Boomers - The Luckiest Generation?

...also on Mumsnet they complain about being called into work for a meeting after having got used to working from home in their pyjamas and being poor on salaries well into 6 figures. So unfair!

mabon, we bought our first home in 1963 for £2950 ; only DH’s £1000 PA teacher’s salary counted and we could borrow 3x that amount. The £18 a month mortgage didn’t leave much but we were so pleased to have our own home that nothing else mattered. As it was a new build house we only had to put down 5% as deposit, otherwise 10% was required and would have taken longer to save up. It was hard but much harder now for the young, especially as rents are so much higher as a proportion of earnings,

What bothers me is that those of us with homes and a decent pension will, when we die, fuel the divide between those who have and those will struggle all of their lives. Actually, I'm with those young people who feel angry that they struggle to leave home to rent let alone buy their own home whilst those with the bank of mum and dad get a leg up on the housing ladder and aren't spending most of their salary on rent or having to live with parents.
I don't know how any young person with university debts and reliant purely on what they earn can afford to live in some parts of the country. Our daughters are fortunate enough to have been left money by grandparents and been able to raid the bank of mum and dad (with our blessing) and although single have their own homes. They certainly recognise how fortunate they are but they have friends who are just as bright and hard working who frankly struggle. This is not a healthy way for a society to be.
Yes, life wasn't as comfortable for me as a child as it's been for my children and I'm glad of that. We had tough times as a country but at least I felt most of us had the same struggles, that's just not true these days. In the 60's we started to see opportunities opening up for people regardless of who their parents were and I was one of those who benefited but over the past few decades I've seen that opportunity diminish and we are poorer in many ways as a country for it.

We were happier in the 50s and 60s for sure, simple pleasures, we were just kids being kids, we had very few pressures and very little money.

On the question of the travel pass , I use mine every week to volunteer at a local authority run tourist venue . The work is really enjoyable and it helps to generate ticket sales While there I shop in the local town . I like to think everyone’s a winner !

Those of us born in 1945 and just prior to that are not Boomers.

We're either The Silent Generation so should put up and shut up 🤐 or War Babies.
I'm not sure where I belong in this new order as I wasn't born in the war or in the post-war boom.

This rather uninformed Mumsnetters perhaps thinks that Boomer refers to those who were born in boom years of bounty and plenty but doesn't understand Baby Boomers means the years after WW2 when there was a sudden boom of babies when the men returned home from war.

I was born in 1949 and lived with my widowed grandmother and my single mother. Money was very tight. No heating beyond a coal fire in the living room, no running water apart from a temperamental geyser [scary] over the bath. Tin baths in front of the fire. No fridge, no TV, just the radio, no car, no holidays, no large presents for Christmas or birthdays...biggest one was a pair of skates!
My first holiday was when I was 14, just a few days in a boarding house, before then only coach day trips. I had to leave school and forego an Art School place, we needed my pay.

Mum [always working full time, didn't see her much] had put some money away for me so by the time I met my husband it went towards the deposit for our first house and in no way did we think it was cheap then! Basic house, just what we could afford, needed work. Money was very tight. We had no washing machine, no carpets just old lino, no central heating, no takeaways, no telephone, an awful rented tv, any holiday was in a tent or grotty caravan, no credit [we saved]. Husband had a scooter, then moved up to a Reliant Robin! Eventually a series of old bangers.

When sons came along I always had to work part time in the evenings, no childcare available in the day and wouldn't have afforded it anyway. So I wasn't able to put them to bed, I really missed that.

Life/money has always been difficult with struggles at different times for different reasons...no foreign holidays or cruises here, no fancy cars, no pampering weekends at a spa, no amazing clothes. Now on the old pension [much lower than the new one] which never gets a mention. I wouldn't survive if I hadn't had an inheritance which I couldn't touch and I've had to invest to get an income from.

However I feel happy that I played in the street/parks and had lots of freedom, that I ate good fresh cooked food, and that I was happy with what I had that I didn't and don't need 'stuff' to make me happy. I watch people spend god knows how much on cars, furniture, holidays, clothes, hen and stag do's, smart phones, tattoos, nail, hair and body treatments, hours in coffee shops, expensive weddings/honeymoons, £100's on their children's Christmas and Birthday presents, gadgets etc. etc. and know that I could never have what I have now if I'd lived like that.

So I'm lucky my early years taught me to save and to appreciate what I have and no need to impress anyone with 'things'. I had a happy childhood, lovely friends and was brought up properly, to show respect and to have manners...those are the main things. Now I have a modest home with a garden, I enjoy a simple life and have enough to eat. I think I've earned it, so why should anyone begrudge me that.

I was born in 1946. I wonder how many of the younger generation who criticise us would liked to have lived as we did.
We had one coal fire in the living room which heated the boiler above. The fire had to be laid with paper, wood and coal every morning and the ashes cleared out in the eveing. No central heating!
If the bedroom was cold we used an old earthenware pop bottle to warm the bed.
We used a dolly tub and posser (remember those?) and clothes wringer for washing our clothes untill we bought a twin tub washer.
If we wanted the loo it was a trip down the back yard come rain, shine or snow. Oh it was luxury when we had an inside bath and toilet installed.
NO freezers. No television. Not for a long time.
I wonder if they could forgo their cars these days and catch a bus everywhere as we did.
Our holiday was a week in Blackpool at a B&B every year.
Oh happy days. I did have a good childhood.
Despite everything I think we were happier then. We didn't have a lot and neither did we expect a lot, unlike some of today's generation.

I would remind the younger people who are criticising us " boomers" that they, one day, will be pensioners and whatever is taken from us today will not be reinstated for them in the future so they need to be careful of what they wish for

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...... and most of those ungrateful tykes have inherited, or will inheri, the homes their parents obtained so easily - from no sacrifices and easy money of course!!

Maybe if they didn't spent money on unnecessary things ' i.e. multiple cups of take-away coffees, bottles of wine, dining out, multiple holidays, massive tv's, expensive mobile phones - they might be able to save a deposit on a property.
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I’m a boomer born 1957 and I think although we had our challenges we also had some amazing chances with education, world of work and getting on the housing ladder that are just not available to our children or grandchildren. What I’m so sad about is that the generations are pitted against each other instead of supporting each other, I wish that didn’t happen 😊

The other day I checked how much my late husband's salary in 1963 would be today. We were able to buy our home for £250,00 that year, under no circumstances could one buy a home today on the conversion to today's sum.

Boomer here .. 1960 baby… confirming that we’re not all raking it in.
I only own my house because I had an alcoholic husband and a long drawn out expensive divorce.
My state pension arrives just before I’m 67 and, as I worked as support staff in a school (part time to fit in with kids as said husband couldn’t be trusted with a goldfish) my private pension will pay about £150 pm.
My children are in their 20s and I’ve helped them financially with uni fees etc and don’t begrudge a penny, but I now have responsibility for my 95 year old dad. I don’t want this but there isn’t anyone else.

Perhaps if todays young didn’t mind working sixty to seventy hours a week, only having a couple of weeks holiday a year, no takeaway coffees every day etc etc, they might be as “lucky” as us boomers!
We had mortgages with interest of 16%. Most of us didn’t go to university, just straight to work. I personally worked and brought up two children without any maternity breaks and lucky as I was to be able to take them to work with me, it was flipping hard work!!
My Saturday girl once remarked that she wanted my life. I pointed out to her she could have it, she just needed to work extremely hard for the next forty years or so!

Musicgirl
As a fellow Boomer I totally agree with you, Those people attacking our generation, also conveniently forget when ‘Boomer Bashing’ that we had to negotiate 15% mortgage interest rates, women loosing 6 years and men losing 1 year of state pension entitlement, ( which we paid our contributions into), 4 / 3 day weeks, winter fuel allowance scrapped. I think we’ve given enough back to the state, think how much pension money they’ve saved by people dropping dead before they were eligible to receive it, plus it’s not a benefit we paid into the fund, the real money grabbers are the government not the Boomers!

I was born in 1951. We had no TV or fridge till my mother started work when I was 11. We never had a car till my mother was given a company car, when I was 16. We never had foreign holidays - holidays were taken at the home of my mother's friend (who was wealthy). My first meal in a restaurant was when I was 16. Yes I had a full grant to go to university but once there lived on baked beans in a freezing cold flat shared with too many others for comfort, and always ran out of money by the end of term, and was into overdraft. There was no-one to help me, no handouts, certainly no-one to help me on the 'housing ladder' To do that my husband and I had to borrow the deposit and take out a large mortgage so I couldn't buy any clothes for two years. and so on...
The bottom line for me is that there as some 'isms' that you can get away with in our society. Ageism is one of them. Say a word against uncontrolled immigration then'Racist' is howled at you.
The standard of trying to be nice and fair to everyone seems too simple to be put forward.

Born in 1942 I was the beneficiary of the Blitz (bombed out in 1944 when a doodlebug landed in the garden; luckily we were not there that night), of the 1944 Act and a free grammar school education, of the NHS and, as I reached adulthood, of the 1960s and a new freedoms it offered. I think I was incredibly lucky in that a very restricted and hard up childhood has meant that I appreciate all the good things that have come my way since, but quite agree that the resentful generation behind us have no understanding of how tough life was in the 40s and 50s.

I was born in 1947, working class father a bus conductor and mum a cleaner. However I feel we were the lucky generation all in all, certainly better than my parents had before me with the Depression and the War, we missed all that. We had the beginning of the NHS with all its benefits, free milk at school,I passed my 11 plus and went to a Grammar school so had a reasonably good education I started work at 16 after my GCEs but I didn't want to go to University, if I had done there would have been Grants available. I married my husband at 24, he was a a postman and I worked as a typist but we bought our first house straight away. I was the first generation in my family to buy my own house. We still went out to the pictures and to the pub at the weekend. We didn't have children so I can't speak about how it was for families but I know we never had any financial problems, there were plenty of jobs available. There was crime of course, always will be, but I don't recall any stabbings of youngsters by youngsters on the level we have now. Of course there was more prejudice and bigotry in those days, things swept under the carpet thank goodness we have improved on that level now, and medical practices have come a long way. On the whole though I do think we were the lucky generation.

Interesting post.. I'm so glad I've never read Mumsnet

When I was working there were several younger members of staff who were vocal in their “frustrations” at the wealth us older members of staff, who weren’t struggling financially. They were immediately told the reason we were better off was that we’d been working for 30-40 years and had things a lot harder than they’ll probably ever experience. That attitude makes me despair

The main reason I feel lucky is that being born in 1958 I have not had to live through a world war

Silver brooks, very helpful post thank you.
I no longer drive. I use my bus pass at least twice a week to go into town, 6 miles away, or just to the local shops, library etc. I do spend money when out and about which means I do help the local economy so it isn’t all one way.
At the time of the budget many were thinking that the Chancellor would stop giving senior bus passes. So pleased that didn’t happen. Yet.

I’m a 1949 dob, rationing was coming to its end but like others here, we had no biscuits or shop bought cakes. Toast and cup of tea for breakfast, cooked lunch, often soup or stew made with a tiny bit of left over meat and lots of veg. Our tea was a small portion of meat (fish on friday) two veg and potato r either chips or mash but roasted on Sunday to go with the shoulder of lamb. That lamb would feed us on Monday and Tuesday as well.
We had doting grannies, both still mill workers, who took pride in sharing the supply of our Clarkes shoes, winter coat, Easter or Whit best dress and hat.

I’m often surprised by the level of dislike and bitterness in some of the anti boomer comments on Mumsnet. It must reflect the nature of the posters relationships with their parents and grandparents. My family and friends who can afford to, all support their adult children and grandchildren financially. I was lucky, my parents managed to buy a small house later in life. When we sold it, my sisters and I gave our young adult children an amount to start saving for a house deposit.
All these moaners must realise they’re likely to inherit those big houses.
I don’t like setting generations against each other, it also isn’t reflected in my family or friends. But - what others have said about big expensive weddings, frequent holidays, SUV’s, children at endless costly out of school activities is what I see around me

I certainly had it easier than my children are now or probably will have in their futures, although my Dad principally, with my Mum supporting him, worked hard and ended up ok.
Different times, aspirations these days are influenced by, as others have said, social media, however, that doesn’t excuse the poster on MN making such scathing remarks. I wonder if she does so in front of her own relatives?

Silverbrooks

I’ve posted about bus passes before.

These are the latest Government statisitics.

There are 8.8 million older and disabled concessionary travel passes. About 10% of passes are for people under pension age with disabilities.

604 million concessionary bus journeys are taken a year.

£708 million is reimbursed to bus operators.

The local authorities reimburse the bus operators and central government reimburse the local authorities.

The net current expenditure by government on concessionary travel is £885 million.

Concessionary bus pass use provides funding to bus operators for routes that might otherwise be underused in the daytime to the point that the services are removed altogether. So that’s a benefit to younger users who might otherwise lose a vital service that they need to get to and from work.

Say each journey is for a purpose that results in the passenger spending some money at the destination. Not only does this help business, stimulates the economy, provides jobs for working age people, it produces revenue for the government.

If the average spend per journey is £10 on VATable items it would generate £1.2 billion in government revenue, exceeding the £885 net cost.

Most people I know who use their pass regularly are going into town to shop, to go to the cinema on Silver Screen days or other cultural evernts for which there is a small charge or collection, or to have have coffee or lunch. They are putting money into the economy when they might otherwise stay home. Why can’t the detractors see this? Why can they not see the social benefits for older people who might otherwise be isolated and lonely?

Nice post.

I've never considered numbers, you made it clear.

We've no bus nearby, none of this pertains to us, but I surely appreciate the "green" aspect and the benefits for many people.