rent per month round here.
-You don't have to move again until YOU want to
-You can make it your own, hang your children's pictures on the wall etc.

When DH and I bought our first home we went picture hook MAD. We hung so many photos. Because previously we couldn't hang any. (We later took them all down and filled in the holes and went for a more tasteful display ). It felt like "home" .

The running costs of owning are a pain but often you can put jobs off for a bit and prioritise them. Its not as bad as finding another deposit and moving costs every 6-12 months.

nonatan2,
Perhaps we just have a different perspective on the same issue. My grandson is about to turn sixteen. He works in a local Bake shop for two hours after school as well as Saturday mornings. My D and SIL insist that a good part of the money he earns be put into savings. Since he started working (almost three months now), he's matured and his grades have actually improved.

It is not down to young people having the wrong attitude, they do not have the OPTIONS I had at their age and they are RIGHT to be disgruntled about it.

Many young people today mistakenly think they don't have options or they give up too easily. One thing I do know for sure....Being disgruntled is something that employers, educators, law enforcement personnel and people in general don't respond to positively. 'Disgruntled' is precisely the WRONG attitude to have if you want to succeed in life.

A generation of apathetic youth who accept the status quo is not good for any of us!

Many young people today mistakenly think they don't have options or they give up too easily.

They are not mistaken. They DO NOT have the options I had at their age.

They cannot chose to work full time at 16. They have to remain "in education" until 19, They cannot get a free 3rd level education etc. They DO NOT have the options and the headstarts my generation had. Thats not a matter of opinion..

The one thing that no on in this young/old debate does not take into account is that, whatever things look like now, it will be different by the time the young have, themselves, aged.

I used to do forward financial projections in the eighties when we were paying 14 percent on our mortgage. I used work out what interest we could have on our savings ( if we had any) at the, then, rate of five per cent.

Five per cent! Seems crazy now.

I could not have foreseen the Internet, mobile phones, social media, the financial crash or any of the delights we have had.

Lilyflower my bank sent me a "special offer" of about 1% on savings LOL
Hardly worth it.

Yes I do think "pensioners are perceived differently)for instance, we are all pushed into thinking/looking younger etc.In the big scheme of things we arn't!We are expected to be so different than our parents were.I did not expect my parents to help/pay/look after my two children.So ok mum would say "do they need anything this week?" Ok you buy one vest(or whatever,I'll buy the second one"At Christmas she would split her club money at the butchers with me.I thought it was wonderful!Otherwise you got on with it!(and I was an only child)I admit I buy an awful lot for my only grandaughter when I see she needs something,but thats my choice,and can afford it. Perhaps I am being a bit soft,but hopefully not being taken forgranted.We all feel we want to give our children more than we had surely? or perhaps we are wrong?

My parents did childcare for me, bought me a twintub washing machine when I had DD1 and took us on holidays, bought lovely treats for my children. If they had had the funds to give us more they would have done. It is how our family sees family! I hope my brothers and I are passing that attitude forward.

GN does I think make the amount of GPs doing childcare feel inflated because this is a place where GPs who do discuss it.

Its not uncommon but its also not the norm. In my DDs classes there were maybe 2 kids in each class whose GPs regularly did the school runs. The others either went to wrap around paid care or were dropped/collected by parents or sometimes older siblings.

So whilst not unusual its also not "the norm" it can seem like from reading GN.

I agree! Many of my DDs contemporaries say to me, in the playground, how they wished their families were closer and able to offer more support. I reply that it is 'swings & roundabouts'! My DGC have a close relationship with us but is is 'everyday,' whereas the grandparents who live at a distance are seen as very special and a big treat!

I was looking at this and rereading and started to think about housing. When I grew up the aim was that everyone should have a home of a decent standard, so yes there were standards for council housing, and regulations about rehousing families so that siblings of the opposite sex didn't share rooms after a certain age. There were still slum houses with no bathrooms and outside toilets but those were going to be updated or replaced. This was the philosophy we inherited and which was in operation. Today we have changed all that, housing is now a commodity which is there to make a profit from. In the course of doing that my generation have created families living in B&B accommodation and working people living on the street because they can't afford the rents being charged. No new council housing is being built because let's face it if you make more affordable rental property available you knock the bottom out the market and prices will fall. So the legacy we leave is unaffordable housing and more people homeless, and if the younger generation are only concerned with themselves, or alternatively despise us because we have no principles, who can blame them?

PECS it is of course up to you to think what you like about my posts but I often think that when someone interprets others' posts says a lot about them and rather less about what they have decided another meant.

Over coffee this morning DH and I were discussing this. Lots of reminiscing. Before we married I shared a bedsit with a friend, we cooked on 2 gas rings with a grill, we shared a bathroom with the couple below. It was very small and cramped and we didn't even have a radio. One small wardrobe between us. The point is that it didn't damage me for life, I have not given it any thought for years. It was while I was living there that we had a really bad winter and I walked 6 miles in the snow to work.

DH and I had a rented flat when we first married until we were able to buy our first house. There have always and always will be people who cannot afford to buy their own homes but it isn't fair to castigate others because they do.

We moved for job promotions, not everyone wants to do that. We worked long hours for no extra money, not everyone wants to do that. We made our choices, others make different choices. We have seen others in similar situations to us and to our children who have made choices which mean they are not in a position to buy a home.

To state that 'young people cannot afford to buy homes' is wrong. Someone is buying them, they are not left empty and they are not all owned by pensioners.

We should do all we can to help the disadvantaged but should also encourage people to do what they can for themselves and not sit back think that 'someone should do something'. I agree that some young people feel 'entitled'

Its easier to "slum it" when it is a means to an end and you can see yourself working upwards.

I did it. Shared a HMO where the rain ran down the INSIDE of windows and the bathroom was in an uninsulated unheated probably illegal extension. My "bedroom" was the dining room as we we crammed in.

I didnt moan because:
- it allowed me to save, I had money left over after rent (rents were half what they are for a HMO room now and savings interest rates were better)
-I was in a job that was funding me to get qualifications that people in the same field now have to pay for themselves.
-I KNEW IT WASN'T FOREVER!!!!: promotions in my field were easier got back then, training to enable progression was free (its not now). And moving up the property ladder was an achievable goal
- it was fun BECAUSE it was temporary. We were all there to save/train/access work experience. And we were young and there was nobody over 25 in your average HMO back then!

A TOTALLY different experience to your average HMO nowadays which now house families and older people who are stuck in that situation indefinitely.

Back when I shared a grotty HMO there were no families or older people there so we felt confident that we wouldnt still be in that situation in our 30s/60s. It wasn't the depressing hopeless state of affairs it is now.

HMOs were a starting point and a leg up not peoples final destination

Interest rates are often the counter arguments on here but lets quantify that. You can't compare rates unless you also account for prices

In the 90s a 2 bed house I know of sold for £40,000. It recently sold for £300,000

In the 90s the starting salary in my field was only about 3k less than it is now, and you could work your way up (basically walk in from the street, now you need a degree for the same job, self funded)

2% sounds pretty low right? Rates are very low at the moment, BUT, 2% of what? That's what matters.

£40,000 @ 10% for 25yrs = monthly repayments of £351.40
Just under half of the take home pay for the starting salary in my field at the time.

£300,000 @ 2% for 25yrs = £1,268/month. That is the ENTIRE take home pay for starting salaries in my field.

It is DEFINITELY harder to be young now!

I think some of the arguements seem one sided. So I will try and give another view.

Our first home was a brand new two bedroomed house, bought for £5000 in 1973, no garage, no central heatng and no appliances. My husbands salary was £1000 per annum

In the midlands a youngster earning £25000 could now buy a nice two bedroomed appartment for £130000 fully fitted out and a lower interest rate.

When I started work at 16, university was only seen as an option for the brightest academic students and the well to do families.

Now university is open to all, and for those that don’t want to end up in debt, there is the option of part time work around their study. ( I did my degree in later life while working full time)

I worked in the civil service. Maximum pay was not reached until 40 years of age. Holiday entitement was two weeks a year. Maternity pay was minimal and childcare was almost non existent.

Now, most people have 4 to 5 weeks holiday entitlement, maternity pay is generous and childcare is abundant and from three onwards all children get free hours.

Yes it was difficult then for some of us but we worked hard and made do. And yes it is difficult for some now but I feel the opportunities are still there.

In this country we are fortunate and we should appreciate the freedom and lifestyle we enjoy. There are less fortunate people everywhere let’s help if we can but not feel guilty for living a lifestyle we have worked hard for.

You don't need to feel guilty for what you have in order to feel empathy for people in a different position to you.

I worked for what I have. I was also LUCKY to have been able to do that at times when you could work your way up in life more easily than you can now.

Doesn't mean I didn't work hard.
Does mean that someone starting in my field now, working as hard as I did then, wouldn't get what I got.

In the past things may have been hard but they were on the up. Quality of life improved with every generation, until this one! The first generation statistically worse off than their parents.

Working hard with hope for better is easier done than working hard with no light at the end of the tunnel

Notanan2, not sure where you worked but training in my profession was and still is free and the opportunity to progress is different now but I wuold say no more difficult or easy. Performance related pay is designed to be fair and rewards hard work.

And no, one doesn’t need to feel guilty to have empathy, but many of us can be made to feel this way at times, when newspapers blame our generation for the woes of the young.

We're all to blame. Of course we are. They didn't inherit this society from a vacuum!

My generation bought into the "any property is good property" myth and there was a boom of amateur investment landlords in the early noughties who royally **ed up the rental market and it hasn't recovered! And created a rental system where tenants are just numbers on a sheet.

I didnt buy a buy-to-let at the time (despite strong encouragement from our accountant and financial adviser) but I also wasn't alarmed and didn't campaign for controls before it got out of hand!

Prior to that everyone was buying up council houses. No not everyone, but did the ones who weren't try to stop it?

I bought a property that had long term tenants in it before we bought it. We have all played our part. By how we voted, how we invested etc. I have only recently switched my pension into ethical funds, 20 years ago I saw it as a game, and played for the highest return and didnt even think to care what I was investing in.

If my generation and the generation before me were really blameless, things would look VERY different in this country right now.

I think there is still opportunity for promotion for those who work for it. DS is in a very hard to succeed profession but he has worked harder than some others and been promoted. Another DS decided to change career at the age of 30, went to college and worked so hard he got the prize for the best student. Now, 8 years later he is higher up the 'tree' that others who started straight from uni. Not easy but their hard work has paid off. I'm sure there are plenty more like them. The message that life is hopeless for young people is making some of them be negative. Understanding is helpful but lots of sympathy can make people give up.

Isn't it interesting how when you present an argument that is irrefutable (after all who did create the society where homelessness is on the increase if it wasn't us?) people immediately digress into how difficult their own lives were and how nothing was handed to them on a plate. And then you realise once again that that is what the young see sometimes. People who are stuck in the past, who are incapable of looking at things and admitting they got it wrong, that the property owning society was wrong because it did not provide for those who will never be able to buy and allowed the rental market to be completely unregulated. That houses are not just a commodity to be traded and let for profit but are something we should provide for everyone in a civilised society. Perhaps if we could admit our mistakes and attempt to make amends we would be treat with more respect

Sorry trisher, but my Grandparents owned their own houses, as did my parents, as do I and AC. So why is it the fault of my generation.

Throughout history there have been homeless and displaced people. That doesn't make it ok, nor does it make it this generation of pensioners fault.